June didn't think she was a very good or very powerful psychic.

Of course, it might be that the quality of the people she was comparing herself against was too high. She was definitely more powerful and more skilled than her master's later students. Madris, her ultimate teacher in the psychic arts, was apparently something of a legend in her own right, and Regina was a Hive Queen. She basically cheated by existing. That still meant she was far from their level.

Still, good psychic or not, she barely had to do anything to find out that Janis had apparently been poisoned, too. It was almost possible to watch the news spreading through the psychic link, like a drop of water causing waves in a pond. Except that it wasn't anything as benign or unremarkable as that. Instead, she felt waves of anger and agitation from the drones.

It was perhaps a good thing that June didn't need to exert herself much to pick up on it, because she still felt like her mind was splitting apart at the seams. Privately, she could admit that she had perhaps pushed herself a little hard. She had been trying to find whoever had attacked them in the palace and even looked into the city beyond, but there was little to go on. Instead, she'd just tried to canvass everyone's state of mind, trying to pick up on guilt or aggression, and trying to dip into the connections between drones as they were talking and coordinating.

"Please do calm down, Tim," she said, massaging her temples. "Janis is clearly not in any immediate danger."

Tim shot her a look, an unspoken 'what, me?' in his expression — after all, Ira was currently pacing up and down and a few other drones looked outright murderous, while he'd just been standing there.

She returned an unimpressed look. "You're hardly trying to shield your mind," she said. "But please, all of you, remember that cooler heads will help in investigating matters."

There was obviously some sort of feedback loop going on with the Hive — presumably originating with Regina being very angry. Which was fascinating to watch, from her perspective, as a psychic familiar with them but not part of the Hive herself.

And it was understandable. June herself was quite angry. If she hadn't been this mentally exhausted, perhaps she'd be the same as them. Janis was one of her best friends, and it was her little brother whose life had been in danger from poison.

She really didn't need this right now.

"I'm sorry, you're right," Tim said, nodding. "We'll all control ourselves."

"For now, perhaps you could run damage control with the party guests?" she muttered.

The gathered people had obviously noticed something else had happened. June herself smiled at a few who looked her way, but didn't quite feel up to answering questions right now. Luckily, Tim wasn't psychically strained and he was generally cool-headed and known for it. He stepped forward and started giving reassurances, not letting on that he'd probably rather be anywhere else in the building right now.

June herself sighed and subtly leaned back into Ira, who'd stepped up closer to her. Apparently concern was overpowering her darker emotions for now. She smiled at her in reassurance. Not using her psychic abilities, just the prospect of talking with them right now made her shiver. She still had an enormous headache pounding against her temples, and even her body felt tired, although she'd hardly exerted herself physically.

"What now?" Ira muttered quietly.

"Keep everyone calm, make sure no one enters or leaves the grounds, and investigate," she muttered equally quietly. It was the obvious answer. "Once the healers are available, we need to check everyone who might also be affected, and have specialists checking the food and drink everywhere."

Ira nodded decisively. "I'll organize things. There are some people present who will be useful for that task. You rest."

June sighed and then sat down in a chair one of the other drones had pulled up for her. She rested her eyes for a moment. Or at least that was the plan; in actuality she found herself almost drowsing off.

She was disturbed when a minor commotion got closer to her. June blinked her eyes open, grateful that her headache had subsided somewhat. It hadn't been long, maybe half an hour or an hour. Curiously, she watched a group of several drones and a human in Star Guard uniform make their way through the room, toward her.

Eventually, they reached her and June looked skeptically at the drone in the lead, whose name escaped her at the moment, although she'd seen him before. "We need to run a diagnostic, Princess June," he explained. "Checking everyone over, as ordered."

Especially the highest potential targets, he didn't say but it was clearly what he was thinking. June nodded reluctantly. "Of course, go ahead."

Tor, whose name she finally looked up, proceeded quickly. June barely noticed his mana moving through her — he clearly had a lot of experience at this. She contained her impatience, waiting quietly as he ran his diagnostic.

Finally, he withdrew his hand with a nod. "You're clean, Princess. No undue magic or toxins that I could see. And great work with your own healing magic, if I may say so."

June exhaled in relief. She returned his nod. "Thank you, Tor. Who else have you checked yet, and have any of them shown any signs of poison?"

He rattled off a list of names, which was surprisingly long but also rather diverse, with no one particularly standing out. "None of them were found to have any poison or any foreign magic, as far as we could tell."

June smiled hesitantly. "Well, that's good. Then don't let me keep you."

Tor nodded and moved on, starting to make his way through the gathered party attendees. June watched quietly for a minute. Then she turned her attention to the larger situation again.

Despite the pain, she quickly reached out to the others. Regina was the easiest to contact, so she looked there first. Mentally calling on her, she was immediately met with some concern. I told you to rest, Regina chided her.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I did, Master, she responded. I just want to help. They poisoned my little brother. What did we find so far?

Regina sighed mentally. So far, it looks like no one else was poisoned, she responded grudgingly. That means this was most likely a targeted strike. We are still looking into the how it happened. The other apprentice psychics are also starting to help track people down and question them. So, we have this well in hand. You're doing more good where you are rather than running around and overstraining your mental muscles. But you can move to coordinate them if you must.

Thank you.

After that, June did honestly try to rest further, while still being helpful. She was exacerbating her headache again despite trying to be careful, so she had to reluctantly stop trying to talk to other people with her mind. Which made her paltry efforts feel rather useless.

At least not everyone else was feeling the same. She perked up slightly as Helen, one of their senior psychics, approached her.

"Princess?" she asked. "I have some news, and I'm afraid I might have made a mistake."

"I'm sure it's not that bad," she said reassuringly. "What's the matter?"

