The Kinder Poison

by Natalie Mae

  It’s fine, I repeat to myself. It’s fine, it’s fine . . .

  The Healer pats my arm and wipes her hands on a towel. “There, good as new. Though there will be a scar for a moon or two.”

  “That’s it?” I say, marveling at my wrist. I didn’t feel a thing.

  “I’m very good at what I do.” The Healer winks and draws a small jug from her belt. She pours the glowing liquid onto a cloth before wrapping the fabric around my arm. The enchanted water itches, but in a pleasant way, and I start to relax.

  She smiles. “This’ll need just a moment.”

  “Do you do hair removal, too? Because they really need to replace the girl who does it now.”

  She chuckles. “Elin will be very good, one day. But we all go through a learning stage. When I first started—”

  She frowns as she lifts the cloth, now rusty with blood. Beneath it my arm is clean and smooth, save for a red, raised patch near my wrist.

  “When you first started?” I prompt.

  “Mm.”

  She scrutinizes the mark, and a chill wraps me, stark as night. But just as I’m panicking that she’ll call the guards in, she smiles. “When I first started, I accidentally fused a man’s kneecap to his shin. I was only trying to mend a bruise.” She folds the bloody towel and rises from the bed. “It was my pleasure to meet you.”

  “And you,” I say, but she’s already disappeared around the pearl-crusted doorway. Leaving her jug of enchanted water on the bedside table.

  I swallow the knot in my throat as I move my arm into a beam of sunlight. And my heart sinks into my gut. Kasta did finish what he’d been drawing. The mark is only three simple lines, but with the blood gone their shape is unmistakable. A curved line like the bottom of a carriage; a straight line for its roof. A half circle for the sun setting atop it.

  The symbol for Rie, the god of death.

  * * *

  I have a very bad feeling about this.

  I know I shouldn’t technically fret until it’s past midmorning, but I’ve still not heard from Jet, and as soon as the Healer left, the guards posted outside my room moved inside instead. I’m certain the Healer recognized the mark. What I’m not certain of is whether she’d tell someone about it, and whether the guards changed positions because of that or if they would have moved either way. And as much as I’m trying to assure myself it doesn’t matter—Jet should have secured my release long ago—the silence is wearing on me.

  As is the worry Jet decided I wasn’t worth it.

  The latter thought makes my blood rush in my ears, and I push it away in haste. Jet spent the evening trying to help me escape. It would make no sense for him to abandon the plan now, especially when this gives him one last chance to stop Kasta from getting his way.

  He’ll come.

  Please let him come.

  “No, I don’t think it’s real,” echoes a voice beyond the door. “Unless you think Lana acted without me?”

  With a shudder, I recognize the voice as the priest who came to Atera. No one else has a tone that deep and irritated. I cast a desperate look at the balcony, but the guard there crosses her arms like she knows exactly what I’m thinking, and I can only pray the priest moves past without stopping.

  “She wouldn’t,” a girl answers. “She’s far too soft to deliver a mark herself.”

  The Healer definitely told someone. I wring my hands and glance around as if a secret door will pop open at any moment, but of course there’s nothing but the smooth, gilded walls and a bust of Tyda, the goddess of patience, her silver-painted eyes silently judging me. Easy, Zahru. Maybe I’m getting worked up for no reason. Maybe the priest will recognize immediately that Kasta has unfairly interfered, and he’ll be disqualified from the Crossing, and I’ll be dismissed without an investigation.

  I exhale, and smooth my gown as if I’m expecting them.

  The priest steps through the pearled archway, scowl in place, trailed by a girl in schooling robes, holy oaths tattooed around the edges of her face. His apprentice. But though I know she can’t be older than fifteen, she’s somehow more intimidating. Her fairer skin is jaundiced, her blonde hair greased back like a helmet. There’s a coldness to her expression that reminds me of a burial mask.

  “Your arm, girl,” the priest says.

