16 Chapter 16: The Second Female Lead(4)

The moon shone upon the clear lake with no boundary, no edge, nothing except a tree floating above that lake upside down.

A person brought the bishop piece forward restricting the freedom of a queen and a knight.

"Hey, Marinette. Who do you think you are in a game of chess?"

From a person with the head of a goad to a goddess with a scale, now they turned into a creature with fish scales covering their entire body. Blue with the end of green hair laid down to their waist.

Her yellow eyes carved out the perfect beauty of a crescent moon above.

"We've played this match a thousand times already. When will you stop asking the same question?" Marinette replied and moved the queen to avoid the attack of a bishop.

"Why wouldn't you just kill the bishop?"

"I had to watch out for that pawn at the edge."

"So the bishop isn't important?"

"All it did was abuse its power. It's easier to take it down when it calms down."

"I see. So you're not worrying about yourself there?? The bishop is crossing its authority." the lady smirked as she continued moving the bishop threatening the piece Marinette held.

"The bishop is the least of my worries."

She giggled at the statement coming out of Marinette's lip.

"You worry about a pawn? How interesting."

"A pawn with no obstacle is the strongest in a chess game."

"That's debatable."

'I should intervene if the trial goes wrong. I hope I didn't resort to that.'

+++

Firefly came out at night at the Duchy of the Mortel. The night before the trial began, I walked to Diana's room.

The green and yellow light from the firefly lit up my path as I walked under the moonlight coming through the big window in the hallway.

Before I put my hand on Diana's doorknob, the door opened by the person inside.

She told me to come in and locked the door. It was hard to tell if it was day or night in there if I didn't look at the darkness outside the window.

She had a chandelier in the middle of her room with many candles decorated everywhere. Her room gave me an impression of a place with treasures as everything seemed to be made out of gold from her closet to her bed frame.

"Have a seat."

"You poisoned the duchess, didn't you?"

Still standing, I asked her.

She turned her face to me as she lifted her chin. Diana sat down with her legs crossed as she sipped her tea in the same cup as the one with the poison.

"That is irrelevant to the case tomorrow. The culprit must be the saintess."

I finally sat down when the goal seemed to align with my plan.

"Go on."

"The Mortel and the church are fighting for power as the second strongest authority in this empire. A downfall of a saintess is a game changer for us."

Diana had a point. But even without any doing from the Mortel, the church would still fall. Was it safe to bet a duchy over the fall of a saintess?

"Since you just came to the surface a while ago, I shall explain the mechanics of the court of god."

"No need, I already got the idea of how it works."

"That's good then." she put a finger to her chin brainstorming what would be the next word to say.

To help her, I initiate the next discussion.

"There would be two cases tomorrow. I shall stand trial on the duchess's case, but what about you, Diana? Who would you accuse as the suspect in your case?"

"You have my word, Marinette. There would be no need for me to catch a culprit for my case."

"Your word means nothing to me, Diana. I won't believe a word coming out of a person who poisoned their mother."

A smile appeared on her face as Diana turned to look at the big portrait hung on the wall behind her.

"A mother, huh? I knew my mother for years, that's why I poisoned her...but how about you, Marinette? Why did you poison me?"

The same teapot at the incident, she poured the tea out of it into my cup.

"Do I need a reason? Is my hatred for you justified for what I did?"

"You should be careful with your tongue, Marinette. Nowadays, a noble never died in a war, they died because of their words."

The lavender scent from the tea filled up the room as Diana stared into my eyes. Putting all the culprit and reason aside, Diana told me about her plan for tomorrow.

It went on for hours as she explained what I needed to say if a situation didn't match up with what we predicted. Using the rule of the court of God to our advantage, we made a plan for the first trial the next day.

The tea she poured for me went cold. Before I left Diana's room, she reassured me again that she wouldn't bring her case to the court of God.

I only listened but had no words to reply because her sincere look was similar to mine.

If the second trial about Diana's case were to appear tomorrow, I would have no chance of avoiding the punishment via the court of God.

"Rest well, Marinette."

"You too."

But that would be the least of my worries, the bet was on the first trial. Losing the first trial would completely ruin the course of my journey.

That night, I slept overthinking the whole night.

When the next morning came, many knights from the royalty escorted me and the rest of Mortel to the court of God.

The court of God, the court that even judges the god itself. The goddess of this empire, goddess Anastasia was sentenced to death by the very court she created for humans.

The carriage moved slowly under the clear blue sky as we passed the remains of the Goddess's statue. If it were to stand to this day, the statue would stand a chance as being the tallest thing in the empire.

However, the demon king already destroyed it on the day of the goddess's execution. The statue's fingers were put upward on the side of the road while the goddess's head stayed in the middle of the white building ahead.

"Lady Mortel, please follow me this way. The rest of you shall wait here until your name is called."

One of the goddess's followers escorted me to where the trial took place. There were three stages to a trial. The first stage was held on the ground with the right eye of the goddess on my side and the other eye stayed at Irene's side.

The seat of the judge made sure the party in the courtroom wouldn't cross the line as it stayed on top of the goddess's lip.

Her lips were torn to make a throne, her teeth were made into a staircase for the judge walking on it to reach the throne.

As the judge took his seat, the giant hourglass with humans inside flipped. People were thrown like a doll as it flipped, they worked together to throw the sand into the hole to make it drop to the bottom side of the hourglass.

"Under the goddess's absolute authority, I shall commend the trial, act I." said, the judge.

I stared at the judge and then turned to the spectator outside the barrier of the trial.

People were whispering and debating if it was the right action for the royalty to put that person as a representative judge of the first act of the trial.

