Page 64 of A Game of Veils

Through my haze, I catch fractured sentences from an unfamiliar voice. “You knew— What did you do to?—?”

Has Prince Neven joined them—or has a guard overheard and rushed in?

No, no, no, I don’t want?—

Bastien’s voice has gone raw. “I didn’t think— Gods smite me, it was only a bit of spoiled meat and juices in her stew. I meant to upset her stomach a little, slow her recovery. I wouldn’t have wanted it to hit her like this.”

Raul sputters a humorless laugh. “Who knows what that crap had in it?”

And the voice I’m not sure of, as if from farther away—someone at the door? “Her sacrifice—her spleen—she said?—”

Then Bastien’s remarks about my stew sink in.

That fucking prick. Anger flares alongside my fever.

He did this to me on purpose. He might not have expected me to get so sick, but the result is the same.

The princes keep talking.

“Should we call a medic?”

Bastien sounds even more agonized than before. “How are we going to explain how we found her? We couldn’t have seen her collapse through the closed door. And they might be able to piece together what happened to her—that I did it.”

“If we leave her, who knows what’ll happen to her?”

“Weren’t you the one who insisted we’re all better off if she dies?”

“Not like this. We’re not the butchers in this place… I wasn’t finished with her.”

“Then give me a chance to think.”

“How about you think faster!”

I’m losing track of which voices are which. Maybe I only hallucinated that there was a third. But the thought that the princes might alert the rest of the palace to my condition sends a spike of panic through me alongside my anger.

Deep inside, I gather every particle of will I can.

Elox, stay with me. Let me make this cure.

“Wait! There is that one medic we?—"

“She’s waking up!”

Straining my muscles, I manage to push myself off the ground. I stare foggily at the equipment spread out next to me.

My gift tickles at the back of my head, flashing images of how the parts combine, how I need to bring them together.

A voice I know is Raul’s comes from behind me with a sputter of disbelief. “Look at her, picking up the pieces even now.”

The floor creaks as he must step closer, but I ignore him. My shaking hand grasps one of the linen bags and shakes some of the contents into the mortar. Then the second and the third.

Clutching the pestle, I start to grind the crystals and dried leaves into a finer powder. My body sways with the movements of my arm.

With another heave of my gut, I have to pause to retch more spittle.

Bastien crouches down beside me. His voice has evened out again, devoid of emotion. “Aurelia, you’re using your gift to make something that’ll set you right, aren’t you? Is there anything we can do?”

I lift my gaze to him, taking in his face, even paler than usual beneath the rumpled fall of his auburn hair.

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