Tedric stepped aside, letting her take in the sight. “Welcome to your new home, Princess. Wonderful, isn’t it?”
His tone was breezy, as if they were admiring the layout of a country estate.
She didn’t move. Her gaze swept the galleries until her eyes caught on pale ovals in the shadows—gawping faces behind the bars.
Not many dared come close. Those who did were enough for her healer’s eye to know. Slighter frames. Shoulders narrow and underfed. Eyes wide, restless, rimmed with the exhaustion she knew too well. She didn’t need to examine them—the recognition hummed low in her marrow. The instinct Omegas carried when one of their own was nearby.
Her stomach lurched. This was no ordinary dungeon. She’d grown up in a prison, sealed away in a crumbling mansion at the edge of the Peony Court. But this was different.
The words tore from her before she could stop them. “You’ve been imprisoning Omegas here.”
Tedric’s smile widened. “Ah. The healer’s eye always notices first.”
JingYi sucked in a breath. The metallic tang in the air seared her nostrils—old blood, fresh sweat, the sweet-sour stench of prolonged fear. Weeks ago, she’d knelt in the reeds of Draemir Lake, turning over a cold, stiff hand. A woman with no name, no one to mourn her, no one to look for her.
“That dead woman,” JingYi said slowly. “She came from here.”
Tedric’s sidelong glance was answer enough. Casual. Unashamed.
A cold, pitch-black space yawned open in her chest. “And the Omega traders in the woods?” Her voice thinned to barely a thread. “That attack—was that you, too?”
“They were meant to take and deliver you to me.” He smiled, unrepentant, the disposition of a man discussing a shipment that had gone slightly awry. “But Wulfbane sent a scout who reported to him and arrived early. So, I adapted. I earned your trust instead.”
A pause. His gaze flicked over her, impersonal, assessing. She felt it like spiders crawling across her skin.
“And when I saw you treating Conrad, saw how deft you were with a poisoned wound . . . I had another idea.”
Beneath her ribs, something very old and very young began to keen—the child who had learned that her body was never her own, that men with authority could do whatever they wished and call it necessary. Hunted her across the palace courtyard. Summoned a pair of oxen. Brought down an iron rod.
Not again. Not again. Not again.
“What idea?” she heard herself ask.
Tedric turned and continued walking. “Come.”
He took her to one of the cells on the first floor and opened the door. The stench met her first—damp stone, stale sweat, the metallic bite she now associated with purple limyerite.
On the pallet, an Omega’s body was wasting before her eyes. Purple-tinged nails. Cracked lips. The sweet-metallic reek of limyerite poisoning—familiar now in the worst way.
Tedric handed over her medicine chest. “Heal her.”
Her insides bristled at the glib command, whenhewas the one who’d poisoned her.
Nonetheless, she knelt, ignoring the pain shooting up her leg. Her hands moved on instinct, checking pulse and pupils, while her mind raced backward. Daan. Annett. Both poisoned. Both treated by her hands, with her herbs. And the man who had done it watched from the door.
She turned to him, her voice emerging raw. “You poisoned Daan and Annett. On purpose.”
“It was absurdly easy.” He shrugged. “The boy would swallow anything for a copper.”
Her hands began to tremble. She pressed them flat against her thighs. Her throat worked to swallow the bile, but it didn’t stop the image from rising: Daan’s small, trusting face, hisrelief when she’d eased his pain. Tedric had leveraged that desperation. She remembered how terrified the boy seemed when he first woke. She’d assumed he was afraid of Alexander’s wrath, but Tedric had been theretoo. Watching from the doorway. Silent.
“And Annett?” Her voice cracked. “How did you poison my needles?”
His grin widened. “I’m rather proud of that one. After watching you tend to so many patients, I noted your routine: always clean the needles first. All it took was taking your rags from the laundry and treating them with a potent extract of purple limyerite. You poisoned her yourself, with your own admirable hygiene.”
He wrinkled his nose delicately. “You really should be more careful.”
Nausea roiled up from her gut. Her vision swam. She rasped, “Why are you doing this?”
