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“Soon, there will come a day when the woman with skin like snow and lips like roses steals your crown.”
“What?” I roared, poison coursing through my veins, my pulse charging like a raging bull. “No one dares steal what’s mine.”
My nails raked down the cold stone. I’d worked too hard to have my plans destroyed by that pathetic little Snow. No one would steal my future as queen. No one would tear me apart from my baby ever again. No one would dare threaten us.
A sinister gleam captured the mirror’s face. “Then you must kill her, too, my queen.”
What a perfect end to a pathetic story that would be! But the female servants already suspected foul play in their master’s demise. Their eyes followed me everywhere I went. At one stage, the ward’s servants had insisted on delivering their master’s meals to him directly, making it nearly impossible for me to add the poison to his food. During that time, his health had improved, but I’d put a stop to his recovery by threatening the lives of the baker’s family if he did not comply with my instructions. Each lunchtime, he baked bread and soup laced with arsenic especially for his master.
“Killing the girl will be harder,” I said, pacing across the dank catacomb, my knee-high boots thumping on the stone.
“Not if you frame her for her father’s death,” suggested the mirror.
A dark flame of hope curled inside me.Now that might work.But it would take time to plant the evidence and convince the household’s servants of Snow’s guilt.
Time to act like the doting wife…when all I wanted to do was rejoice in the fool’s death.Curse the dark god for prolonging my suffering!
To make myself appear like a wife traumatized by her husband’s death, I glanced at a mirror in the hall and pinched my cheeks and nose. To my great delight, they flushed pink. Then I hovered over the candles, allowing the heat to make my eyes bloodshot, replicating the red eyes of someone grieving. Another check in the mirror showed my distraught face. Now I looked the part.
Soon, I’d be reunited with my child. An excited thrill danced along my spine.
The guard standing outside my husband’s chambers opened the door for me. I did not thank him. To do so would have been beneath a woman of my rank.
Five pairs of eyes landed on me upon my entry. Snow, my husband’s daughter, along with the head servant, two more guards, and the head groundskeeper stood around the bed.
I ignored them, tugging on my handkerchief, which I kept handy for moments like this. The smell tainting the air—a horrible, metallic scent courtesy of the arsenic the baker had tipped into my husband’s food—almost made me wretch. Bedridden and wasting away, he was deathly pale, his skin tinged with gray. Dark-purple rings filled the hollows beneath his eyes. The man lying before me was but a shadow of the one I had married.
“My queen,” my husband said. He swallowed with obvious difficulty and stretched out his feeble arms to me.
As duty required me to play the attentive wife, I went to him, sitting on the edge of his bed beside him.
I felt the gazes of everyone present boring into me. They did not trust me, nor I them. But they could not prove my connection to my husband’s sudden sickness. The arsenic lacing his food was tasteless and colorless. The perfect poison. If they were more versed in the art of poisons, like myself, they would know that a few droplets of apple leaf extract on the poisoned food would reveal the arsenic’s presence. But alas, they were country simpletons. Soon, once I ridded myself of the lord and his daughter, I would fire all the servants and replace them with my own. I would surround myself with people I could trust and who would never dare to accuse me of anything…never dare to attempt to overthrow me.
“Shh, my love,” I said, stroking my husband’s face, even though the merethoughtof touching him repulsed me. “Do not waste your energy.”
“Oh, my sweet, the pain grows worse.” He moaned, clutching his stomach.
Of course, it did. The arsenic had penetrated his organs, prompting failure.
Under the watchful eye of everyone in the room, I lifted a cup to my husband’s lips.
“No,” Snow said, snatching the cup from my grasp.
I bowed my head and moved aside, allowing her to lift her father’s head and let him take a few sips. My husband spluttered and coughed the water all over his nightshirt. A laugh stirred in my chest, demanding to be let free, but I stuffed it down as deep as I could. My glee did not stem from the act of killing this poor man, but rather from what his death would mean. Finally,finally, I could destroy my brother.
“There, there, my love,” I said, wiping my husband’s chin.
Snow placed the cup bac onto his nightstand.
My touch instantly calmed the lord. Well, my touch and a little magic, which I used to temper his cough. Not to be nice, of course, but to show my power over him. My soothing effect. And so the others could how he adored me. How he w\anted me by his side at all times. Even in death. After all this time, and despite his sickness, he still didn’t suspect me of foul play.
Blind fool.But I preferred him that way. Over the last four hundreds years, I’d poisoned dozens of men just like him—devoted imbeciles—in order to siphon their power. Yes, I was wicked. Unredeemable. But the darkness was all consuming.
“Doctor,” I said, acting meek and doing my best to seem concerned, “is there news on my husband’s condition?”
The doctor gave me a grave look—a pinched forehead, helpless eyes, and a tight jaw. “My lady, I bare bad tidings. I’m sorry to say that the lord won’t last the night.”
Praise the dark lord! What wondrous news!I could barely contain my elation and almost shouted with glee. The mirror had never been wrong so far. Once my husband was dead, I would turn my wrath toward Haven…enslave the land and make sacrifices to my dark lord. In doing so, I would summon enough power to destroy my brother. But for now…
I continued with my doting wife act, throwing myself over my husband’s wasting form, pretending to weep over my impending loss.
My husband feebly stroked my hair. I repressed my shiver of repulsion, using all my restraint to keep from grabbing one of his pillows and suffocating the fool. No. For now, I had to remain content with the news that my efforts had been a success. Tonight, once my “darling husband” released his last breath, passing from this realm, I would celebrate with a ritual in honor of the dark one.
All sacrifices required payment. I relished every one. Including the power my dark god bestowed upon me. To fulfill my task with my brother, I had to rid the realm of the daughter, too, and seize control of the Tritonia lands. Then I would plan my march into Wildfire.
The only thing left standing in my way ridding Tritonia of the Sea King and my pesky “stepdaughter” Snow. But I already had a plan. People suspected my husband’s illness had an unnatural cause. I would throw fuel on that fire, but I would do so in such a way that I cast suspicion upon Snow, rather than myself. After all, everyone had been keeping a close eye on me—I wouldn’t have had a chance to harm my beloved… But Snow? By the time I was through with her, there’d be no doubt in anyone’s mind of her guilt. Having her executed for the poisoning death of her very own father would be my coup de grâce…the final death blow to this measly little kingdom.
I had no doubt I’d succeed. I always got my way. Always. And I’d do anything to save my daughter.