  “I’d really like to talk to Jet first,” I say, covering my wrist.

  “That’s a request Prince Kasta will need to approve, since you and Prince Jet are currently rivals.” His pupils sliver in warning. “The Healer said you cut yourself last night. I’m to ensure you haven’t sealed anything into the wound.”

  So he doesn’t believe it’s a sacrificial mark, but a way for me to cheat. Which means he still thinks I’m Kasta’s First.

  Jet hasn’t secured my release.

  I don’t move.

  “Let me put it this way,” the priest says. “If you don’t show me your arm, Alise is going to paralyze you, and I’ll take a look anyway. I should add that her poisons take a few hours to wear off.”

  The apprentice smiles, revealing a mouth full of stained teeth. I have the sudden thought she’s been testing poisons on herself, and with a shudder, I pull my arm forward.

  This will be fine. Kasta won’t get away with this, this will be fine.

  “Both, please,” the priest says.

  I swallow and draw my fists together, palms down. The priest orders me to turn them over—and I pray to every god that when I do, the scar will be unrecognizable.

  “Talqo’s blood,” the priest swears. He exchanges a bewildered look with his apprentice, who covers her mouth.

  The scar is not gone. With the swelling subsided, it’s even clearer the scar is Rie’s mark.

  I wait for the priest’s scowl to deepen. For his apprentice to cry Sacrilege! and a swarm of disbelieving officials to charge in, but the priest only grips the circle of Numet that dangles from his necklace, and the apprentice falls to her knees, begging Valen’s forgiveness. With a growing sense of horror, I realize this is exactly what Kasta meant by having the gods at his mercy.

  “Tell the Mestrah the sacrifice has been revealed,” the priest says. “Prince Kasta will need to choose a different First.”

  “What?” I say as they turn. “No, no, no. This wasn’t made by Numet, it was Prince Kasta!”

  They stop. The priest looks over his shoulder, his gaze burning my skin. “What?”

  “You ungrateful rat,” the apprentice snaps. “Being marked as the sacrifice is the greatest honor you could pray for. It means the gods themselves find you sacred. The Forsaken will weep for jealousy when they hear of the news.”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, swallowing. Though I’m fairly certain the Forsaken will weep for joy when they hear this, not envy. “I would yield to the gods’ wishes, if that’s what they meant for me. But it wasn’t them, it was the prince! He cut me. He thought I was working with Jet against him and cut me.”

  “Desperate words,” mutters the apprentice. “I’ll tell the servants to prepare her.”

  “No, please, I . . . Jet!” I say, doing a poor job of not sounding desperate. “Prince Jet will confirm my story.”

  The girl continues out, but the priest grabs her shoulder.

  I can’t believe that of all people, he might be the one who saves me.

  “No,” he says slowly. “Fetch the princes. Let us see what they have to say.”

  “Adel, with all respect, is that appropriate?” the apprentice says. “Questioning the integrity of royalty against a commoner—”

  But the priest gives her a look, and she sets her jaw.

  “Very well,” she says, her black robes swaying as she strides out.

  The priest sighs when her footsteps fade, but his focus slides past me when he turns back to the room. I can’t tell if he believes me. I can’
t tell if the worry creasing his brow is for the possibility the mark on my arm is real, or that Kasta could be the one behind it. From the glance he and his apprentice shared, it doesn’t seem like they’d put it past him. Maybe Kasta has done something like this before. Maybe this is a moment they knew would come, and now finally, with Jet and a strange peasant girl to speak against him, it’s enough to reveal Kasta for who he is.

  Unless Jet lied, whispers a nasty little voice in the back of my head. Why hasn’t he come? Why aren’t you released?

  I shove the doubts away. Fara would tell me to be patient; to not make a thunderstorm from a single cloud, as he likes to say. After Kasta is arrested, Jet will explain himself. He’ll have a good reason for not coming that will make me ashamed I ever doubted him. Tonight I’ll be laughing about this with Hen, at how intense and ridiculous palace politics are, and how silly we were to ever envy them.

