Chapter 203: Refreshing 1

EDELINA

"A blend, Your Majesty." The girl recited the ingredients with the pride of a cook presenting her finest creation. "Sunless poppies, starfall lies, and aged silverhush moss, with just a touch of valerian to soften the taste. The kitchen Omegas swear by it. It’s very gentle."

Gentle...

The word echoed in my skull as the rest of her answer fell into place.

Sunless poppies. Starfall lies. Silverhush moss.

I had grown up around herbwives and apothecaries. I knew what those ingredients could do, especially when steeped together. Poppy dragged the body into sleep. Starfall muddled the mind, blunting the instinct to resist. Silverhush drove the sleeper so deep that even a house full of screaming wolves might not rouse them. And valerian? That was merely the bitter sugar coating the knife.

Any one of those herbs could put a grown wolf to sleep for hours. Combined, they could be dangerous even to a healthy Lycan, let alone one already weakened by illness. A Queen could drink that concoction and wake to find half a day had passed, with the entire estate free to do as it pleased in her absence.

Or she might not wake at all.

My stomach tightened.

The last thing I needed was to surrender to another unnatural sleep, only to find myself back in that meadow with Lycaon hunting me through the grass. Whatever waited for me there, I would face it on my own terms. I would not willingly drug myself into helplessness.

I stared at the girl, horror and disbelief warring inside me.

Her smile faltered beneath my gaze. She tilted her head, searching my face for some sign of what had gone wrong.

"Did I do something wrong, Your Majesty?" Her voice had lost some of its earlier confidence. "I checked your allergies with the head matron, and there was nothing listed. It should be perfectly safe."

The room had begun to tilt, or perhaps the floor was perfectly steady and my body was simply losing its grip on the world. My tongue felt thick, my limbs strangely heavy. Three swallows. I had taken three full swallows of the stuff, and the cold had slid down my throat like a promise.

"You bitch," I breathed.

I was on my feet before I consciously decided to move. I tipped the glass in my haste; it rolled across the vanity as pale gold liquid spilled over the rim and dripped onto the carpet in fat, unhurried drops. I barely registered it. I was already running.

The bathroom was all cold marble and unforgiving white. I shoved the door so hard it banged against the wall, then stumbled toward the basin and dropped to my knees. My hands locked around the porcelain rim, my hair falling forward to curtain my face. For one terrible second, I could only stare into the empty basin, listening to my breath scrape in and out of my lungs.

Then I forced two fingers down my throat.

Nothing.

My body clenched, but the reflex refused to come. I pushed deeper, gagging against my own knuckles, my teeth catching the skin as my eyes watered. My stomach lurched once, violently, but all I managed to bring up was a thin string of saliva.

"Your Majesty!"

The Omega had followed me. Her slippers slapped against the marble as she hurried to my side and dropped to her knees. Her hands gathered my hair away from my face, awkward and trembling, as though she could somehow make this better by keeping a few strands out of my mouth.

"Please, Your Majesty, please. I don’t understand what I did. I only wanted to help. Please, tell me what to do."

"Shut up."

I bent over the basin and tried again.

This time, my body betrayed me.

A violent spasm seized my stomach, and the sweet, cold tea came rushing back up. It splattered against the porcelain and the front of my gown, burning my throat and stinging my nose. The taste of herbs and bile flooded my mouth. The smell hit a moment later, sharp and sour, triggering another gag before I could catch my breath.

"That is it," the girl whimpered behind me. "That is it, let it out, Your Majesty."

I couldn’t answer her. My throat was raw, my eyes streaming, and my fingers had tightened so hard around the basin that my knuckles ached. I stayed hunched over the porcelain, fighting for breath between the spasms, then shoved my fingers down my throat a third time.

My stomach twisted in on itself.

I doubled over as another convulsion tore through me, bringing up something thick and sour that coated the back of my tongue. I spat, gagged, and heaved again, but there was almost nothing left to give. Still, my body kept trying, each spasm more painful than the last, until my ribs ached and tears ran unchecked down my cheeks.

I wanted it all gone.

The tea. The herbs. Every last trace of whatever poison I’d swallowed.

I wanted my stomach emptied of the breakfast I’d skipped, the bread I’d eaten yesterday, anything that might have absorbed even a drop of that wretched concoction. I wanted to scrub myself clean from the inside out, to claw every trace of it from my blood before sleep could claim me.

Because I knew what those herbs could do.

And I was not about to close my eyes and wake up in that meadow with Lycaon again.

I forced myself to try again.

Dry heaves tore through me, wet and rasping, each one wrenching at my ribs. Tears spilled down my cheeks and into my mouth. A thin string of saliva stretched from my chin to the porcelain before breaking. My ears rang, and through the rushing in my skull, I heard a sound I had not made since I was a girl, first hearing the fate that would befall me in time; a high, animal wheeze dragged from somewhere deep in my chest.

I hated the sound. I hated the weakness of it, the helplessness.

Still, I tried a fourth time.

Safe meant certain, and I would not accept anything less. Not when I knew what those herbs could do. Not when the thought of waking in that meadow, with Lycaon hunting me through the grass, was enough to make my stomach seize all over again.

When the last spasm finally released me, I sagged over the basin, my arms trembling beneath my weight. I dragged air through my teeth in great, ragged gasps, fighting the urge to retch again. My lungs burned, my throat felt flayed raw, and damp patches clung to the front of my gown. The bathroom reeked of vomit and lavender soap, an obscene combination that made my stomach turn even when there was nothing left to bring up.

Yet beneath the pounding in my skull, I could still feel it.

That faint, insidious sweetness spreading through my body. The poppy, working its way into my blood despite everything I had done to expel it.

I coughed until my throat spasmed, then again, more weakly. Finally, I managed a full breath.

A hand began patting my back.

"There," the girl murmured. "There, Your Majesty. Better now. I will fetch you some water..."

I lifted my head.

She knelt beside me, her face pale and damp, brown hair slipping from its pins. A handful of my hair remained tangled in her fingers. She looked as though she had run a great distance, though we had barely crossed the room.

For a moment, I simply stared at her.

Then the pieces settled into place with a coldness that cut through the haze gathering in my head. The carefully measured ingredients. The insistence that the mixture was gentle. The way she had followed me here, pleading and trembling, as though her distress mattered more than the fact that I might have just been poisoned.

She looked like a girl who was very good at pretending.

I knocked her hands away.

"Do not touch me."

She recoiled so sharply that her knees scraped against the marble. Then she scrambled backward, raising both palms as if I had drawn a blade on her.

"Your Majesty, I apologize. I am so sorry. I did not know." Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard. "A sentinel came and told me you were tired. He said you needed something to help you sleep, and I thought..."

I did not even think about it when I did it. All that consumed me was rage when I hit her.