by Ana Mardoll
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.
Copyright © 2015
POISON KISS by Ana Mardoll
All rights reserved.
Published by Acacia Moon Publishing, LLC
Cover illustration by James, GoOnWrite.com
Books by Ana Mardoll
The Earthside Series
Poison Kiss (#1)
Survival Rout (#2)
Rewoven Tales
Pulchritude
To Kristy and Thomas, for rekindling my joy in writing at a time when only embers remained.
Poison Kiss
Earthside
by Ana Mardoll
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Content Notes
Version History
Chapter 1
"Rose, can you tilt your head for me, please?" The pale young woman who has been assigned to braid my hair whispers the words, her voice so soft that I can barely hear her over the crash of hail that pounds the mansion roof and sends icy pellets skittering noisily across the marble floor.
Obediently, I lean forward to facilitate her task. Her nimble fingers continue their work, twisting and looping my long pink hair into the elaborate style that our mistress has commanded for tonight's festivities. I wonder numbly how many more hours my grooming will take; we've been at this since my morning bath. I'm curious also to know if this girl is as bored with braiding my hair as I am with sitting motionless. Not that either of us would dream of complaining; the May Queen's temper is lethal, and there are far worse assignments to be handed out.
Our shared silence is all the more oppressive against the contrast of the morning's torrential downpour. Hailstones strike the land with a relentless rhythm, the icy missiles large enough to beat the life out of any escaped servants or skulking assassins. Hot summer air, unrelieved by the rain, invades through floor-to-ceiling windows which let out in all directions onto the vast gardens that carpet our mistress' estate; gardens which are now thoroughly soaked. I nurture a satisfying mental image of elegant guests coated in rain-churned muck, but I know better than to hope. Despite the current violence of the weather, the land will be as cool and dry as a bone in just a few hours. Anything less would ruin the May Queen's gala ball.
There is a sudden soft gasp behind me, and then the sharp clatter of things spilling to the floor. I freeze, holding perfectly still as I count the seconds in my head and try to steady my breathing. Did the May Queen enter the room without my hearing her? Is she even now hurting the young woman assigned to wait on me, for some perceived infraction? I keep my head facing straight ahead, my spine stiff. There is nothing I can do to help the girl; if our mistress is angry, my interference would only make things worse for her. I force myself to remain calm and I wait.
"Sorry! I'm so sorry!" The frightened whisper comes from behind me. Yet there are no furious words to follow the apology, no sense of our mistress' tangible rage occupying the same space as us. I turn my head cautiously until I can see my hairdresser out of the corner of my eye; we are alone. She kneels on the cold floor, gingerly picking tiny rosebuds from the white marble and piling them back into their small wooden bowl. Tension eases from my shoulders with the realization that the May Queen was not, after all, the source of the cacophony; the girl had merely dropped the decorations she is meant to be twining into my pinned braid.
She senses me staring at her and looks up with a pained wince. "Please don't tell?" she pleads softly.
I shake my head at her, but the sensation of my hair trying to work free from its unfinished bonds reminds me to remain still. "I wouldn't," I promise quietly. Some of the other servants tattle, hoping to redirect our mistress' anger from them, but I never have. I like to believe I never will, but I know it is easy to think so when I am one of her favorites. I haven't yet been truly tempted to resort to drastic measures for survival. The May Queen is cruel, but she is kinder to her Nightshades than she is to the Fragrants and Ornamentals who wait on us.
"Thanks," my hairdresser whispers softly, continuing the task I can't aid her with. I sit motionlessly and scrutinize her as she rescues the little rosebuds, trying to guess her name. Her skin is pale, almost a papery white but with soft freckles sprayed liberally across her cheeks and nose. Maturity is difficult to guess among the Flowers, but we might be the same age; her complexion is smooth, but with tiny lines around the corner of her eyes and between her eyebrows. Her purple hair, worn loose and wavy in the style of the Fragrants, is a sister palette to the candy-pink of my own. Is she Lilac or Veronica or Wisteria? We've been through so many Fragrants since I first awoke that I can't keep track of them anymore, yet I'm sure I've seen this one's face before today. She's not a new acquisition.
When she stands from her kneeling position on the floor, her hair shifts and I catch the tattoo branded on her right shoulder. Three single sprays, the tiny flowers spaced evenly up each stalk. Lavender, I realize. No, she isn't new; the last Lavender was killed over two dozen balls ago, which makes this one's term about half as long as mine. She's a survivor if she's lasted this long. Many of the servants don't live more than a few parties. I've been fortunate enough to last as long as I have, though there are nights when it feels more like a curse.