  I pace the room, thinking about what I’ll say when they ask me how I got the cut, if I resisted the prince’s knife. But the minutes pass too quickly. Before I have a solid strategy, footsteps sound on the tile stairs, and the apprentice steps into the room.

  Followed by the princes.

  Impossibly, as if nothing earth-shattering has happened at all, they’ve both bathed and changed since last night. Kasta to a ceremonial white tergus, his chest bare, and Jet to a blue tunic beneath light armor, the metal so new it reflects slivers of the room in its feathered shoulders. Kasta’s gaze hitches on me like an archer marking a target. But it’s Jet’s indifference that steals the feeling from my fingers. His eyes pass over me as if I’m invisible; as if I’m just another decoration in the room.

  “Aeras,” the priest says, rising. “I’m sorry to trouble you on such an important day. I won’t keep you long. But something’s come to my attention that will be of great interest to you.” He gestures to me, and I wish I could melt into the rug. “Our esteemed guest woke this morning with a peculiar mark on her arm.” He pauses, gaze flickering between them. “It seems the gods have named your sacrifice.”

  A muscle clenching in Jet’s jaw is the only reaction from either prince. Kasta must have told him he cut me, but that’s hardly the knowing smile or solemn nod I was hoping for. I’m desperate for Jet to look over, to reassure me with a glance that this is all part of our plan.

  The priest folds his hands. “You’re unusually quiet, Prince Kasta. Have you no concerns about losing your First?”

  “It is the gods’ will,” he says. “I will not question it.”

  “The gods’?” the priest says, watching him. “Or yours?”

  Kasta pulls his gaze from me, switching targets. “That’s a dangerous accusation, priest.”

  “Indeed. Which is why I’m hoping your brother can enlighten us on the truth.”

  The attention in the room turns to Jet, who looks like he’s swallowed a rattlesnake.

  “The girl claims she was cut,” the priest says. “She said you would support her story.”

  Kasta stays still as a statue, though his hands curl slowly into fists. I can barely breathe for how much I want this to be over. Almost there, I think. Almost done—

  Jet exhales, and a decisive calm falls over his face.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he says. “She must still be in shock.”

  IX

  WELL, I wasn’t in shock before. But I am now.

  “Jet!” I cry.

  He excuses himself with a bow.

  “You can’t!” I say. “Jet! Wait!”

  “That is enough,” the priest snaps. “Don’t dishonor yourself further.”

  He nods to his apprentice, who sniffs and makes space for Kasta with one arm crossed over her chest. Kasta seems as stunned as I am. He watches Jet retreat, then looks back at me.

  Perhaps the gods are at our mercy, he’d said.

  And as if he can hear me thinking it, he smiles.

  * * *

  Elin is no longer my primary attendant.

  She’s been given to Kasta’s new First, of whom not a single one of my attendants will speak, as if doing so might soil their reputations. I listen to them chatter and gossip, but their words are slippery and muffled, their touch numb against my skin. I cannot possibly be here. These can’t be my arms they’re painting with white lanterns and ancient prayers, or my body they’re wrapping in soft golden silk, or my neck upon which they’re setting a jeweled necklace that rivals the queen’s. It’s not possible they could be discussing next season’s parties and babies to be born when my world will be ending in a week.

  “Please,” I tell my new handmaiden as she dusts my temples with real silver. “Can I at least send a message to my family?” I swallow and think of Fara at his morning chores, of Mora with her potions. Of Hen, anxious and possibly committing several crimes right now in trying to get to me. “I’d just like to tell them goodbye.”

  “I’m afraid there’s no time to write one, adel.”

  “Can someone tell them I wanted to send a message?”

  “Would pearls please you, adel?”

  I blink at her, wondering if the numbness in my arms has reached my tongue. Maybe I didn’t say what I thought I said. “Parchment would please me. And a scribe.”

