Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

  Everything about him told me he was a lord. His dark hair was plaited in the complex style favored by the Fae nobility, and his boots and outerwear were rich and sturdy.

  If I had considered it, I would’ve realized that no elf child would be out on the mountain pass without adult supervision, no matter how minimal. But I hadn’t had time to think of anything beyond my own survival. Saving the boy had been entirely instinct, one I was as likely to regret as use to my advantage.

  And now, that adult supervision stood in front of me, tall and straight, wrapped in warm winter furs, his expression all smirking glee as his gaze raked me up and down.

  “Loren,” he said, a delighted smile breaking across his dark, saturnine face, “what have you found here?” Without waiting for a response, he turned to me and spoke the words that would haunt my days and nights for weeks to come.

  “Well, hello, little witch. You’ll be coming with me now.”

  Chapter Three

  As the last of the magic whipped back into me, my strength finally gave out. I reeled, my vision blurred, and for the second time in a week, I passed out in front of someone who might be planning to harm me.

  The rest of the trip through the mountains occurred in a blur of fading and returning consciousness, punctuated by dark fever dreams. In the worst of them, Mother Jonas and the rest of the elders gathered around me, slamming magical bolts through my body as Susanna stood to one side intoning, “Watch out for the backlash.”

  I twisted and turned, fighting the magical bonds that held me down, but I could never get loose. In other dreams, they fed me some vile concoction, a potion designed to send me away to a dark elf lord’s high tower, where I would be held forever and forced to do unspeakable magical acts.

  It seemed to go on for days and days—the thump, thump, thump of the elders’ magic sending shots of agony into my bones, and the terror of the elf’s laugh as he repeatedly said I was coming home with him.

  But sometimes, I came out of the dreams and heard snatches of conversation.

  “…do with her when we get home?”

  “…always useful for something…”

  “…saved me, Uncle…”

  “…war…”

  Those fragments wove themselves into my dreams, as well.

  Occasionally, deep in the night, I would wake to the touch of a cool hand brushing my hair out of my face, resting on my flushed and fevered cheeks, while a deep voice whispered meaningless words of comfort.

  I wasn’t entirely sure which dreams were worse—those of pain, the ones I knew to be true, or those of comfort—the ones I was certain were a lie.

  Then came the day when I awoke to that thumping vibration and realized I had been lashed to a travois. I was being dragged behind a horse, bumping along a trail. The sky above me was a steely gray, the clouds thick and low.

  Tilting my head up and back, I saw the elf lord astride his steed, his shiny dark braids clubbed back in a queue. He was tall and straight and terrifying. Glancing around, I saw several other elves on horseback.

  So why was my stretcher tied behind him?

  He pulled me over a particularly large bump and I moaned in pain, unable to stop myself. Almost instantly, the young elf I had saved from falling was at my side, a canteen in his hand.

  “Uncle Kaedon, she’s awake. The witch is awake,” he called out.

  “Good,” the elf lord replied, his voice deep and resonant. “We’ll stop here for a few moments.” As he began to turn to glance back at me, I dropped my head so I was no longer craning to look at him. I couldn’t stand the thought of meeting my captor’s eyes.

  Not when I was certain that his was the voice I had heard late in the night.

  But perhaps that was only a dream, too, an incorporation of voices heard during the day into my nighttime visions.

  “Drink this,” the young elf said, holding my head up and tilting the canteen so that cool water flowed down my throat. “There,” he said. “That should help you feel better soon.”

  I blinked, uncertain what to make of this kindness. For a minute, I wondered if he might be the source of the comfort, but then he pulled a strand of hair away from my mouth, and I knew he wasn’t. His touch was all wrong.

  Perhaps I had dreamed it.

  After he’d closed the canteen again, the boy—Loren, if I remembered correctly—darted ahead to talk to his uncle, who, after a few more minutes, called for the group to move on.

  Exhausted from doing even that much, I once again slipped into unconsciousness—but this time, it was a deep sleep, one without any dreams at all.

  The next time I woke, we had stopped to make camp for the night.

  Loren unstrapped me from my traveling sickbed and helped me sit up. “If I give you your medicine,” he asked, “will you take it, or are you going to dash it to the ground again?”

  “Medicine?”

  The boy grinned. “You were pretty far gone there for a while—thought it was poison someone named Mother Jonas was trying to make you drink.”

  A hot blush flashed across my cheeks. Given a choice, I would never have exposed any weakness to the Fae, not even a fear as simple and universal as being poisoned. The less information they had, the less they could use against me. Against us. Against the witches. No matter how kind the boy might seem, his uncle was a leader among my people’s enemy, and he was taking me to his stronghold.

  When Loren handed me the small wooden cup, I sniffed the thick concoction inside. It didn’t smell like any of the healing tonics I had ever taken on the island. Then again, according to Loren, I had been drinking the stuff for days now—it wasn’t likely to start hurting me at this point. In fact, I suspected it might be partially responsible for my continuing recovery.

  Holding my breath, I tossed it back. It tasted exactly like what I’d had in my dreams, and it was every bit as vile. I coughed at the aftertaste.