It was absurd.

"Your Honor. Before I bring the evidence, I would like to hear an oath from you that you would remain in the middle."

"If that makes you feel at ease, lady Mortel. I shall do."

The human in the hourglass got knocked unconscious by the magic air inside the hourglass as the judge stood from his seat.

In his judge's uniform with white silk covering the right side of his upper body and the white pants of a knight, he stood and swore his oath, "I, Victor Alfonso, the first commander of the empire's holy ground, if I titled to any side of the two parties by my perception, this follower shall die under the mercy of god."

"Let the trial begin."

The trial began with nine participants in the court.

The judge at the centre and the highest position, Diana and I, the suspects stood on the right side of the court with our table, Irene and the high priest on the other side.

The remaining four were the bet that was put on the trial, duke Mortel and Tristan sat at one side of the scale representing the Mortel duchy, and two of the saint's workers on the other side of the scale.

With transparent barriers covering the court, the spectators could see the event unfold as they sat making a circle around the field.

When the trial began, the scale remained balanced, but it soon turned to the side of the saintess as the saintess made her first statement.

"As I mentioned a day before, Duchess Catherine was poisoned by Marinette's magic energy, the one that also killed the late Duchess of the Mortel."

She stood tall as the high priest sat still with no sense of worry on his face. He crossed his arms and leaned his back against the chair.

"It is indeed my magic energy. However, lady Irene, I would like to confirm something. May I ask you a question?"

I did not need to stand. I sat beside Diana who still used the spoon to make a swirl in her tea cup.

"Yes."

"The magic that killed my mother...you study about it, don't you?"

"Indeed. I research every possible antidote to counter it."

"I see. Then you must also know how to make it into a poison, don't you?"

"...yes. How is this relevant to the case?"

She glared at me.

I turned to his honour and defended my innocence.

"I won't say I don't have anything to do with this case. Nonetheless, I shall bring this truth to life, your honour."

Diana brought many papers outside of her wooden luggage.

I took it from her and made my way to the middle of the court.

"Why would I want to kill the duchess?"

I held the paper on my right hand and walked slowly to the judge and the other side to hand them the paper.

"I only came to the surface about one months ago. I had no reason to poison the duchess. And to top it all of, she's still a family member to me. I don't benefit anything from poisoning her."

The scale finally turned to our side as Irene tried to debunk the statement I made.

Before she read the content of the letters I gave to her, she stared me right in the eyes and said, "It is your magic, if you weren't the one who poisoned her, then who?"

"Oh?! So, it is an assumption...or a frame? Saintess Irene, you're confident that you could get away with it, right?? Is that why you tried to execute me without the trial in the first place?"

I could see the rage fuming above her head. That was the weakness of the saintess. Because she became a saint at a young age, she didn't know the boundaries of her words and confidence.

Her confidence turned to arrogance. The high priest had to snatch her hand and sit her down before she made another speech.

"What is this, saintess Irene?"

She sat and read the letter. Irene went into madness when she finished reading it. She came out of her table and grabbed my collar.

"You!!! How dare you!??? She's framing me, your honour!!! I never wrote this!!"

"Order!!!! Saintess Irene, return to your sear immediately."

The judge raised her voice to make her know her place. I smirked at her as she returned in shame in front of her childhood friend. I continued making statements without bothering to fix my collar.

"You can bring in the inspector to test the truth of this letter, Your Honour."

After they inspected the letter, the letter was proven true to be Irene's handwriting.

"Saintess Irene, in this letter, you wrote you want to study Marinette's death roses magic, is that true?"

"I never wrote it."

She kept denying the letter. The more she denied it, the more the scale turned to my side.

Her value of words was decreasing.

I could see the sweat on her forehead under the fishnet veil she wore. She shouldn't wear black on a sunny day like that.

"I want you to say the truth, lady Irene!"

"I'm telling the truth, your honour. None of the words coming out of my mouth is a lie."

The scale said otherwise. That was why the judge couldn't comprehend the saintess's foolish action.

I finally returned to my seat after the order of the judge.

The hourglass stopped as the worker in it rested, so as the trial. From where I sat, I could see how Irene tried to defend herself in front of the high priest. However, the high priest had a distrustful look on his face.

During the break, the scale no longer caught our voice. I could finally speak the truth behind the letter to Diana.

"You really prepare for this, huh?"

"This isn't over. If the saintess regained her composure, it might be troublesome for us."

"The God scale is suspicious. It looks like it has a mind on its own."

"If it were to work normally, then it would've caught our fabricated evidence. You should be wary of it, Marinette."

The break soon ended, and this time, Diana took the stage.

"My sister had a really good relationship with my mother. I wanted to confirm that. But one more thing I would like to say is about saintess Irene. Despite the bad relationship with the Mortel and the church, she used to send me the letter to ask me some of my magic energy."

Diana said exactly what we discussed last night. It was a lie mixed with the truth. It was true that Irene asked Diana, however, Irene never sent a letter to me.

Irene was too young to argue in court, and that was why the high priest needed to take the stage instead of her.

If she was to regain her composure, she would've cleared us up and brought doom upon us. But it looked like the luck was on our side.

"Your honour. Although Irene never sent the letter to Lady Mortel, let's just think that it is indeed true. It still didn't confirm that Irene was the one who poisoned the duchess. As it said in the letter, she only asked the magic energy to study. That child had a thing for learning new knowledge."

The high priest was the most powerful authority in the church's community. It was no wonder the member wanted him to be the leader.

This man could bring the scale to balance in a statement.

'The second act of the trial was the battle between Diana and the high Priest.'

To be continued...!