"They say the ball tonight will be a long one," she whispers, resuming her place behind me. Her words are almost inaudible over the crashing rain, as soft as her cool fingers in my hair. I do not respond; I don't want to be drawn into conversation. It is not forbidden, but the May Queen is fond of creating arbitrary exceptions to use as a cudgel against us. Worse, if she saw me becoming close to one of the others, she might send her to me to be killed. She has never yet sent me a woman, but there's always a first time and she might find it amusing to do so.
"The chefs have been told to prepare forty courses," the young woman continues in a dogged whisper. Although I have reassured her I won't tattle on her, her determination to speak with me is unusual; but if her information is correct, it was good of her to warn me.
There is no reliable method by which to measure the length of the parties we attend, and so the number of courses has become the necessary standard. If we are truly in for a forty-course night, many of us will end up falling asleep on our feet, and anyone who does so in full view of the lords and ladies will risk becoming an object of humiliation or worse. I will need to conserve my energy where I can, and perhaps slip away for a brief doze in the hallways; anything to stay awake and on my feet for our mistress.
"We haven't had one nearly so long in over a dozen balls," she continues, her fingers still working at my hair, the touch gentle and lulling. "Have we?" she prompts.
I sit silently, weighing the options before me. I don't want to be caught socializing when we are supposed to be focused on the work assigned to us: the dressing of my hair f
or tonight's ball. Nor do I want to make friends with someone I may have to watch die, or may be forced to kill. But it would be unwise to be rude, or to make an enemy of this woman. Not all the stories tattled to the May Queen are true ones, and my favored status can protect me only up to a point.
Taking advantage of the privacy the storm offers, I murmur as softly as I can: "No." Having gone this far, I feel I might as well go all the way and add, "I don't think we've had a full forty-course dance since before you were brought here."
She moves in front of me, holding her wooden bowl in one hand as she bends to place flowers carefully into the thick braid wrapped like a crown about my head. "You've been here longer than me," she whispers. Her mouth barely moves when she talks; if I couldn't hear her myself, I'd never realize she was engaging in clandestine conversation. "I remember you were here when I awoke. I thought your shade of pink was wrong for your name, Rose. Your hair should be darker." A pause stretches between us. "I'm sorry; was that a bad thing to say?"
"No," I whisper, quick to reassure her. "I don't like the name either."
As soon as I blurt out the hasty words, I realize I have now entrusted my life to her. I had intended the confession to put her at ease, but the May Queen does not tolerate criticism with regard to her garden specimens. We accept the names and roles we are given as her Flowers, or we die. Fortunately, Lavender's gaze softens with sympathy, and I don't think she means me ill. "It's not a bad name," she says, her voice gentle.
I'm touched by her unexpected pity. "It's not a bad name," I agree quietly. I know I ought to stop talking, but I've already dug myself into deep trouble. Maybe if she likes me she won't turn me in, or perhaps the loneliness is starting to get to me. "I just don't think it fits me. Not only because of the pink, though you're not the first one to feel my colors should be different; the May Queen agrees." I laugh softly, retreating to the cold comfort of grim humor. "I'm told the one before me was pale, with white hair and bloodless lips. The one before her had fiery curls and a face much darker than mine. I suppose I'm a compromise between the two."
Pink hair, the middle ground between red and white, which always looks faintly wrong to me in the looking-glass. I don't add the belief I privately nurture: that my skin, my arms, my hands were mine to start with, and not a gift from the faery queen who woke me. I don't know how I know this—not a single one of us has retained conscious memories from the time before waking to her command—but I feel it instinctively. I know my skin is mine in the same way I know the brand on my shoulder is a rose and the fish on our tables is salmon. I just know.
Lavender nods in understanding. "They told me about the Lavenders before me," she says, "and how they died."
I wince in sympathy, remembering how much I hadn't enjoyed hearing of my precursors' deaths. There had not even been any discernible reason for their weeding, the May Queen seeming to prune her garden at random. She's been through three different Lavenders in the time I've been here, each of them almost identical to this one: sweetly-scented Fragrants with soft purple in their hair. Her Ornamentals are replaced even faster, as I've counted almost a dozen Bluebonnets in my time here. Nightshades tend to last longer, though not always; the Red Rose died during her sixth gala.
"Rose?" she murmurs, her voice dropping lower than before. I look up, shaken from my recollections, to find her staring down at me with a pleading expression. "Rose, have you ever thought about escaping?"
Suddenly the room is too close. I can smell her, a dizzying fragrance of honeysuckle and hope. From anyone else the question would be a trap, yet the scents emanating from her body betray her true feelings. She's serious, and she's going to get herself killed. "Of course I have," I counter in a strained whisper, my lips barely moving. "But you've been here long enough to know what happens to those who try."
Lavender's face remains composed, though her eyes turn miserable. Her fingers continue to work at my hair, and I'm relieved she hasn't thrown all caution to the wind. Anyone who glanced in on our chamber would see that she is working and I am being still, and all is well. "I know what happens to the ones who get caught," she argues in a soft counterpoint, circling around to work on my hair from the side.
