Page 12 of Vow of the Shadow King

“I took a bit of blood from that unconscious lord you turned over to me. When mixed withvitgutandbaguolg, it reacts thusly.”

“And?”

“And?And?And this proves he too was suffering from ingestedraog!Albeit on a much lesser scale.” She blinks up at me, her eagerness palpable. “Don’t you see? Dispersed in gaseous form,raoginfluence is widespread. This was a targeted poisoning. We will have to see when he wakes if it has driven him to total madness or merely temporary insanity.”

So. My instincts led me true. While Rath is a ruthless man in his own way, he’s never been one to get his hands dirty. He would have to be mad to do something as foolish as break a prisoner from the hold and attempt to murder her. At worst, he would find someone else to do the job for him.

I grimace. Now that I know, I cannot legitimately march back into Rath’s chamber and rip his arms from their sockets. Instead, I must wait patiently for him to regain consciousness and try to learn how he came to be poisoned. In so doing, perhaps I will discover the source of my own poisoning.

“Is it possible it was self-induced?” I ask without much hope.

“Possible? Perhaps, but unlikely.” Ar shrugs. “It isn’t a pleasant poison either to ingest or to endure, not even in small doses. I cannot imagine one would take it willingly.”

I nod. Having experiencedraogmyself, I can’t deny the truth of her assessment. “But why,” I go on, more to myself than to Ar, “did Lord Rath target the princess in his madness? All other reported cases ofraogpoisonings have resulted in savage, unhinged violence followed by suicide. Why would he focus only on Faraine?”

Madame Ar chews the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. “It may be a matter of timing. It may be the dose was administered when she would be the next person he saw, thus imprinting a murderous impulse toward her upon his soul. Or it may be a piece of the victim’s hair or skin or blood was mixed in with the poison. I’ve taken samples from Lord Rath’s mouth and will conduct more tests.”

I should probably volunteer my own body for testing. It would be easier for Ar to find answers with a broader field from which to take her samples. At the moment, however, I cannot afford to be trapped in this infirmary and experimented on for hours on end. “What are you doing to treat Rath?” I say instead. Though it pains me to think of that worm receiving any help or healing, I need him alive. For the moment at least.

“A brew of steepedmiraisispetals,” Ar answers dismissively, turning back to her worktable.

“Will this help?”

“It will or it won’t. It’s been known to soothe some cases of lesser poisonings. Most of the time, folks just die. When they don’t, it’s difficult to say whether it was due to any real healing properties in themiraisisor simply a lesser degree of poisoning. Either way, it can’t hurt.”

I grimace. “And if I were to ask for a dose, would you give it to me?”

“Why?” Ar turns too-cunning eyes my way, one of them enlarged by the curved-crystal eyepiece she’s pressed into her socket.

“Merely a precaution, Madame.”

She raises an eyebrow, and the eyepiece falls out to dangle on its chain. But she says only, “Send a page by in an hour. I’ll have a dose prepared for you.”

I incline my head in thanks. Then I toss a glance back to the doorway leading to the healing ward. The sickbeds are there, one of them presumably containing Lord Rath. Another guard stands in view, keeping watch over Madame Ar’s new prisoner-patient.

“Madame,” I say and turn once more to my royal healer. She’s already bent over another worktable, fiddling with strange implements. “Have you had a chance yet to run the tests I requested? On those two goblets I had sent your way?”

“On those?” Ar asks, pointing to yet another table. There I see the twokrilgegoblets I’d recovered from the antechamber of my council hall. They’re both submerged in clear vats of some thick, gooey substance. Little bubbles rise off them and streak to the surface where they form a greasy-looking foam. “I’m still performing the initialgulgbath,” she says. “Give it a few days.”

I nod and suppress a heavy sigh. If I’m honest, I’m not sure I want the answers my healer is working to find for me. But if someone in this palace is targeting Faraine withraogpoison, I need to find out who. Before it’s too late.

5

FARAINE

The canopy overhead is blue silk embroidered with silver stars. A strange design for a trolde bedchamber.

I remember all too vividly the tension experienced by Vor and his people when they crossed the open plain beneath the night sky on their way to my father’s castle. I’ve not sensed such fear in Vor before or since. Not when I first met him in the heat of battle with wild unicorn riders. Not when he saved me from the vicious cave devils soon after my arrival in this kingdom. In both instances, he was all courage and determination, underscored by a deep and dangerous ferocity. He was only afraid when under the open sky.

Which makes this canopy odd indeed. Perhaps Vor thought it would be easier for my sister to submit to his caresses if she could gaze up at a vista of stars.

I shudder. Dull pain still echoes through my body, aftershocks of the pummeling I took in the garden. Vor’s emotions were so strong, and I’d not been prepared. There’d been no chance to put up any mental fortifications. Still, it could be worse. Back home in Beldroth, such a flood of emotion would have left me totally incapacitated for days on end. Here, though I ache in every bone, I can at least form coherent thought. Better still, when I try to move, my limbs obey.

I grip my crystal pendant, reach for the vibration deep in its core. It pulses gently into my palm, flows through my body, easing the aches and pains like a salve. Suddenly, the stone gives a strange shiver. In the same moment, I hear a faint, humming whine, just on the edge of awareness. And with it apull.

I frown, open one eye, peer around the bedchamber. My gaze lands on two chalices, set aside on a table near the opposite wall. My stomach tightens. Vor and I had held those chalices when we toasted our wedding night. I remember the taste of the fae liquor on my tongue, the burn as it slid down my throat. I’d coughed, unused to such strong drink. Vor had called itqeieseand said it was a Lunulyrian brew. He’d claimed he’d seen me partake of it in Beldroth. But it was Ilsevel he’d observed. He had no way of knowing the bride before him had never before touched a drop in her life. Yet another in the long list of my deceptions.

A shiver ripples in my gut. I don’t like to remember those moments when we were alone at last. Before he kissed me. Before he undressed me. When I still could have told him the truth. He would have been shocked, yes. Horrified, perhaps. But at least then he would have known that I did not wish to deceive him, that I was only here at my father’s command. That I would never intentionally do anything to cause him harm. How can he believe me now? I took so much that was not meant for me . . .

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