Ten years later
The bastard staggered for the sixth time in so many hours, catching himself on the stone countertop just barely, knocking glass bottles over, ignoring the way their contents sizzled and burned into the rock. The quick breath I sucked in was fake. A ruse to make him think I was concerned.
When my husband’s knees finally hit the ground with a bone cracking thud, I rushed to him, my eyes darting around the apothecary as if someone might descend the three spiraling levels downward at this very moment. But we were alone. Just him and I, and the choking breaths between us.
I dropped down beside him, scooping him in my arms. He wasn’t heavy in the slightest, so when he fell limp, I easily hoisted him up onto the wooden table in the center of the room. His body began to seize, so I stepped away, staring down at the man I’d tried to love with nothing but pity and impatience.
An entire year was how long it took for the poison to start ravaging his body. It began with a slight wheezing cough, a rash on the skin and dizzy spells. Eventually, he slept every other day while I took care of the tasks King Animus had given us. So it was business as usual, seeing as I normally did all the work while he took all the credit.
I should have cared that the light was fading from his eyes. I should have clutched his hands in mine and begged him not to leave me here alone. I’d attempted to love him since the day I was given to him to be his wife. How could I ever hope to go on without him?
But those were the worries of the girl I no longer was. Those were the concerns of a wife for a faithful husband, not one that went behind her back and fucked a woman betrothed to another man. Not a man who lied, cheated and manipulated the woman whose happiness he stole away. No, I wasn’t that same girl anymore, and I had the skills to make sure no man would ever cross me again and live to tell the tale.
It took until nightfall for him to breathe his last wretched breath. I heard it, the rise and fall of his rattling chest. It wasn’t widely discussed, but there was a terrible, stark difference in the way a person drew breath after their soul was carried away. The empty shell they left behind was filled with hot, dead air that had no choice but to escape. As morbid as that seemed to most, it was music to my ears.
My heart raced with excitement. The hovering, heavy presence of my cheating, lying husband was finally gone, and I was free. However long that lasted, time would tell, but right now, I needed to make this look legitimate. I had minutes at the most to play the part of a grieving wife before people would start asking questions. Waylan wasn’t particularly beloved around here, but still, he was a man. His life was worth infinitely more than mine would ever be.
A wailing cry slipped from my lips as I forced tears to the surface. I pinched the skin of my thigh as hard as I could to keep them flowing because it took everything in me not to laugh. I made sure my cries were obnoxiously loud, and soon, I heard the wooden door at the top of the stairs fly open with an echoing thud. A swarm of footsteps descended, so I promptly threw myself over Waylan’s cooling corpse and sobbed into his still chest.
“Madam Bane!” a low voice called out as several men swept into the room. I looked up, meeting the eyes of the captain of the guard. Caldor…strong, stoic and empty Caldor. He didn’t like me much. Well, not anymore I supposed. There was a time when the captain did more than just like me. “What is this?” he hissed as he approached the table, dark brown brows drawn and his hand reaching for his blade.
I forced more tears out of my eyes as I met his stare, messily swiping my black hair out of my face. “The sickness took him.” I sniffed, even adding in a slight tremble to my bottom lip. “There was nothing I could do.”
Caldor circled the table, staring down at my dead husband. He waved his free hand, and as one unit, the rest of the guards fanned out around the room. “Waylan Bane was the master of poisons, and you’re to have me believe sickness got the better of him so easily?”
Damn this man and his logic. Why couldn't he be a muscle-bound warrior with a thick skull like the rest of them?
“We tried everything, Captain. Everything. Every potion, every root, plant and petal. But nothing lessened his pain in the slightest. Sometimes it only made it worse.” I fought the urge to raise my voice at the man I once gazed at with adoration and awe. He was a cold, cynical man for his young age of thirty-one, but I made him that way. “We began to suspect…” I trailed off, averting my eyes and feigning nervousness.
Caldor stepped closer, his familiar scent wrapping around me. “Suspect what? Speak up, woman.”
Irritation bubbled in my belly. Men were all the same in Avedin. Our betters. Our masters. Women were objects to be owned and talked down to. Before this moment, Caldor never acted like any of those men. He treated me with reverence and respect, but that man was long gone now.
I leveled him with a hard, teary stare that I refused to let waver. I might be a widow now, but I was not so easily broken. “Waylan suspected the Source was at play.”
Several of the guards shifted noisily on their feet. A few of them began to mumble and whisper amongst themselves, but Caldor hissed at them to quiet down before addressing me again. “That’s a serious accusation, Madam.” I fought a flinch every time he called me that. I longed for the days when my name rolled off of his tongue with ease. When his lips would caress the shell of my ear as he held me close to him.
He was right, though. The Source—the source of all magic in every kingdom, a magic King Animus had never been able to tap into, wasn’t something to casually joke about. Some said that the Source is what was responsible for taking the life of his unborn son and leaving his wife barren, but all we knew for sure was that it was outlawed.
Not many were blessed with direct access to the Source, and if it was true that Waylan Bane, the king’s trusted poison master, was assassinated in such a way, it could mean that there was a spy among us. It could mean a threat to the king.
Little did they know that they were standing in the same room as Waylan’s true killer. But I’d let them believe my little lie regardless. My head would roll if I was ever found out, and I wasn’t ready to forfeit my life for Waylan’s pitiful sake.
These people were terrified of the Source. The very idea of someone becoming so powerful that they could go up against a king made them weak. I shook my head at the guards in the room, muttering to themselves, already speculating about who could be responsible for the crime. I tried not to show my disgust for their weakness on my face, because Caldor’s eyes were keen, and he was clever.
“In any case, this requires an autopsy,” said Caldor. I bit my tongue as I tried not to react. He watched me carefully with those shrewd eyes as he snapped his fingers for his guardsmen. “Take him to the priests for cleansing, we’ll get to the bottom of this.” His gaze never left mine. “If the Source is responsible for this, then we will find the wielder, and they will hang.”
Xmara
King Animus was standing tall as I approached the decadent palace sitting room. Looking around, he nodded to the guards, which had them moving out of the room as I wandered deeper into it.
My heart raced as I managed to hold my composure, trying to play the heartbroken widow, the role expected of me. The king knew I wouldn’t speak first. It was almost unheard of for me to speak more than a few curt words in public, especially in the presence of a male. Over the years, I’d learned the delicate art of holding my tongue, even if sometimes all I wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs.
“Waylan’s death is a heinous tragedy that will not be taken lightly, Xmara Bane. He was a beloved subject and servant of Avedin, and as repayment for that loyalty, his wife will be taken care of, far away from a life of poisons.” King Animus almost stood taller, like he was proud of his little speech, but I was not so impressed with him.
He was a man who tried his best to command fear and respect. He valued wealth and status above all, but his greed practically seeped from his skin and hovered around him like a cloud. Men like him were easy to manipulate, though, because most of the time they couldn’t see past their own noses, much less to the underworld of their own kingdoms. Little did this royal ass know that I was already several steps ahead of his grand little plan.
“If it would please you, Your Highness, I’m quite content with the life I live and have lived for years. Waylan thought it important to pass his knowledge onto me as his assistant. I’ve become skilled in the art and would be honored to train the next master of poisons the way Waylan intended.”