  A deep, masculine chuckle alerted me to Lord Kaedon’s arrival. “Our healer is good at what he does, but making medications palatable is not on the list of things he considers important.”

  I gazed up at the tall elf without speaking and without ever actually looking at his face, my expression sullen. Kaedon ignored my attempt to freeze him out—perhaps no surprise from someone used to living in such an icy climate. “We will arrive at the fort tomorrow,” he said to me, his voice brusque and matter of fact. “You will be given enough time to recover, and then you will be expected to attend to your duties, which will be explained to you. Please note you will need to earn your keep.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw he had raised his eyebrows as if he expected a response. When he didn’t get one, he simply turned on his heel and strode away.

  My silence was a small act of rebellion, but it made me feel better.

  I had been too exhausted and sick to resist the elf lord up to this point, but, eventually, I would heal.

  And then I would show him why the Fae would never rule over the witches.

  Loren, who’d apparently either been given or had taken over my care, deemed me unfit to ride, so he made sure I took more of the foul syrup and dozed through most of the next day’s journey.

  When we arrived that afternoon at what the Fae lord had called his “fort”—from my vantage point, it looked more like I’d always imagined a castle, with turreted towers rising high into the air—he swung off his horse and began ordering his people about.

  Again strapped to the travois, I could do little more than shiver in terror. Although Kaedon’s people had not been cruel to me, only Loren had done anything to help me. Clawing my way free of the haze the medication brought on left me dizzy, but I fought weakly against the straps holding me down.

  “Hold on,” Loren said, appearing at my side. “My uncle’s men will carry you up to the infirmary.” He uncertainly gazed around. “As soon as I can find them.”

  I collapsed back down, exhausted by the smallest exertion, the tiniest resistance against my bonds. Even if I had been able to
get free, I had nowhere to run and no way to get there.

  No, I would have to regain my strength before I would be able to escape my captors. My stomach clenched, and I swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat at the thought of being held by one of the infamous Fae lords.

  Great Mother, I prayed silently, protect me in my hour of need.

  If she answered, I did not hear.

  I dreaded what was to come.

  Despite my fears, Kaedon’s men simply unhitched the travois from their lord’s horse, allowing it to thump to the ground. Moments later, two servants arrived to carry me into the castle and up several flights of stairs, where I was ensconced in their healer’s infirmary.

  “Place the patient in that bed,” a gruff voice ordered from another part of the room. Although I craned my neck, it wasn’t until the two servants had unstrapped me and helped me sit up that I caught sight of the healer himself.

  The tiny old elf set perched atop a tall stool in front of a traditional herbalist’s table. With a pestle and mortar, he was grinding away at something, presumably to add to the distillation setup he had in front of him.

  For the first time ever, I cursed my inability—or more precisely, my absolute refusal—to learn to work with herbs. If I had not been quite so stubborn, I might’ve been able to concoct a poison to kill everyone in the castle and escape.

  I recognized the plan as flawed, even as some part of my mind exulted in my ability to consider specific escape plans.

  That must mean I was getting better, right?

  The two servants helped me into the bed, leaving without ever having said a word. As I watched them go, a frisson of fear shivered up my spine. Could it possibly be true, as was rumored among the witches, that the Fae lords cut out their servants’ tongues to render them mute and unable to give away their masters’ secrets?

  And was that to be my fate?

  No, I reassured myself. I was a witch. Lord Kaedon needed me for my magic. As far as he probably knew, all witches’ magic was inaccessible except through spoken spells.

  I could never allow him to discover my ability to use magic simply with a thought. Even more than that, I couldn’t let him learn of the additional magic I carried within me.

  But someday, once I was well, I would unleash my power and rain havoc down on Lord Kaedon and the other Fae.

  It took more willpower than I anticipated to shove down the tiny, internal voice reminding me that Kaedon had done nothing to harm me so far.

  As far as I was concerned, he deserved any hell I could put him through—him and every other elf. The Fae had enslaved my people, destroyed many of our lands, and more personally, taken my parents away from me when I was but a child.

  At least, their cause had.

  “What you plotting over there, girly?” the gruff old elf asked me.

  I jumped in surprise, having forgotten his presence. “Nothing,” I lied.

  The healer chuckled, shaking his head. Clearly, he didn’t believe me, but I had no intention of revealing my innermost thoughts to him. Levering off the stool, he shoved the glasses perched on his face higher up on the bridge of his nose, gathered the wooden cane leaning against the table, and hobbled over to the side of my bed. Tilting his head back a little to peer at me through the round lenses, he leaned forward and began examining me, running his gnarled fingers along the sides of my face and down my neck, most likely checking for swollen glands or any other abnormalities.

  The gesture was so similar to something the witches’ healer would’ve done at home that I found it oddly comforting.

  This healer made similar noises, as well, murmuring “Mm-hm…” and “Hmm…” as he took note of what he discovered.

  “Let me see your hands and feet.” I pulled them out from under the covers, hands first. He rolled my fingers around in his knotty ones, turned my hands over and examined the palms and knuckles, then laid them down gently. He moved to my feet and conducted a similar examination.

