Page 39 of Palaces and other Prisons
“I was told he had drunk too much by the other humans, but when neither you nor Katrina returned, I doubted their words.” Ul’s voice drew closer.
“He’s showing signs of statue poison,” the healer whispered.
What the fuck was that?
Ul was silent for far too long. “If you are wrong, the cure will kill him. If you are right, there will be a mark where the poison got into his body. Find it.”
Find what exactly? He wasn’t able to ask as hands started undressing him. His long pants were pulled down, and then off.
His limbs were lifted as the healer searched his skin. They held him still with one leg in the air.
“The tip of the spine is still in his calf.” Warmth trickled over his skin.
Katrina gasped.
And his leg was placed down.
“Is that enough proof for you, sire?” the healer asked.
“Give him the antidote and pray he survives,” Ul snarled. “Katrina, come with me.”
The door slammed, and Dawson realized Ul had not stayed, and he’d taken Katrina. He was going to die alone, blind, and unable to move.
CHAPTER 26
Ul returned to the table, determined to act as though everything was fine. Even though everything was falling apart. Statue poison came from a deep-sea creature and was delivered from one of its spines. It was a horrible death that would be complete by morning. The cure was also horrible and had been described as akin to having one’s blood set on fire.
“Everything okay, or are the invaders causing trouble?” His cousin smiled and lifted his goblet.
Ul’s branches curled against his leg as he imagined choking the life out of his cousin. “They are not invaders. We invaded their world, albeit accidentally, so it will behoove us to treat them as we want to be treated until such time they leave.”
The man in charge of the oil platform would be furious if one of their people were murdered. Yet it was not a charge he could level at his cousin without proof, and that was hard to obtain. Which was why he had taken a more drastic route.
He smiled as if nothing troubled his heart. “But it appears that humans from this world cannot deal with the strength of our alcohol. I fear that celebrating our upcoming hatching led him to imbibe too much.”
His cousin blinked a couple of times, the candlelight catching in his dark eyes. “Hatching? Yours? I thought you would have written to tell me you were married and that you had finally had successful eggs?”
Katrina was acting as though she was very close to Ifer, and Ifer was playing along. It wouldn’t be long until his secretary slipped out of the hall to attend to things.
“I decided it would be prudent to wait and see if the eggs were successful before marrying again. If there is a successful hatching, then I will wed. I have negotiations to conclude with the humans tomorrow.” Ul sipped his drink, wishing that it were all true instead of a ploy to catch his cousin.
Perhaps refusing to name his cousin’s child as his successor last year had annoyed his cousin more than expected. This year, he had planned to offer the child a place at court to learn. Though if the child was a viper like his father, Ul didn’t want him to be anywhere near court. That the one human compatible with him had been poisoned left little doubt in Ul’s mind that his cousin was behind the attack.
The truth would come out tonight while everyone slept except for his guards.
The three humans from the platform began to appear concerned with both Dawson and Katrina missing. She was no longer with Ifer either. They were both gone.
Everyone else was eating and drinking and enjoying the change of year. Shed the old, welcome to the new. He glanced at his cousin. “Enjoy the meal.”Hopefully, it will be your last.
Ul didn’t go directly to the table of humans. He spoke to some of the palace staff and a couple of councilors before asking a guard to accompany him to the human table. He sat in the seat that had been Dawson’s. “You are worried about your people.”
“Of course I am, two of them have disappeared.” The man known as Healy said.
Ul considered the three men for a moment, even though they had been exchanging letters for weeks, he still didn’t know how much to trust them. “Dawson fell when he went outside. He is being tended to.”
“Is it serious?”
“He shouldn’t have drunk so much,” Brett said. From what he’d been told by the soldiers assisting with the work teams, Brett liked to talk and pass judgement but didn’t seem to offer anything useful.
