4 #2
A cold jolt struck the pit of my stomach.
“Make myself into an Alpha?”
“Imitate the presence of one for a few hours,” the physician corrected. “Your voice will sound firmer, your skin will throw off a dry, dominant heat, and anyone within three paces will believe they’re facing an heir from the western valleys who answers to no guard captain.”
“And the cost?”
Soren set the vial down on the marble bench, between us.
“The physical toll is severe. The formula tricks your primary receptors, but your wolf will know you’re smothering her beneath skin that isn’t hers.
Your body temperature will rise three degrees; you’ll feel a steady pressure behind your eyes, and your heart will pound at twice its normal pace.
You have about six hours. Heavy exertion will bring the symptoms forward, and an intense surge of pheromones could trigger collapse before the window closes. ”
“And if I pass the six hours?”
“The compound collapses.” Soren looked at me through his spectacles, his gravity absolute.
“When the resin breaks down, your scent glands will burst open to purge the accumulated toxin. Your true scent will erupt with ten times its usual force, brought on by a fever so violent you won’t be able to stay on your feet.
And if you’re near a primal Alpha at that moment, or under a heavy pheromonal surge, your body will force an involuntary shift to defend itself against the poisoning. ”
I clamped my hands onto my knees. The memory of my mother warning me never to let the wolf surface outside the deep woods struck me like a blow.
“A shift in the middle of the Solstice hall,” I whispered.
“It would be your death warrant,” Soren said simply. “They’d cut you down in the corridors before you reached the courtyard gates.”
I stared at the cobalt vial. Inside it lay the only way to pass the court checkpoints, slip into the Vhal chancery, open Maevra’s trunk, and reclaim Elayne’s will before the notaries stripped away my blood rights.
If I stayed at the estate, Maevra would sell the land, burn the appendix to my lineage, and leave me to rot in some forgotten corner.
Taking the vial meant staking my life on a single night, but I would do it on my feet, on my own terms.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
Soren made no move toward the coins.
Instead, he pulled open a wooden drawer beneath the bench and lifted out a glass-plunger syringe with a long needle of polished steel, along with three small empty vials racked in a cork block.
“Silver doesn’t buy this formula, girl,” he said, laying the syringe on the marble.
The hair rose on my arms.
“I have four coins of pure silver from the old chancery. They’re worth more than—”
“I have no use for your silver.” Soren pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves, clean and smelling of alcohol.
“The inversion blocker isn’t some kitchen recipe fit for any body.
To calibrate the resin fixatives against the density of your glands, I need an unfiltered blood sample and two drops of lymph from your wrist.”
“Why do you need my blood?”
“So the dose doesn’t kill you twenty minutes after you swallow it,” he replied without blinking.
“Every bloodline assimilates alkaloids at a different rate. If I hand you a standard mixture measured for an Asterian Beta, the temperature spike will burst the vessels in your eyes before you reach the steps of Vhal.”
There was something in his tone—a precision too carefully rehearsed—that set off alarms. But necessity was a noose drawn tight around my throat.
“Only one sample,” I said, laying my left arm across the bench.
Soren gripped my forearm with fingers that were steady, professional, and unyielding. With a cloth soaked in white vinegar, he swabbed the crook of my elbow until the skin flushed red from the cold. Then he picked up the steel needle.
The bite was deep—a sharp, stinging ache that pulled the tendons tight across my hand.
The glass plunger drew back slowly. Dark, thick, hot blood rose into the barrel, gleaming ruby beneath the oil lamp.
Soren filled two entire vials, sealed them with hot wax, and nestled them with meticulous care into a padded wooden case, which he stowed at once on the bottom shelf, out of my sight.
When he drew the needle out, he pressed a wad of linen against the vein.
“Press down there for two minutes,” he ordered, turning his back to work with three jars on a balance scale.
I watched him work as the bleeding slowed.
His movements were swift and methodical: he measured two drops of a heavy oil into the cobalt vial, added a pinch of grayish powder weighed on a thin copper leaf, and swirled the mixture with circular sweeps until the liquid took on a silky, uniform texture, throwing off a faint vapor that smelled of charred cedar and bitter bark.
Soren sealed the neck of the vial with a linen strip dipped in dark wax. Then he took a small brass stamp hanging from his neck on a leather thong and pressed it hard into the warm wax.
The impression came away sharp: a cresting wave beneath a broken line. The design looked far too elaborate for a common apothecary’s mark.
My pulse gave a leap.
“What is that mark?” I asked, gesturing at the stamp.
Soren looked up, his face entirely blank.
“It’s a distillation grade mark for volatile compounds. It indicates the mixture must be kept cold until the moment you take it.”
“It looks like a noble house crest.”
“Alchemists use geometric signs to classify reagents, not to play at heraldry,” he answered dryly, sliding the vial across the bench toward me.
“It takes thirty minutes to take hold. Don’t take it with spirits or hot water.
And don’t try to eat anything solid while the effect lasts; your stomach won’t process food while your wolf sleeps beneath the blocker. ”
I picked up the cobalt vial. The glass was cold, yet the liquid within seemed to hum with a coiled energy that prickled against my fingertips.
“And the collar?” I asked, glancing at the brass band still lying on the bench.
“Keep wearing it uncharged until the moment you swallow the formula,” Soren said. “If the guards at the outer gate see a bare neck, they’ll turn suspicious before the substance takes hold. Once you take the blocker, strip it off and leave it in an inner pocket, well away from your glands.”
I stowed the vial into the inside pocket of my bodice, tucked against the warmth of my ribs, and fitted the brass collar back on, snapping the catch shut with a click that returned the familiar clamp to the nape of my neck.
I left the four silver coins on the bench.
Soren didn’t touch them, but he didn’t push them away, either.
“One last warning, girl,” he said, walking me toward the wooden stair.
“If at any point during the night your skin suddenly goes icy and the taste of salt floods your mouth, the collapse has begun. Don’t try to finish whatever you went in to find.
Clear out of the citadel immediately. You might have minutes or an hour; there won’t be a second warning. ”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I answered, taking the first rung.
“Don’t keep it in mind,” he muttered from the cellar gloom. “Do it. I’ve seen men stronger than you shred their own sinews trying to fight their blood.”
I pushed open the iron trapdoor.
The freezing Asterian air hit my face with the weight of a damp gale, bringing the reek of chimney smoke, rotting mud, and snow on the wind. I climbed out into the alley, lowered the iron lid without a sound, and struck out toward the eastern road with my hood pulled low over my eyes.
Night fell over the outskirts like a sheet of lead.
Against my chest, the cobalt vial weighed heavier than any chain of servitude.
I had nine days before the Solstice Gala.
Nine days to fit the clothes, memorize the service passages of Vhal Citadel, and learn to walk under the weight of a lie that could cost me my head.
I touched the cold glass through the cloth of my dress.
“I can bear it,” I told the wind blowing down from the hills.
And for the first time in my life, fear didn’t stop me from walking.