  “Well, girly, I think you’ll live. You need to rest and recuperate, but I believe you will be back up to full strength within a few weeks.”

  I almost didn’t ask, but I was more frightened of not knowing. “What about my magic?”

  The healer gave me a sharp look over the top of his glasses. “Your magic is gone?”

  “Not gone. But… it’s like I can’t touch it. Can’t get to it.”

  “Oh. Yes, I’ve seen this before. You’re from the lowlands?”

  I nodded, fearful of what he might say.

  “It is simply a matter of exhaustion. And sudden altitude changes. It may take you some time to acclimate.” His mouth twisted as he thought. “However, I believe I will tell Lord Kaedon to give you a full month of recovery before you attempt to use your magic again.”

  A month. I had one month to figure out how to get out of this place.

  For three weeks, I saw only the healer and, occasionally, Loren.

  In that time, my fever came and went, eventually for good, but I never again hallucinated as I had in the mountain pass.

  The healer, whose name was Bertino, spent most his time in my sickroom working on the noxious medications and tinctures that he prided himself on—and as he worked, he talked to me.

  As he talked, I worked to regain my strength, beginning by struggling out of bed the first full day I was there.

  “You were on that trail almost a week near death,” Bertino said. “Give yourself time to recover.”

  Initially, I didn’t reply, unwilling to give anything away to an enemy of my people. But I was unused to being so alone—in the crèche, there were always people around. Here, there was only Bertino.

  Eventually, I gave into my desire for conversation.

  Late one afternoon, he brought in tea and cookies. I sat in an armchair in the corner of the room, flipping idly through one of his healers’ books, as he explained the method he was using to create a salve.

  I followed only a small part of his detailed instructions, in part because I was still hopelessly uninterested in potions of any sort, but also because I was trying to decide how to begin getting Bertino to share the information I wanted—but there didn’t seem to be any easy way to ask how a single witch might overthrow an entire castle full of Fae.

  However, he snagged my attention when he said, “Parts of this recipe came from the last witch who lived here.”

  “Last witch?”

  Bertino seemed to realize he might’ve said too much, because he hesitated before shaking his head. “I’ll let Lord Kaedon tell you what’s at play here. Suffice to say, your presence is needed for his lordship’s plans.”

  The statement made my blood run cold. I’d heard about the atrocities elves committed against witches under their control.

  I had to regain my strength if I was ever going to break free.

  By the end of three weeks, I’d grown strong enough to wander the halls of Bertino’s domain. Though I never forgot I was a prisoner in Lord Kaedon’s castle, the more time I spent in Bertino’s wing of it, the more comfortable I became.

  I was restless, willing to leave my sickbed as often as I could. Nights were the worst. I wasn’t sure where Bertino slept—his personal quarters were somewhere far enough away from the sickroom that I had never run across them in my wanderings. I had, however, discovered locked doors leading into other parts of the castle. I was no closer to my goal of escaping than I had been the day they brought me in—except, of course, for being able to physically walk.

  I assumed that would be helpful in any escape attempt.

  Late one night, unable to sleep and bored with the few medical texts I had found in the sickroom, I once again wandered the halls. I crept along a corridor two flights up from my sickroom, exploring an area I had yet to map out in my mind. I wore only the simple cotton shift Bertino had provided to me. The black dress I had worn to the Choosing had, I hoped, been burned.

  The halls were chilly, but since the mountain pass, I had discovered t
he cold bothered me much less than it had before. As I ghosted through the hallways, the rough stone scraped against my bare feet and the candle I carried cast guttering shadows against the walls. Some nights, these images sent me scuttling back to my room. Most of the time, I was too aware of the very real danger posed to me by the elves who surrounded me to be frightened by my own imagination.

  As I turned the corner, however, a darker shadow loomed over me, appearing out of the blackness. I yelped, barely containing a full-fledged scream as my mind caught up with my eyes, interpreting what they had seen.

  Lord Kaedon stood before me, his fixed expression offering no indication of his reaction to my terror.

  Gathering my composure, I drew myself up as tall as I could and stood straight, attempting to meet his gaze head-on.

  It turned out to be impossible. The elf stood a full foot taller than me. His black hair, no longer braided or pulled back into a tail, hung loose around his shoulders. For an instant, I wondered what it might feel like to run those strands across my hands, allowing them to drip through my fingers like liquid silk.

  Shocked by my own thoughts, I gave myself a mental shake to dispel the image. It was too late, though—Lord Kaedon’s brown eyes darkened to a blackened smolder. And unless he was a mind reader, my own expression had given away the tenor of my thoughts.

  “Little witch,” he finally said by way of greeting, his voice as dark as I remembered. His tone reminded me of the chocolate Sister Susanna traded for every winter. Rich, thick, sweet—but a little bitter underneath.

  “Lord Kaedon,” I replied, my voice still a harsh rasp after my illness.

  We stared at each other for at least a full minute, our eyes locked in some strange contest of wills.

  I broke first. “You’re out roaming the halls awfully late,” I said.

  “They are my halls to roam,” he observed, a slight smile lifting one corner of his full-lipped mouth.