Chapter Twenty #2
If I’m right and the tart wine has mandrake in it, the risk of hallucinations in a test that could turn into combat in a heartbeat is too high to take. I can’t defend myself if I’m seeing visions or don’t know where I am. There’s only one option.
And I can only pray I’m not already too late.
Condensation fogs the cup with the ice cube.
I send up a silent prayer, thanking the Old Ones and even the Martyr herself for the chill in the air.
I’ve only prayed to her a handful of times since my mother’s execution, but right now I don’t care.
This is about survival—I’ll thank or pray to whoever I can if it might help me live.
If it were as warm as it should be right now, the ice would’ve melted entirely, releasing every drop of the poison I suspect is frozen in the cube.
The longer I wait to drink what I fear is slowly melting, the more I’ll have to suffer through—and the higher the risk the dose will be strong enough to kill me.
Half the grains of sand have slipped through the hourglass by now.
I bring the cup to my lips, closing my eyes. Finn’s face fills my mind, soft worry etching across her familiar features, and Old Ones—I miss her.
Resolve hardens in my chest.
I will make it home to her.
Stay alive, Wolf’s rough voice urges again as I steel myself and feel the cool brush of midnight eyes locking on me.
I drink the whole thing down in one gulp.
Viscous, chilled water slides down my throat.
One swallow is all it takes. There’s no taste, no smell. No sign at all other than the viscosity that swam around the cube—and that’s the part that makes tears sting my eyes. There’s only one poison Keeva ever spoke about with anything close to fear—the one she called the poisoner’s poison.
Creatlach.
It’s lethal, and completely undetectable, apart from its thicker-than-water consistency. Keeva always said it comes from the dew that gathers on the oldest graves and crypts—and that it sets a victim’s very bones on fire, burning them black until every nerve is nothing but ash.
It’s an excruciating, slow death in the right dose.
My stomach twists at the thought. What kind of dose did I just drink?
I have to hope most of the poison hadn’t melted out of the ice cube by the time I drank it. If it was a small dose, I’m about to be in a world of pain for the coming hours, but pain is better than hallucinating if this test turns into combat, or one of the other girls decides to attack me.
If I was too late, and the ice has melted more than I realized…
Deep in my chest, my heartbeat flutters. My limbs tingle. Pressure builds, an aching pulse like a drum beating in my very bones.
I force myself to stand straight and meet the High Queen’s narrowed glare.
There’s only one reason she said what she did to the nobles while I was here with them.
She’s betting I won’t survive this test, just like every peasant in the Assay before me.
That it won’t matter whether I ever learned the truth—that there’s still magic left in the Seven Wells.
I will never stop fighting, not now that I know there’s still hope.
The wind rustles my hair away from my heating cheeks.
I count every heartbeat, measure every breath against the one before, as the hourglass drains, and none of the remaining noble daughters collapse.
Saraid staggers back from the table, so I see her past the row of screens to my left as she sticks her fingers down her throat, deliberately vomiting whatever glass she just drank right back up into the sand.
Her cat eyes snap to mine as she wipes her mouth, like she wants to see if I’ll be the one who falls next.
When the nobles jeer, she shrugs and turns back to the crowd.
“The rules said we had to drink one cup empty—not that we had to keep it down after.”
Damn, she’s clever. I should’ve thought of that.
Instead, I’m on fire.
My skin feels like someone lit a match and trailed it over every hair. It takes every ounce of control I have to stand here silent while all I want to do is scream loud enough to rip myself free of the flames rising from my bones.
The prince never takes his eyes off me. And in the cold sting of his stare… no, that can’t be fear.
The High Queen stands.
Her lips move, but I don’t hear the words.
Vibrations hum through the air, the crowd’s movements darting and quick, but I can’t hear clapping, any sounds at all, as their hands move. The rhythm of distant drums beats through the earth like a pulse, flying faster and faster. No—that’s my heart.
The remaining four noble daughters move away from the table to the crowds at the pavilions.
But I can’t move. My muscles lock.
No.
The ice had barely melted.
Soft hands reach out for me, grip tightly on the living flames where my hands used to be. Pain scorches at their touch, skin smoldering to ash where their hands squeeze tight in mine, the sudden surge of agony so intense I hear the cry catch in my locking throat.
My eyes search wildly, somehow the only part of me I can still control. I fight to make my tongue work behind my gritting teeth, battle with my traitor lips to get the word out, to tell someone so they can help me.
Creatlach. How hard can that be?
Impossible, it turns out.
Sand scratches against my cheek, but how? I never bent down, never felt my body collapse. My ribs spasm and panic floods my veins.
But I can’t move, can’t speak.
Clouds shift above me, blotting out the sun. Shadows cover me, and pools the color of the darkest sapphire night bleed into the spreading black at the edges of my vision.
I drown in them.