Merecot paced as an old servant woman bustled into the room and began sprinkling a powder on the wine stain.I shouldn’t have spoken, Merecot thought.I scared her off. Daleina won’t understand. She can’t comprehend having the kind of power to do what needs to be done.Daleina didn’t know what it was like to have complete control over thousands of spirits, to hold their minds inside hers and know she could snuff them out in a moment.It can be done! I only need to be a little stronger...
If Merecot could hold both Semo and Aratay, she should be strong enough.
And then once the other countries saw her success, they’d agree to let her save them as well. All she needed to do was get Daleina to abdicate.
Or kill her.
But I’d prefer if she were willing.Jastra had never considered that possibility, but then the old queen had never met a queen as idealistic as Daleina.
She told herself to be patient.
I hate being patient.
Merecot smelled a lemony spice that made her nose wrinkle and looked over to see the powder had eaten through the rug and was working on dissolving the wood floor. She marched over. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve never been very good at housecleaning.” Standing, the servant dusted her knees off and smiled at Merecot. It was a predatory kind of smile that made Merecot think of the mountain cats that hunted on the slopes of Semo. Instinctively, she recoiled.
“You’re not a servant.”
“Very observant, Your Majesty. I’m here to watch you while Queen Daleina composes herself in the washroom. Whatever you two were talking about shook her up. Were you threatening to poison her again? Incidentally, I wanted to ask you, where did you obtain such a fascinating poison? I’d never seen its equal. Brilliant use of extract of wheat viper venom. And it must have been combined at extraordinary temperatures to activate the linseed.”
“Who are you?” Merecot asked.
“Master Garnah, the Queen’s Poisoner, at your service,” the woman said with a bow. “Actually, that’s a lie. I’m not in your service in the slightest. I serve Queen Daleina, at least for as long as it suits me. But I do admire your style.”
Merecot eyed the powder that had bored a shallow divot in the floor. “Thank you? Um, do you plan to do something about that before it creates a hole?”
The woman pulled a vial out of a pocket in her skirt and poured a few drops onto the powder. It sizzled and steamed, and then the powder shriveled into a ball of gray dust.
Merecot decided this “Poison-Master Garnah” was the most interesting person she’d met in a long while. “Are you the one who fashioned the antidote to the poison used on Queen Daleina?”
“I may have been involved. Who concocted it?”
“It was a gift,” Merecot said.
Garnah leaned forward eagerly. “From whom?”
Merecot debated herself for a brief moment, then decided to tell the truth. “I found it in the royal treasury, shortly after I claimed the throne. It was labeled as a coronation gift from the former queen of Belene to my predecessor, Queen Jastra, decades ago.”
“Fascinating. And how did you know it was a poison and what it did?”
“It came with a detailed letter. Apparently, the queen of Belene was looking for allies outside the islands—the coronation process in Belene is rather brutal.” Merecot hadn’t really dug much deeper than that—she wasn’t all that interested in the politics of Belene, at least not yet.One country at a time.
“Really? I live in the wrong place. They use poison?”
“So it seems. For whatever reason, Queen Whatever-Her-Name-Was thought Jastra would appreciate the gift. She didn’t have a use for it before she abdicated, but I did.”
“Intriguing,” Garnah said.
“Are you close to Queen Daleina?” Merecot asked. She wondered why Daleina would send her pet poison maker to talk. Was it to intimidate Merecot? To threaten her?What is Daleina up to now?“Can you tell me how she feels about being queen?”
“Mostly exhausted,” Garnah said. “She’s had more than her share of challenges.”
True enough.“And if I were to offer to relieve her of her challenges, how do you think she’d react?” Merecot knew how she’d react if anyone offered to “relieve” her. The offerer would find her head being tossed back and forth by the nearest spirits. Reflexively reaching out, Merecot tried to brush the minds of the nearby spirits—
And found none.
She reached out farther... and still found nothing. It was as if she were cut off from the thing that made herher.
