Page 43 of The Shadow Heir

The woman rolled and pushed herself backward toward the door, her face pale as a wrinkled sheet. “What—what did you do to me?”

Pure loathing rolled off of her. I smiled, grateful for her prejudices at the moment.

“You were a test subject. I thank you for your willing compliance.” I leaned forward in a mock bow, sweeping an arm across my chest and not taking my eyes off her. Her gaze noted the black veins on my outstretched arm and something in her expression flickered with fear and then glee.

She thought I was cursed, and she was delighted about it.

Good.

She was right about that, but she was wrong about what I’d done to her. If the mortals hated me, all the better. My eyes flickered to the secret compartment that concealed the journal outlining the antidote’s ingredients and properties. My great knowledge of herbs and remedies had come from that book, not the countless others I’d studied.

Felipe watched the woman over his massive, crossed arms. She cowered at the sight of him then scrambled to her feet, grasping for the door handle. Her body, weakened from the poison, was pathetic to watch. But when she finally hauled her age-spotted self through the door, I hid my relieved exhale as a chuckle.

Felipe clapped me on the back, which would have sent me tumbling in my own weakened state, had I not seen it coming and grabbed the desk for support.

“You all right?” Felipe asked, noting my hand on the desk.

I nodded. “Just ready for the antidote. Thanks,” I added, tapping the vial with a fingernail.

Two halls away, Zara had stopped walking at the door that led outside to the arena. Blinding irreverent sunlight poured in from the small window in the door, and my shadow self recoiled from the light. The tendrils of my magical form, not contained by limbs and veins, curled toward her briefly, then the balcony door slammed shut and I was left floating in the dark.

I dropped my fist on the desk with a hard clunk.

“Something the matter?” Felipe asked. His eyes searched me, and I was thankful his magic did not include empathy. My father’s did, and that was more than any living soul should have to endure.

“The brittlenut powder worked well against snake venom,” I said, rubbing at a small drool spot on the floor with the ball of my foot. “Worked well, don’t you think?”

“Any luck discovering who’s behind this?” asked Felipe.

I shrugged. “Alba found her. The woman, of course, didn’t remember anything that had happened right before.”

“The poisonings are becoming frequent.”

“I know. But it will be a while before they find anything I don’t have a remedy for.”

Felipe rubbed his chin absently as he nodded in agreement. “But as soon as they find a poison that youcan’tcure, they’ll strike. Which, judging by all this”—he indicated the shelves of vials—“will be a while. The curse has its benefits, I guess.”

My brows shot up. “Oh, yes, blistering pain in my veins has been a childhood dream of mine.”

“I only meant that you have so many poison remedies already on hand. You’re not only the second-most powerful fae in the court, but you’re poison-proof.” He let out a dry chuckle. “Hard to usurp a throne from under your rear end.”

I wanted to laugh, but all that came out was a raspy huff. “If it weren’t for Alba, I might not care. But I can’t let her die.”

Felipe offered a tight smile. “I know.”

My sister had found the latest poison victim in the seldom-used tunnels that led to the dragon’s lairs. Those tunnels were used for disposing of things the fae wanted forgotten, and someone had dumped this mortal servant’s body for the dragons to find, hoping, perhaps, to cover up the use of a poison known to disarm a fae from his magic for a shorttime. A deadly poison, in a roundabout way, and one tightly controlled by the few owners of the particular snake breed whose venom formed its base ingredient. Whoever was testing out the poisons on the mortals had hoped to keep this one hidden from me. Fortunately, Alba had been wandering that way, hunting the glowing lizards that lurked in the quietest corners of our underground palace.

“Ironic that I’m keeping these mortals alive while trying to kill the others,” I said.

As I recalled Zara’s words about me being the type to have enemies, my stomach tightened. If she had chosen to be a servant, I wouldn’t have to kill her before Father returned. But if she had, I would never have spared her a second thought. My eyes lingered on the door where the servant woman had departed, surprised at how oddly tight my muscles had grown when thinking of Zara.

“Not ironic,” Felipe corrected. “Ironic would be if you died in your attempts to kill the humans.”

“I really don’t like your sense of humor,” I said to my friend, crossing my arms.

Felipe sighed, finally relaxing a little. “Are you ready for the trial?”

I raked both hands through my hair, pausing with my hands cupped around the back of my head. Ever since Augustín’s murder, I had stopped watching the mortal games with rapt excitement, as so many of my kind did. But the others in my court didn’t carry a curse that would strip them of life in a short time. For me, death had lost its foreign gleam and now lurked within my very blood—blood that was made to be immortal.

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