The other woman took a deep breath. June could sense the anxiety and even a hint of fear inside her, although she mastered herself quickly. "It looks like two of the palace servants are missing," she reported. "They're new hires, brought on temporarily on probation, like some of the others? I was the one who checked them. I might have not looked closely enough, though."

June paused. She'd thought the delegation of minor security checks to the senior psychic students had been going well. Helen was usually competent. But if someone had received training before … it certainly wasn't impossible to fool her. Or herself, for that matter.

"If they're already missing, did they get past the security lockdown somehow, or were they already out when it was declared?" she asked.

Helen shook her head. "I've checked in with others and it seems no one has seen them for a while. I think they had already fled." She took a deep breath. "Let me go after them. I still remember their minds clearly. I can easily find them and make sure they're brought back."

June frowned. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Please," Helen pleaded, her anxiety spiking. "Who else should do it? Psychics are much better at finding people. The others can take over checks here, I'm not needed. And I know how to get around and how to take care of myself. I've even got tracking skills, from before I moved to Cera, I hunted for my food sometimes and I even found and avoided monsters and a bandit group once."

June hesitated, but looking at the expression on her face made her give in. "Alright, but take some of the Star Guard with you. You can help them and they can help with actually apprehending those two servants."

"Of course," Helen nodded. "I was asking one of the officers."

"I'll clear it with the others." She reached out to Regina to check, but her mentor was already busy again.

Helen left and June lingered, hesitating for a moment before checking in with the other psychic students once more. She had taught all of them at some point, and she was proud of their progress. It was galling to have to sit back and let them do most of the work, though.

Two others stopped by to talk to her and update her on their findings. Apparently, most of the people they'd checked were obviously 'clean'. There were a few issues with others, but mostly because they were upset at the security checks or didn't want to cooperate, it didn't seem that they had anything to do with it. Unsurprisingly, those were mostly senior officials and nobles that had been on the list. June helped to smooth things over.

She was starting to get a picture of who had been where, that day, and most importantly, what their opinions were. A few people that might have been innocent, as far as they could tell, were still quietly flagged for later review.

Another team had been going through the kitchens and checking the food stores. It took a while to get through everything, although they'd started with the most recently used things or those planned to be used for the upcoming meals. Apparently, testing for poisons had also not revealed anything yet. June suspected that whoever did this had clearly been careful, and used their poison precisely. Perhaps they'd destroyed anything left over, but either way, they wouldn't have left poisoned food lying around. Unless, of course, they'd hoped to go undetected for longer and to poison more people, perhaps, so the tests were still important.

Eventually, Janis herself showed up as well. She looked tired, but otherwise fine. There was still anger seething around her, and her hair still looked like the ends had turned into flame, but she'd clearly calmed down a little.

June hugged her, ignoring the fiery appearance. "I'm glad you're well," she said.

"And I'm glad you're well," Janis responded. "It's a relief that you weren't attacked, too."

After all, perhaps she was still less resilient, June supposed. She'd never been poisoned, at least not since she learned proper healing magic, or seriously sick since then. Something she was rather glad for.

"Have they found anyone else?" she asked.

Janis shook her head. "No, it seems you, little Robin and the young drones were the only ones affected. We also haven't found anyone else suspicious, unfortunately. Regina is considering just letting the party guests leave for now. There's probably no way to hide what happened by now, but we also don't need to feed unnecessary concern and panic."

June made a face. She didn't like the prospect that they might fail to find anything. "Well, perhaps those two servants can give us some answers. Although honestly, I doubt it stops with them. They wouldn't have had much access, surely?"

Janis frowned and stayed quiet for a moment, probably checking something in the psychic link. Then she nodded slowly. "Yes, there might well have been someone else here in on it. I'm afraid we might be looking at some sort of highly-placed traitor in the palace. Or perhaps someone else who got in because of the party, but that seems less likely. Just because we are letting them go for now, does not mean we'll stop further psychic checks and interrogations."

"And if we let them go and someone tries to disappear, that's going to be another lead, too," June realized. "You're giving a potential traitor a bit of rope to hang themselves with."

Janis grinned. "We can hope. For now, I should head back. You can go visit your brother again, if you like."

June nodded, turning to leave, before she stopped. "Wait a moment. I almost forgot, but, wasn't there an issue with missing documents before? Have you found anything regarding that issue?"

Janis visibly paused. "I almost forgot, too," she muttered. Her eyes grew distant for a moment, before she shook her head. "No. No further clues about that, either."

The two of them exchanged a look. She knew they were both thinking more or less the same thing.

"No one would have had the access to steal all of those this easily," June muttered. "At least no one without proper security clearance. What about those documents, was there anything in them that had any connection to these poisonings?"

"Not that I can see," Janis replied with a shake of their head. "They were mostly about operations of the Imperial government. Nothing really secret, or at least not regarding any top-secret projects, but still … some material on education, positions at court, and staffing. The most concerning ones might be regarding security screenings, but those don't contain incriminating information. Even if one of us were to find something like that, policy is not to write it down."

June nodded, aware that Janis had been partly responsible for those policies. "Maybe we're looking at it wrong," she mused. "It could be a test, someone proving how much access they have to Imperial affairs."

They both fell silent for a moment, and Janis was frowning heavily. If that's the case, will they be using that access for worse things in the future? June considered.

"For now, I'll call all the psychics together and get some updates," Janis said. She looked at June, raising an eyebrow. "You should go rest, June. You need to be in top form tomorrow."

"As if I could sleep right now anyway," June scoffed.

She remained sitting and watched Janis walk away for a few meters, before she closed her eyes again and reached out with her mind.

She would be helping them get to the bottom of this, regardless of her condition.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.