Poison Study

by Maria V. Snyder

  Mogkan’s power gripped me like a giant’s fist around my rib cage. I yelped in pain and dropped the Commander’s hand. I stood on weak legs beside the bed just as Valek yanked his sword from the last guard’s dead body.

  “Stop or she dies,” Mogkan ordered.

  Valek froze. Three more guards hustled into the room, Brazell on their heels. They surrounded Valek. Taking his sword, they forced him to his knees with his hands on his head.

  “Go ahead, General. Kill her,” Mogkan said, stepping back to let Brazell pass. “I should have let you slit her throat the first day she arrived.”

  “Why listen to Mogkan?” I asked Brazell. “He’s not to be trusted.” Pain crawled along my spine as Mogkan turned his burning eyes upon me.

  “What do you mean?” Brazell demanded. He gripped his sword as he glanced from me to Mogkan.

  Mogkan laughed. “She’s only trying to delay the inevitable.”

  “Like when you tried to delay the Sitian treaty negotiations by poisoning the cognac? Or were you aiming to stop the delegation altogether?” I asked him.

  Mogkan’s shock revealed his guilt. Although surprise touched Valek’s face, he remained silent. His body tensed, ready to spring into action.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Brazell said.

  “Mogkan wants to avoid contact with the southerners. They would know about—” My throat closed. I clawed at my neck, unable to breathe.

  Brazell turned on Mogkan. His square face creased with anger. “What have you been up to?”

  “We don’t need a treaty with Sitia. We were getting our supplies without any problems. But you wouldn’t listen to me. You had to be greedy. After establishing a trade treaty it would only be a matter of time before we’d have southerners crossing the border, sniffing around, finding us.” Mogkan showed no fear of Brazell, only anger that he had to explain his actions. “Now, do you want to kill her or should I?”

  Spots spun in my eyes as my vision blurred. Before Brazell could answer, Mogkan staggered. His hold on me slipped slightly, releasing my airway. I gasped for air.

  “My children!” Mogkan roared. “Even without them, I still have more power than you!”

  Like a fish on a hook, I was yanked off my feet and hurled against the wall. My head banged on the stone. Pinned in midair, Mogkan’s power pelted me. Each blow felt like a boulder crashing into me. This is it, I thought. Reyad was right; becoming the food taster had just delayed the inevitable.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Valek fighting his guards as he tried to reach Mogkan. Too late for me. With a final surge of strength, I mentally reached out. I hit an impenetrable barrier as I felt my consciousness drain. Blackness filled my world.

  Then Irys’s voice was there in my mind, soothing. “Here,” she said, “let me help you.” Pure power flowed into me. I re-constructed my mental shield and deflected Mogkan’s onslaught, pushing him back. He crashed into the opposite wall with a satisfying thud.

  Confusion reigned in the Commander’s chambers. Inexperienced with magic as I was, I couldn’t restrain Mogkan. He bolted from the room. With a knife in his hand, Valek fought three guards with swords. As I rushed to help Valek, Brazell grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him.

  He raised his sword. Murder blazed in his eyes. I jumped back to avoid the first swing of his sword and bumped against the Commander’s bed. I leaped onto the bed to avoid Brazell’s next swing. I glanced down. The Commander’s gaze was still fixed on the ceiling. Brazell’s third swing severed one of the bedposts.

  As I dived from the end of the bed to avoid another blow, I seized the post from the floor.

  Now I was armed. The post wasn’t balanced properly for a bow, but it was thick. Better than nothing.

  Brazell was a powerful opponent. Each swing of his sword hacked chunks out of my weapon.

  At first, he scoffed at my attempts to fight him. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re a skinny nothing. I’ll gut you in two moves.”

  When I found my mental zone of power, he stopped wasting his breath. Even sensing his next attack, I still scrambled to stay one step ahead of him. My wooden post was no match for his sword.

  Reyad’s ghost materialized in the room. He cheered his father on, trying to distract me. His tactics worked. My back hit the wall. Brazell’s sword split my post in half.

