CHAPTER 56 Wren
CHAPTER 56
Wren
‘Poisons can promise oblivion, a symphony of suffering and a delayed end. From the venom of the arachne to brews from beyond the Veil, the poisoner’s art knows no bounds. Let the adept alchemist embrace the darkness within, for in the shadows lies the true path to mastery’
– Alchemy Unbound
A FTER ALL THAT time in close quarters, after sharing a magical connection for so long, they had finally hit a breaking point. They’d well and truly broken, and now they’d find a new normal. That was what Wren told herself as she watched Torj disappear into their shared bathing chamber and shut the door behind him.
It was out of their system.
Wren cleaned herself up with a bowl of water and a cloth before readying herself for bed. She tidied her workspace where she’d knocked over several instruments, wondering if he knew the effect he’d had on her: a blinding, overwhelming need to have him. So powerful that even now, she wasn’t sated. It had been his hands she wanted on her, his cock between her legs...But he’d braced himself against the door frame, a clear boundary drawn between them, a barrier he would not cross. She’d seen the turmoil lining his face as he warred with himself, had felt it tightening in her own chest. The scars he wore, the scars she had cursed him with, linked them somehow. She was no fool. There was a physical tether between them, beyond attraction; a connection forged in violence and desperation that bound them together all this time later.
Water splashed within the bathing room, bringing Wren back to herself as Torj also washed away the evidence of what they’d done.
Sliding beneath the bedsheets, her cheeks heated at the fresh memory of his eyes on her nakedness. Wren chastised herself, rolling onto her side with a huff of frustration, but she was already craving that thrill again.
The next morning, a loud knock at her door made Wren jump.
‘Wren!’ Dessa called. ‘Are you in there?’
She surveyed herself quickly in the nearby mirror before flinging the door open. ‘What is it?’
Her friend gave her a strange look. ‘We said we’d walk to the warfare class together...?’
‘We did?’ Wren had no recollection of that conversation. She already had enough escorts everywhere.
‘Oh,’ Dessa said with a sheepish grin. ‘It was at the Mortar and Pestle...I’m surprised I remembered myself, now that I think of it.’
Wren laughed. ‘No wonder I have no memory of it. Let me get my bag.’
Torj chose that moment to re-enter her rooms. Larger than life, he made the space seem so small.
How does he do it? she wondered. He looked as fierce and unruffled as ever, as though nothing had happened between them. His silver hair was swept back in a half bun, his hammer was strapped to his broad shoulders, and he scanned the room for danger.
Always a bodyguard.
Her bodyguard.
Lightning sang beneath her skin, and his eyes flicked to her, as though he could hear its call—
‘Wren?’ Dessa prompted from the door, glancing between Warsword and poisoner.
‘Coming,’ Wren replied, snatching up her oilskin satchel and checking the supplies at her belt.
As they walked, Torj shadowed them, and only with her last remaining shred of willpower did Wren keep herself from looking back.
The dungeon was dimly lit as always, and Master Crawford was waiting impatiently at the front. Wren took a seat at the back, as she usually did, Dessa claiming the seat to her left, Zavier to her right.
‘All paths lead to the underworld, novices. Especially those walked by latecomers and dawdlers.’ Master Crawford cleared his throat. ‘The subject of warfare is often associated with large-scale battle and mass bloodshed, but in truth, war starts long before forces clash on a field. Like poisoning, it can be cold, meticulous, and deliberate. Strip away the passion, and at its core, it is a crime that must be planned.’
In the front row, someone coughed.
‘Over the centuries we have proven ourselves to be a race of greed and malice, not content with the poisons gifted by nature herself. We have always sought to amplify the worst, to make artificial horrors of our own...As Master Norlander would ask, “ Are we not the poison in this realm?” ’
The coughing continued, and Selene muttered her apologies, covering her mouth with her sleeve, trying to muffle the sound.
Master Crawford continued without paying her any heed. ‘To that question, I’d answer yes . But we are not here to reflect on humanity’s morals or lack thereof. We are here because at the heart of warfare, an alchemist must make themselves apt at the art of murder...’
Wren sat up a little straighter.
Master Crawford brought a large box from the supply cupboard and slid it onto the desk at the front. ‘These rats have been poisoned,’ he stated bluntly. ‘Each team has twenty minutes to identify and cure the toxin. Your time starts now.’
Zavier rushed forwards to retrieve their rat, while Wren dashed to the supplies to snatch up a number of common purgatives and antidotes, and Dessa pulled out her copy of Elixirs and Toxins: A Comprehensive Guide .
The trio crowded around their workbench as Zavier placed the rodent before them. Its body still rose and fell with laboured breaths, but the creature was unconscious.
‘No bleeding that I can see,’ Dessa observed, baring the rat’s teeth with the tip of her quill.
‘Don’t be putting that in your mouth after,’ Zavier said, grimacing at the sight. Dessa waved it in his face in response, causing him to rear back in disgust.
‘Enough,’ Wren snapped. ‘What else do you see? Its claws are curled...’
Zavier nodded. ‘Tail too. There are any number of poisons that would cause contracture like that...’
Wren sighed. ‘I know. The fact that it’s affecting its brain doesn’t narrow things down for us...’
