Chapter 63
I Identified the Problem
After examining the Minister, the conclusion settled in me with cold, clinical certainty: this wasn't a heart attack.
He'd been fine yesterday. But this morning… the dull ache he described wasn't pressure, wasn't heaviness. It was something far more vicious.
It was fire.
A burning that radiated through the spine and burrowed into deeper structures, muscle, connective tissue, even the diaphragm. It was the toxin attacking.
The chest pain? Yes, but secondary. A symptom, not a source.
The ECG spikes weren't arrhythmia.
They were shock.
Systemic collapse.
The body screaming, not the heart failing.
I exhaled slowly, the realization ringing through my bones like a struck bell.
"He was poisoned," I said. The words struck the room like falling iron. "Abrin. From the vine seeds. The delayed onset. The escalating musculoskeletal pain. The sudden fever. It fits."