  “You’re dead.” With gleeful satisfaction, Brazell pulled his sword back to slash at my neck. But I still held a part of the wood. As his sword swung close, I deflected the weapon downward with my broken post. The tip cut across my waist. The sound of ripping fabric accompanied a line of fire across my stomach. Blood soaked the ripped ends of my uniform shirt.

  Then Brazell made his first error. Thinking I was finished, he relaxed his guard. But I was still on my feet. I raised my weapon. With desperate strength, I struck him across the temple. We crumpled to the floor together.

  I gazed at the ceiling, trying to regain my breath. Valek hovered over me. I shooed him away. “Find Mogkan.” He disappeared from my view.

  Once strength returned to my limbs, I examined my wound. Running a finger along the gash, I thought all I needed was some of Rand’s glue.

  Reyad’s ghost floated over me, sneering. I couldn’t bear lying on the ground with him in the room. Cursing and bleeding, I stood.

  “You.” I stabbed a bloody finger at him. “Go away.”

  “Make me,” he challenged.

  How could I fight a ghost? I moved into a defensive stance. He scoffed. No, not a physical fight, a mental one.

  I thought about what I had accomplished in the year and a half since I had slit Reyad’s throat. Overcoming my fears to make friends. Confronting my enemies. Finding love. How I felt about myself. Who I was. I looked into the gilded floor-length mirror of the Commander’s room. My hair was wild. My shirt soaked with blood. My face streaked with dirt. Almost the same reflection when I first became the food taster. But this time there was something different. The shadows of doubt were gone.

  I peered deeper and found my soul. A little tattered and with some holes, but there all the same. It had always been there, I realized with a shock. If Reyad and Mogkan had truly driven it from me, I would be chained to a floor right now and not standing over Brazell’s unconscious form.

  I was in control. This new person in the mirror was free. Free of all poisons. I glanced at Brazell. He was still breathing, but I was in charge of him and of myself. In command. No longer a victim. No longer the rat caught in the metal jaws of a trap.

  “Be gone,” I ordered Reyad’s ghost. His shocked expression gave me great joy as he vanished.

  But joy was like a butterfly alighting on a hand; a brief rest before flying away.

  “Janco’s hurt.” Irys’s alarmed voice resounded in my skull. “We need a medic. Come now.”

  Using manacles from a dead guard’s belt, I handcuffed Brazell to the heavy bed. Then I bolted from the room. I raced through the corridors. He can’t die, I thought. Not Janco. I wouldn’t be able to bear his death. Horrible scenarios played in my mind. I was so preoccupied that I rushed right toward Valek and Mogkan without even recognizing them.

  They dueled with swords. The reason the scene had taken a while to clarify in my mind was because Mogkan had the upper hand. Valek’s pale face was haggard. He swung his sword as if it was a dead weight. His natural grace had fled, and what remained were sporadic, jerky movements. Mogkan, on the other hand, was quick and competent, technically accurate, but lacking style.

  My disbelief and concern grew as I watched the match. What was wrong with Valek? Was it Mogkan’s magic? No, Valek was immune to it, I thought. Then realization dawned. Valek had said being close to a magician felt like wading in thick syrup. And Valek had fought seven guards in the Commander’s room after spending the last two days in the dungeon without food or sleep. Exhaustion had finally caught up to him.

  Mogkan’s grin widened when he spotted me hovering nearby. He executed a lightning-quick
feint, and then lunged. Valek’s sword clattered to the floor as a crimson slash snaked up his arm.

  “What an incredible day!” Mogkan exclaimed. “I get to kill the famous Valek and the infamous Yelena at the same time.”

  I triggered my switchblade. Mogkan laughed. He sent me a magical command to drop my weapon.

  Just as my hand released the blade, I heard Irys’s voice in my head. “Yelena, what’s wrong? Did you find the medic?”

  “I need help!” I cried in my mind. Power swelled inside me, pushing to break free. I aimed a finger of power toward Mogkan. His sword dropped from his hand. Terror gripped his face as the magic swaddled him like a baby, then tightened like a noose. He was paralyzed, rooted to the floor.