"You only see the ones who are punished in public," I correct her, my whispered voice steely. "They deal with the others in secret; you just don't hear about them."
"How can you know—" she starts, but I cut her off with a pained hiss.
"Some of them are sent to me."
She blanches at this reminder of the lethal kisses of the May Queen's Nightshades. There is silence for several long minutes while the tension has a chance to dissipate and she finds her voice again. "You've been off the estate," she murmurs. "I've seen you go."
"Yes," I affirm, my voice cold in my throat.
Nightshades are occasionally sent out on assignment. Sometimes on foot, but other times in the carriages made for the Ornamentals: giant gourds pulled by garden pests as large as the horses the faery lords ride. The Ornamentals are sent to the courts and beds of those the May Queen would ally with; the Nightshades are, less frequently, sent to those she despises. Two faery men have died under my kiss, though the last one survived.
That episode with the third lord was two galas before tonight, and I've only just managed to stop wincing at every reminder. Lavender would have heard about my misadventure. I was delivered to the May Queen's door, a messy heap of blood and flesh. She decided to salvage me, healing me until not a single physical scar remained, but throughout her ministrations I prayed only for death.
The Fragrant girl strokes her cool fingers gently over my brow, comforting me under the guise of smoothing an errant hair. "You've been off the estate," she repeats softly, her urgent voice seeking to break through my frosty response. "You could guide someone. You must know of hiding places, of a way out..." Her voice falters, and I can't help but pity her again. She's never left the mansion, only ever seen the green hills from the windows. She doesn't know.
"Lavender," I say softly, "there's no way out." I hate to break her spirit like this, but I don't want her to die from foolish hopes. If she really can't live here any longer, there are easier ways to go than a reckless dash for freedom. Still, I'm guessing her desire to try stems more from false hope than from an impulse towards self-harm. "You've seen the lords and ladies who come to the dances? Their estates border our own. Even if you got away cleanly, you'd just be running into one of their territories. And they're all as brutal as the May Queen."
I had expected her to be deflated, but her mouth sets in a stubborn line. "We aren't born here," she counters softly. "We must come from somewhere else. Maybe we can go back there."
I blink at her, suddenly lost in another memory. We come from somewhere else.
Those same words had been spoken to me by one of my recent victims. He'd been before the third faery lord, but not long previously—only about three balls ago. He had been a sad, gentle man who knew as soon as he was sent to me that I was his executioner. He did not fight his fate, however, but lay in my arms and spun a wondrous tale which he said was his confession.
I hadn't known how much credence to give to his words. Some of the servants believe incredible things, and others have minds that go bad in captivity—indeed, I am often uncertain of my own lucidity. I had no reason to believe there was a single germ of truth in his wild story, yet a part of me now desperately wants his words to be true. If we can get out of the mansion, away from prying eyes and ears, maybe Lavender would know what to make of his tale.
"Even if we found a way out, we'd be missed almost immediately if we ran," I point out, my voice less firm than before. "It's one thing to doze in the hallways where she can send a servant to check on us; it's another thing entirely to just disappear."
Lavender seizes on my uncertainty. "Not at a ball," she insists softly. "Not if there were good reason for us to be away for a long while. Not if she expected us to be gone and we had a head-start. And with guests here, even if she
suspected something, she would lose face admitting someone had run off in the middle of a party. She'd let us go rather than suffer a blow to her reputation."
Her honeysuckle smell is now so strong that I'm forced to take quick, shallow breaths through my nose to stave off the raw hope that assaults my concentration. It isn't her fault; the Fragrants can only control their emotional aromas with great effort. Yet the swirl of perfume around her makes it difficult to separate my own thoughts from her soft words, and I have to consciously exhale several times to clear my head.
"It's not a bad plan," I admit, working my way through her logic. "But what excuse do we have to leave the ball?"
The Fragrant girl doesn't dare beam a smile at me, holding her expression calm and steady even now in case an intruder might burst in on us; her green eyes, however, are bright and triumphant. "Leave that to me," she whispers proudly, her fingers redoubling their efforts in my hair.
Chapter 2
The rain stops just when I suspected it would: right before the first chime of the seventh evening hour. Tonight the chimes are a cue for us to line the walls of the vast ballroom, where we will stand perfectly still while the guests arrive.
We stand and wait, and the seventh hour chimes again. I wonder how many times it will chime tonight before it moves on to the eighth hour, or if it will instead retreat to the sixth. The gala before this was a backwards one, the setting suns slowly traversing the sky in reverse until the party concluded on their dipping just under the horizon. If the festivities tonight turn out to be a day-party, it will be too dangerous for us to run; we will need darkness as a cover if we are to get any distance at all.