  “Please, adel. It would honor me if you’d state your preference.”

  “My preference is to go home and get away from all you vicious people!”

  Her lips purse. “Yes. I think the pearls will be best.”

  We’re clearly not having the same conversation. I say nothing more as she beads pearls through my new haircut, the locks now short above my neck for the desert heat and left long in the front, where they drip with glistening garnets. My mother’s head chain has been discarded, the golden links broken and empty. I clutch the dark jewel in my hand. My handmaiden clucked her tongue when I said I’d keep it, for the rune is powerless now that it’s been used, but where last night it seemed dangerous, today it feels like my mother’s hand in mine. As long as I have it, it means I intend to return it.

  It’s that single thought that keeps me from breaking into an inconsolable mess. I imagine it’s Hen’s fingers smoothing the powder on my cheeks, her expression serious as she asks when I’m planning to escape. As casually as if she were asking when I’d be done with my rounds at the stable. She would expect me to get out of this, and she would roll her eyes if I told her there wasn’t a way. Hen always finds a way.

  “Is she ready?” A copper-haired woman in a pink jole peers into the room, surveying me like a piece of art. “The ceremony is starting.”

  I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. What kind of person asks if a girl who’s being sent to her death is ready?

  “Yes, adel,” says my handmaiden, folding my dress from last night into a square. “Isn’t she lovely?”

  The woman smiles. “That color is stunning on her. It makes her eyes look gold.”

  “Someone is going to stab me with a knife,” I remind them, because I think they’re missing the point.

  “Oh yes,” my handmaiden says, beaming. “Just like in all the legends!”

  Touché.

  I do my best to convince myself I’ll find a way out of this as I walk beside the woman in pink, past the pool and the clouds reflected on its surface, through hallway after hallway painted with rivers and fields and armies. A guard follows, silent and watchful. Servants ogle me as they pass. The word sacrifice follows me like a persistent fly until I want to press my hands over my ears and scream. That’s her, everyone whispers. That’s the girl.

  “Did you say a ceremony was starting?” I ask loudly, because I need something to drown out their voices.

  “Yes,” the woman answers. “The teams are being announced to the city, and then you’ll depart.”

  My insides twist anew. I knew we’d be leaving soon from the urgent way the
servants dressed me, but I imagined I’d have a little more time at the palace, a chance to cause a distraction or otherwise slip away. Now it seems the first chance I’ll have to escape will be in the desert, which does not bode well for me and my inability to plan.

  “Here we are, dear,” my escort says as the murmurs of a crowd and the sharp voice of an announcer rattle the silence of the halls. A burst of desert heat overtakes us as we round a corner, and my breath catches in my chest.

  The entire world waits outside. At least it may as well be the entire world, for people cluster the field-wide stairs leading up to the palace entrance, the grand fountain in the courtyard, the bridge that spans the river and every nook and cranny of the market streets. A platform has been built on a cleared section of the stairs, where the Mestrah and the queen sit on thrones facing the crowds. The heirs stand before them, each flanked by two teammates—their First and their Healer. Horns sound beside me, a deep, soul-shaking noise that could silence the gods.

  A woman with light brown skin and a purple jole raises her arms from a corner of the platform. The jeweled berries in her ivy crown flash in the sun.

  “It is now my pleasure to announce,” she booms, her voice spelled to travel, “the royal heirs and their Chosen!”

  Cheers shake the foundation of the palace, vibrating like a sickness to my core. I wish I could find Hen among the faces. Gods, I hope she wasn’t arrested for trying to get to me.

  “May I first present the Mestrah’s eldest, Deathbringer and His Royal Highness, the Prince of Orkena: Kasta, son of Isa.”

  Kasta makes no recognition of this introduction, but stands with his arms behind his back and his shoulders square while the crowd gives him their appreciation. A group of nearby girls swoons over him. I feel a jab of embarrassment that I ever felt the same. If they knew what he used that strength for, they wouldn’t be so taken.