She had panicked, fumbled the cup, and he had caught her. The resulting beating had left her bedridden for a week, while he claimed to the household that she was merely "sick."
"If he got even a single gist of this plot," Heena said quietly, "he would not have just killed you. He would have tortured you until you dragged me and my entire family into the execution block with you. I needed you to be completely, genuinely ignorant. That is why I used you as the vector, and gave the active trigger to her."
Heena gestured to Razia. "Despite being raised in a merchant guild, her mother's side is military blood. She has the training, the nerve, and the experience to handle weaponized toxins. You didn't. So I made the choice for you."
Madam Gu stared at her, her chest heaving. The flawless strategic brilliance of the plan didn't matter to her in that exact second; the sheer violation of trust did.