‘What about this discoloration here?’ Dessa asked, pointing to the rodent’s claws. ‘See the yellowing?’
‘Good catch,’ Zavier said. ‘Could mean the poison is attacking the liver?’
Wren’s heart leapt. ‘I think you might be right. Look at this bald patch here – it’s been losing its fur...’
Together, they pored over their books, and tried several purgatives to no avail. Around them, their peers weren’t having much more luck, with one rat already dead.
Nearby, Selene’s cough turned violent and ragged, and Wren spotted her trembling fingers reaching for a flask on her desk.
The hair on Wren’s nape stood up as a feeling of unease washed over her. She recalled Master Crawford’s words from their first lesson. Would you prefer I ask you to test it on yourself?...For we will get to that, I assure you.
‘You’ve poisoned her...’ Wren didn’t even register getting to her feet, but suddenly she was standing in front of Selene, pulling her hands away from her face, trying to survey the symptoms beyond the cough.
‘Have I?’ Master Crawford said simply.
Almost instantly, Zavier was at Wren’s side, taking Selene’s pulse at her wrist while she coughed. But Wren looked to Selene’s teammates, Alarik and Gideon – both were pale, perspiration beading at their brows.
‘It’s not Selene,’ she murmured. ‘It’s these two. They’re the ones who’ve been poisoned.’
Zavier balked. ‘But Selene—’
‘Is having an allergic reaction to the chrysanthemums.’ Wren pointed to the out-of-place vase of flowers on Master Crawford’s desk. ‘Alarik and Gideon, however, are suffering from acute poisoning.’ She grasped Alarik’s face in her hands and studied his eyes. ‘Blurred vision?’ she asked, noting his unfocused gaze.
He managed to nod.
‘Same for you?’ she asked Gideon.
‘Yes,’ he rasped, blinking slowly, as though he couldn’t quite see her.
The rest of the class had gathered around, but she ignored them while she took both young men’s pulses. Their heartbeats were rapid – too rapid.
‘We need calabar bean and the fruit of the manchineel tree—’
‘Identify the poison first, Elwren,’ Master Crawford chided, as though two of his students were not rapidly deteriorating before his very eyes.
Wren’s own heart rate spiked. Did he mean for them to die?
‘Belladonna,’ she said.
‘Also known as?’ Master Crawford prompted.
She was already surging for the supply cupboard. ‘Deadly nightshade. Atropa belladonna. Poison berry.’
Wren rifled through the potion bottles and samples on the shelves, looking for anything that might help – some sort of extract containing the ingredients she’d mentioned. She snatched up a vial labelled Essence of Calabar and darted back to her peers, who had clearly started to hallucinate, their eyes wide, their bodies flinching at phantom touches. She tipped half the vial into Alarik’s mouth and brought the rest to Gideon’s lips.
Stepping back, she scrutinized them. It could take anywhere between five and fifteen minutes for the antidote to take effect, if she had, in fact, diagnosed the poisoning correctly. With some degree of shock, she registered that she hadn’t consulted any of her classmates, or even looked to Crawford for reassurance. If she was wrong, there was a very real chance that she could have hastened Alarik and Gideon’s demises—
‘Well, that was rather anticlimactic,’ Master Crawford announced dryly, as both young men blinked slowly.
Wren loosed a breath, watching as both seemed to come back to themselves.
‘I’ll have to try harder next time,’ the Master of Warfare said. ‘Elwren correctly identified both the misdirect and the poison itself. The rest of you are to write essays on the effects of belladonna and its antidotes. Four pieces of parchment. On my desk by the start of our next lesson. Now...Has anyone cured their poisoned rat?’ Master Crawford scanned the cohort with a look of sour disappointment. ‘No? Pity. That will be another four pieces of parchment on identifying the symptoms of strychnos seed poisoning.’
Disbelief seemed to have shocked the cohort into silence as they gathered their belongings and made for the door. Both Alarik and Gideon tried to catch Wren’s eye, but she busied herself at the back of the room with her satchel, unsure how she felt about it all. The lesson was a brutal reminder that the Gauntlet grew closer by the day, the moment of reckoning. The academy was alive with learning and ambition, there was no doubt about that, but it was also cold, and calculated.
Knowledge is the victor over fate. The mind is a blade.
Zavier and Dessa gave Wren a distracted farewell as they debated the origin of strychnos seeds, and Wren suddenly found herself alone with Master Crawford, whose voice made her start.
‘You’ve used belladonna before, I take it?’
‘It grew in the Bloodwoods back at Thezmarr,’ Wren answered carefully. ‘Every now and then, someone would ingest it accidentally, thinking it was—’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ Master Crawford’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve used it intentionally. You’ve seen its effects first hand.’
Wren debated trying to deny the facts, but she knew they were written all over her face. ‘I have,’ she said finally.
Master Crawford simply nodded. ‘Very few poisoners die old in their beds, Elwren.’
‘And all paths lead to the underworld,’ she recited back.
‘Exactly. Well, the Gauntlet will show us what you’re made of, won’t it?’
Wren held his gaze, unflinching. ‘I suppose it will, Master Crawford.’