  “You rat-spawned daughter of a demon!” Mogkan cursed. “You’re a blight on this earth. An incarnation of hell. You’re just like the rest of them. The Zaltana bloodline should be burned out, erased, exterminated…”

  Mogkan raged on, but I ceased to listen. Valek picked up my switchblade. Mogkan’s curses grew louder and more frantic as Valek approached him. A blur of movement, a shriek of pain, then Mogkan was finally silent. His body sank into a heap on the ground.

  Valek handed me the bloody knife. With an exhausted bow, he said, “My love, for you.”

  32

  I GASPED, REMEMBERING. “Janco!” Grabbing Valek’s arm, I dragged him with me, explaining between huffs of breath. Still wearing Brazell’s colors, although torn and bloodstained, we roused the medic, who, with peevish annoyance, fussed about protocol and proper authority until Valek drew his knife.

  My stomach heaved when we entered Reyad’s wing. The hallway leading to the captives’ room was gruesome. Soldiers littered the floor, pieces of arms and legs were scattered about as if someone had hacked their way through them. The walls were splattered with blood and pools of scarlet dotted the floor.

  The medic wanted to stop at the first man, but Valek yanked him to his feet. Stepping carefully around the bodies, we reached the doorway. Just inside, I saw Janco lying on his side with his head in Ari’s lap. He was unconscious, which was a good thing since a sword had skewered his stomach, the bloody tip poking from his back. Ari’s gore-splashed face held a grim expression. A crimson-coated ax, the weapon responsible for the carnage in the hallway, rested next to him. Irys sat cross-legged in the center of the circle of emaciated people. Her brow glistened with sweat. Her expression was distant. The chained women and men viewed the scene with dispassionate eyes.

  The trip to the infirmary was a chaotic nightmare. Everything blurred together like a whirlwind until I found myself lying in a bed next to Janco, holding his hand. The medic did his best, but if the sword had pierced any vital organs or if there was internal bleeding, Janco wouldn’t survive. Twice during the night Ari and I despaired that we would lose him.

  My own wound had been cleaned and sealed with Rand’s glue, but I hardly noticed or cared about the throbbing pain. I aimed all my energy and strength toward Janco, willing him to live.

  Late the next day, I woke from a light doze.

  “Sleeping on the job?” Janco whispered with a weak smile on his ashen face.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Surely if he was strong enough to insult me, then he was on his way to recovery.

  Unfortunately, Irys couldn’t say the same about the Commander. Four days after Mogkan’s death, he still hadn’t regained his spirit. His advisers had rebounded from their brief ensorcellment, and they had commandeered Brazell’s manor while waiting for the Commander to return. They assumed temporary control of the Military District. Messengers were sent north to General Tesso of MD–4 and west to General Hazal of MD–6, requesting their immediate presence. The Generals would have the authority to determine what the next step would be in case the Commander failed to revive.

  Just as confusing was the fact that none of Brazell, Mogkan and Reyad’s victims woke to Irys’s probing. She had tried to enter their minds, to break through to where their self-awareness was hiding. Irys reported that their minds were like abandoned houses, fully furnished, with embers still smoking in the fireplace, but no one home.

  Irys and I resigned ourselves to the knowledge that the victims would live out their days unaware of their new comfortable surroundings in Brazell’s guest wing. I mourned over the loss of my friend Carra. Irys had sought out the rooms used by the orphans, and reported that May was still there, alive and well. I planned to visit with May as soon as Janco regained some of his strength.

  “It’s obvious that the children in Brazell’s orphanage were kidnapped from Sitia,” Irys explained, visiting me in the infirmary at Janco’s bedside.

  “Mogkan’s ring of child thieves spaced their abductions far enough apart to avoid detection. Magic is usually stronger in women, and that explains why there are more girls. The kidnappers targeted bloodlines where magic was present, although they took a gamble with children that young. There’s no way to be sure the power will develop. Mogkan and Brazell must have planned this for a long time.” Irys raked her fingers through her long brown hair. “Finding your family shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  I blinked at her in shock. “You’re joking. Right?”

  “Why would I joke?” She was unaware of the emotional tailspin she’d caused me.

  She was right, joking wasn’t her style, so I thought for a moment. “Before he died, Mogkan said something about the Zaltana bloodline.”

