The top sheet of parchment covered all but the bottom portion of the sheet beneath it. Once he had signed, she took both away and then put them on the side table. Ignoring him, she sprinkled some sand over his signature before shaking it off.
“Give me the antidote!” he cried again.
Carefully, Elise laid the bottom sheet on top, making sure it was well displayed. Then she went to Airedale and handed him the vial. “Here you are. A sweet treat for a very wicked boy.”
Unstoppering the vial, he held it up and waited while the thick viscous liquid dripped into his mouth. It was surprisingly sweet—like honey. “What is this?” he asked.
Elise winked at him. “Honey. I’m afraid there’s no antidote for the poison I gave you. It’s nasty stuff. That’s why I had to wear gloves. Even a drop on the skin can cause terrible damage or even death, not to mention stains. There’s only one true solution to the pain you’re about to experience, Lord Airedale, if you’re brave enough.”
The burning had spread to his arms, and his shaking was growing steadily worse. “What?” he asked.
She went to where he had left his clothes and sorted through them for a moment before retrieving his belt and handing it to him. His knife was still in its sheath. “Slit your wrists,” she told him coldly. “Or if you’ve really got balls, stab yourself in the heart.”
“I can’t!” he said, horrified. A sudden jerk of his back and legs sent him tumbling to the floor. Painful spasms were starting in his muscles.
“You should hurry,” said Elise compassionately. “Once you start to convulse, you won’t have the option.”
She waited. It was more than a quarter of an hour before Airedale finally jerked the blade across his wrist. Though she hadn’t used the poison in several decades, she had already known what the outcome would be. They always chose to end the pain. The lie about the seizures just helped them decide sooner.
While David Airedale bled out on the floor, staring at her with hateful eyes, she collected the vial that had held her fake antidote and then examined the room once more to make sure she had left nothing undone. Wistfully, she looked at the letter on the side table. “Suicide,” she said sadly. “What a terrible thing to do, and it looked like you had everything a man could want.” She moved to the door, before glancing back. “It just shows, you never know what sadness lies in the hearts of others. Say hello to your father for me, when you see him.”
Then she left. Ordinarily, she would have stayed, to make sure her target met his end, but in David Airedale’s case, there was no point. Even if someone found him and bound up his wound, he would be unable to tell them what had happened. Dying was the best he could hope for, and in any case, no one in the Airedale household would be waking up to save him until morning. He would be cold and stiff long before that.
As she crept out of the house that morning, carrying a large basket of dirty laundry, Elise reflected on her past. Since marrying her late-husband, she had led a relatively peaceful life, largely free of the things she had been forced to do in her youth, but tonight was a dark reminder. Her only consolation was that at least now, she was the one who decided who needed to die, and she felt very little remorse for David Airedale.
Coming in the Summer of 2018:
Transcendence and Rebellion
Stay up to date with my release by signing up for my newsletter at:
Magebornbooks.com
Books by Michael G. Manning:
Mageborn:
The Blacksmith’s Son
The Line of Illeniel
The Archmage Unbound
The God-Stone War
The Final Redemption
Embers of Illeniel (a prequel series):
The Mountains Rise
The Silent Tempest
Betrayer’s Bane
Champions of the Dawning Dragons:
Thornbear
Centyr Dominance
Demonhome
The Riven Gates:
Mordecai
The Severed Realm
More to be announced
Standalone Novels:
Thomas
About the Author
Michael Manning was born in Cleveland, Texas and spent his formative years there, reading fantasy and science fiction, concocting home grown experiments in his backyard, and generally avoiding schoolwork.
Eventually he went to college, starting at Sam Houston State University, where his love of beer blossomed and his obsession with playing role-playing games led him to what he calls ‘his best year ever’ and what most of his family calls ‘the lost year’.
Several years and a few crappy jobs later, he decided to pursue college again and was somehow accepted into the University of Houston Honors program (we won’t get into the particulars of that miracle). This led to a degree in pharmacy and it followed from there that he wound up with a license to practice said profession.
Unfortunately, Michael was not a very good pharmacist. Being relatively lawless and free spirited were not particularly good traits to possess in a career focused on perfection, patient safety, and the letter-of-the-law. Nevertheless, he persisted and after a stint as a hospital pharmacy manager wound up as a pharmacist working in correctional managed care for the State of Texas.
He gave drugs to prisoners.
After a year or two at UTMB he became bored and taught himself entirely too much about networking, programming, and database design and administration. At first his supervisors warned him (repeatedly) to do his assigned tasks and stop designing programs to help his coworkers do theirs, but eventually they gave up and just let him do whatever he liked since it seemed to be generally working out well for them.
Ten or eleven years later and he got bored with that too. So he wrote a book. We won’t talk about where he was when he wrote ‘The Blacksmith’s Son’, but let’s just assume he was probably supposed to be doing something else at the time.
Some people liked the book and told other people. Now they won’t leave him alone.
After another year or two, he decided to just give up and stop pretending to be a pharmacist/programmer, much to the chagrin of his mother (who had only ever wanted him to grow up to be a doctor and had finally become content with the fact that he had settled on pharmacy instead).
Michael’s wife supported his decision, even as she stubbornly refused to believe he would make any money at it. It turned out later that she was just telling him this because she knew that nothing made Michael more contrary than his never ending desire to prove her wrong. Once he was able to prove said fact she promptly admitted her tricky ruse and he has since given up on trying to win.
Today he lives at home with his stubborn wife, teenage twins, a giant moose-poodle, two yorkies, a green-cheeked conure, a massive prehistoric tortoise, and a head full of imaginary people. There are also some fish, but he refuses to talk about them.
The Severed Realm Page 41
