With our discussion over, Kien and Liao had returned home. Myalo and I were left alone in the small conference room.
“Summon Dolla,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Myalo asked.
“Yeah. I have to talk to him eventually.”
Myalo nodded, then sent someone off to fetch him.
Dolla had been detained the day before. I wasn’t just summoning him, but ordering his release.
I’d been informed that Dolla had charged into the royal castle soon after the assassination and attempted coup.
Since the second order had been posted in front of the castle and they’d been trying to act like everything was under control, they’d been aggressive toward anyone who’d forced their way into the castle. Needless to say, Dolla had been beaten up and arrested after finding himself severely outnumbered.
He could’ve easily gotten himself killed by throwing himself into a dangerous situation like that, but thankfully, his dad was an officer in the first order. He’d been imprisoned while his fate was decided. After the first few days of turmoil, Galla had been informed that his son was in the detention barracks. Galla had made sure his son was released, but after telling him that I’d fled to Ho Province with Carol, Dolla had pursued us.
As a son of an officer of the first order, Dolla would be taking an obvious risk by entering Ho Province. Galla had had the foresight to strictly forbid his son from going—meaning Dolla had been unable to use his family’s horses or plainrunners—but nothing could have stopped him from running over.
Rossi—the village where Carol had rested for a while—was on the road to Kalakumo. Carol was still staying at the village inn when Dolla had arrived because my old home had been under renovation.
Ho family soldiers had been surrounding the village as a security measure at that point, making it impossible for anyone to get close unnoticed. The area had been in a state of high alert, similar to martial law, where any suspicious passersby were arrested and questioned. Even those who weren’t suspicious were told to take another route. That was the situation Dolla had walked into.
When the soldiers had taken him in for questioning, Dolla had told them honestly that his dad was an officer in the royal guard. At that point, the royal guard had still been considered the enemy, so my soldiers had carried out their duties as instructed and arrested Dolla. He’d been sent to a dungeon in Kalakumo.
At that point, I’d been heading north to capture the royal capital, but word had been sent to me after Dolla had informed the jailer that he was an old friend of mine from the academy. I’d responded by ordering his release, because I knew he meant no harm. That was how he’d managed to walk free.
But then, Dolla had started asking about Princess Carol’s whereabouts. Carol had already been moved to my childhood home, which only a handful of people knew about. Everyone had told Dolla honestly that they had no idea. After realizing that he’d reached a dead end, he’d decided to go looking for me again. Apparently, he’d been so worked up by this point that no one had wanted to tell him I was at the royal capital. Instead, they’d said I was in Suomi.
Dolla had headed to Suomi, but of course, he hadn’t found me there. I’d heard he’d visited the Ho Company office, but the employees there obviously hadn’t known where I was.
Dolla had then decided to return to Kalakumo and wait for me. However, he’d learned of the royal capital’s capture while he’d been waiting and decided to return there himself. Another series of misunderstandings had then led to him being mistaken for a remnant of the second order, which had resulted in him being thrown into a cell once again.
When I’d learned all this a few days later, the first thing I’d done was send someone to apologize to Galla and inform him that his son had been imprisoned over a misunderstanding.
Surprisingly, Galla had requested that Dolla be left in his cell. Maybe he’d thought that his son had lost his mind, given he’d been arrested and imprisoned three times within a single month. I’d also been told that Galla wanted me to release his son whenever it would be most convenient for me to talk to him. After all, Dolla’s aim had been to find me.
That brought us to today. He was about to be freed once again.
Myalo and I drank tea together as we waited, and after a short while, we heard a woman yelling outside.
“Please wait a moment! No! Stop right there!”
The door burst open.
“Yuri! You asshole!” Dolla’s anger was directed at me.
“What’s wrong, Dolla? Sit down.”
He was furious with me, but I wasn’t sure why exactly.
“You know exactly what’s wrong! Where’s Princess Carol?!”
“She’s under my protection.”
“But I heard she was poisoned. Was that a lie?”
“No. She was poisoned, but she survived.”
Dolla’s anger turned into concern. “And she’s all right? She just needs to rest?”
“No, she’s not all right. Half a glass of the poisoned wine was deadly enough to kill the queen. Carol drank a mouthful of that same wine. It damaged her digestive tract to the point that she can only handle watery foods like gruel. Fortunately, her kidneys are unharmed.”
If her kidneys had been damaged, her body wouldn’t be able to filter the impurities from her blood. Needless to say, dialysis was beyond us, so there wouldn’t have been a way to prevent the buildup of toxins.
A pregnant woman’s body could protect a fetus from toxins thanks to a barrier within the placenta, but there were certain substances with teratogenic effects that could pass through that barrier—particularly chemically synthesized ones. Our unborn child must’ve survived, because Carol hadn’t miscarried, but the poison’s effects on the fetus were still a concern. Although the whole thing wasn’t my field of expertise, it was as though the placenta had learned how to block naturally occurring poisons as a result of humans coming into contact with them during our evolution. If that were the case, then it was possible the red canolia had had a minimal effect on our child due to its natural origins.
“Give it to me in simple words. Just tell me if she’s okay or not.”
Dolla probably didn’t understand what it meant for someone’s digestive tract to be damaged.
“She’d bedridden. She can’t take a single step by herself.”
“What...?”
“I don’t know whether she’ll survive. She can’t even eat much of the gruel.”
Dolla’s rage seemed to take control of him. He stormed toward me, swung his fist, and punched my cheek. The intense shock to my head sent me tumbling out of my chair.
“You were with her! Why didn’t you protect her?!”
I got to my feet and approached him. When I was within striking distance, I gave him a hard kick to the groin. He could’ve dodged it, but he didn’t.
“Ngh!”
I quickly followed up with a kick to the abdomen, and he went tumbling to the floor, knocking over the chairs that the Rube family members had been sitting on.