  “Zaltana!” Wiping away her usual serious expression, Irys laughed. It was like the sun coming out after weeks of rain. “I think they did lose a girl. My goodness, you’re in for a real surprise if you’re part of the Zaltana clan. That would explain why you alone didn’t cave in under Mogkan’s spell.”

  Questions hovered on my lips. I wanted to know more about this family, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. There was the possibility that I wasn’t a Zaltana. I guess I would find out when I reached Sitia. Irys wanted to start my magical training right away.

  Uneasiness hovered in my chest whenever I thought of leaving Ixia. I changed the subject. “How’s the Commander?”

  Irys confessed her frustration. “He’s different from the children. There’s nothing in their minds, but he’s retreated to a white place. If I can only find where he is, then I might be able to bring him back.”

  I considered this for a while, and thought back to a time in the war room when I had fallen asleep. “May I try?”

  “Why not?”

  I made sure Janco was comfortable and had everything he desired. Irys accompanied me to the Commander’s room. The bodies had been removed and someone had attempted to clean up. I perched on the edge of the Commander’s bed and took his cold hand in mine. Following Irys’s instructions, I closed my eyes, sending my mental awareness toward him.

  My feet crunched on ice. A cold wind stabbed my face and filled my lungs with tiny daggers. Dazzling white surrounded me. Diamond dust or snowflakes, it was hard to tell. I walked for a while and was immediately confused by the sparkling blizzard. Stumbling through the storm, I fought to remain calm and to remind myself that I was not lost. Whenever I took a step forward, the icy wind drove me back.

  I was about to admit defeat, when I remembered why I had thought I could find the Commander. Focusing on the scene of a young woman exalting over a slain snow cat caused the wind to stop and the blizzard to clear. I stood next to Ambrose.

  She was dressed in heavy white hunting furs that resembled the skin of the cat.

  “Come back,” I said.

  “I can’t,” she said, pointing into the distance.

  Thin black bars surrounded us on all sides. A birdcage was my first impression, but upon closer scrutiny I could see that the bars were soldiers armed with swords.

  “Every time I tried to leave, they pushed me back.” Fury flamed in her face before dying into weary.

  “But you’re the Commander.”

  “Not here. Here I am just Ambrosia trapped inside my mistake of a body. Th
e soldiers know about my curse.”

  I searched my mind for a reply. The guards didn’t belong to Mogkan, they belonged to her. My eyes were drawn to the snow cat’s carcass. “How did you kill the cat?”

  Her face came alive as she recounted how she had bathed in snow-cat scent and spent weeks cloaked in snow-cat furs, pretending to be one of the animals until they allowed her to be part of their pack. In the end it was only a matter of time and the perfect opportunity to make the kill.

  “Proof that I was really a man. That I had won the right to be a man.”

  “Then perhaps you need to wear your prize,” I suggested. “Skins will not help you against that lot.” I jerked my head at the ring of guards.

  Comprehension widened the woman’s golden eyes. She gazed at the slain cat, then morphed into the Commander. Her shoulder-length hair shortened into his buzz cut, fine lines of age growing on her face as he emerged. The white furs dropped to the ground as his wrinkle-free uniform materialized. He stepped away from the skins, kicking them dismissively.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” I said. “She’s a part of you. You might need her again.”

  “And do I need you, Yelena? Can I trust you to keep my mutation a secret?” the Commander asked with a fierce intensity.

  “I came here to bring you back. Isn’t that answer enough?”

  “Valek swore me a blood oath of loyalty when I carved my initial on his chest. Would you do the same?”

  “Does Valek know about Ambrosia?” I asked.

  “No. You haven’t answered my question.”

  I showed the Commander Valek’s butterfly. “I wear this against my chest. I’ve pledged my loyalty to Valek, who is faithful to you.”

  The Commander reached for the butterfly. I stood still as he removed it from my necklace. He took a knife from the skins and sliced it across his right palm. Holding the pendant in his bloody hand, he extended the knife toward me. I held out my right hand, wincing as the knife bit into it. Our blood mixed as I shook his hand with the butterfly wedged between our palms. When he released his grip, Valek’s gift was in my hand. I returned it to its proper place over my heart.