“But you were willing to murder your wife for me …” She took her eyes away from Lord Basset and fixed them upon the decanter, a sharp smile pulling at her lips. “So it turns out that I was wrong … love is far deadlier a poison than I ever imagined it to be.”
Chapter IX
Too Kind a Fate
“ONE NIGHT — YOU COULDN’T EVEN make it one bloody night!” Garron hissed from beside her.
Olivia was grateful that the black veil she wore hid her smile: Garron’s fury would’ve risen to an inconsolable height, had he seen it.
Though there hadn’t been enough of the gnarl roots to burst Lord Basset’s throat, they’d certainly kept him from breathing. The healers had just assumed that with his age and girth, his heart had simply given out. Now the wedding decorations were gone and Greenblood Manor’s grand dining room was draped entirely in black. The chairs and tables had been shoved aside to make room for the near-endless procession of seas people that tromped by to pay their respects to Lord Basset.
“I thought it would be more convenient to do it while everybody was already here — now we won’t have to wait for all the lords and ladies to trek back to Greenblood,” Olivia murmured.
A merchant stopped to offer his condolences, and Olivia dipped her head in a grateful nod. Garron held onto her arm. To the people around them, it probably looked as if he was merely supporting her — but his fingers were clenched very tightly.
“I still don’t believe you,” he hissed the moment they were alone.
The accusation in his voice annoyed her far more than the pressure of his hand. “Garron, I am many things. You’d be well within your rights to call me a murderer, a commoner, or seductress. But one thing I won’t be accused of is lying. The council moves too slowly,” she whispered, placing a hand on Garron’s. “Had I not acted when I did, Basset might never have been brought to justice.”
She ran her thumb along his scarred knuckles, and his grip loosened slowly. “Well … I still don’t approve.”
“I never expected you to.”
He fell silent as another line of mourners shuffled by. She watched his brows furrow tightly over his eyes. “Perhaps it was the kinder thing,” he whispered when they’d gone. “As long as Basset’s people believe he died of a trauma of the heart, he can go to rest with his good name firmly intact.”
Olivia hadn’t thought of that. She could’ve kicked herself. Why hadn’t she bloody well been patient? “That’s far more than he deserves,” she snarled.
“Yes … that’s why it’s called mercy,” Garron said.
And his mouth twitched in the tiniest of smiles.
When all of the mourners had gone, Garron insisted he could afford to remain in Greenblood no longer: “A ship without a rudder will always stray — and I’m afraid that’s true of my men, as well,” he added with a sigh. Then he drew a small tin from his coat pocket. “Here. Horatio insisted that I bring this along. He’s quite given up on his corpseweed tea — moving on to the next in a long list of atrocious recipes. And as you’re the only one who seemed to enjoy it, he felt you ought to have the last tin.”
Olivia cracked it open, smiling when she saw the dried, blood-red contents of the little pouches stuffed inside. “I’ve missed having corpseweed.”
“I know you have, madam,” Garron muttered, shaking his head. “And I’ve rather given up trying to understand why.”
“Perhaps I could explain it to you sometime.”
He plucked her hand away from his collar buttons and said with a frown: “Just try to behave, will you?”
Olivia waited until he’d marched out the door before she plodded upstairs — her teeth already bared against her fate.
Now that the Bassets were gone, the whole running of Greenblood would be dropped directly into her hands. Tristan would see to that: he’d want someone he could control running the island. And unless Olivia wanted to be hanged before the council, she’d do as he said.
No fewer than three servants stopped her on the way up, each armed with a whole list of questions about what should be put where, or who should oversee which operations. There were so many tiny little concerns spewing off each one of their tongues that Olivia had to wonder if Greenblood could continue to float without her there to command it not to sink.
“Ask Carlton — he’ll be able to tell you everything you want to know,” Olivia snapped.
The hurried steps paused behind her. One of the servants gasped. “The — the stablehand, my lady?”
“Yes,” Olivia said, smirking as she felt the air freeze behind her. “Yes, Carlton’s been around long enough to know what I expect from everybody. You’ll take all of your questions straight to him. Let him know he’s in charge, will you?” she called over her shoulder as she neared the third floor landing. “And tell him I’ll be deeply upset if he fails me.”
She left the servants to their indignant tittering, a smile upon her lips. Putting a stablehand in charge of an island? Now that was precisely the sort of thing Garron would’ve done. Carlton might’ve been a bit simple — but it was one of his better qualities.
With the closing of her chamber door came instant relief: a slight rain pattered against the sill of an opened window, the flames snapped furiously in the hearth. And for the first moment since she’d accepted Lord Basset’s proposal, Olivia was blissfully alone.
The maids had wrinkled their noses when Olivia requested a pot for tea be hung above her fire, but did as they were told. The boiling water strained through the tea leaves, turning it as black as a corpseweed’s stem. A faint aroma drifted from the cup — one so subtle it was almost more feeling than smell. The fumes drifted straight to Olivia’s head and plunged down into the streams of her blood, calming them.
Memories of her evenings in Pinewatch came back to her: the scratching of Garron’s quill, the creak of trees just outside the door, the hours spent sprawled before the hearth after her sparring lessons — trying to coax the ache from her limbs.
When she added a bit of milk to the cup, the brew turned lavender. She liked that very much: the fact that something that appeared to be so deep and black actually hid a surprising color. All it needed was a bit of white to coax it out, a bit of something mild and soft …
Perhaps that was what Garron had been hoping for all this time. Perhaps he’d been certain that she had a bit of color in her, and he was going to be the thing that drew it out. Had she been her own creature, she might’ve had her own color. But Olivia wasn’t her own creature.
She belonged to The Poison.
When her cup was full, she turned to the hearth. It took half a moment to hang the pot back into place — no more than three breaths’ worth. But by the time she turned around, Olivia was no longer alone.
Tristan sat at her table.
He must’ve come in through the window: his hair was damp and dripping, his black coat darkened by the rain. He lounged, one leg crossed over the other, in her high-backed chair. “I thought that was going to be the difficult bit, convincing you to get Basset out of the way … but you did it yourself.”
“And for my own reasons,” Olivia snarled. She slid one foot carefully behind her. The iron hearth poker leaned against the wall, just out of her reach. If he so much as shifted towards her, she would give him the fight of his life.
She would no longer be beaten.
But Tristan didn’t move. His eyes were fixed upon her cup of tea — alive with dark amusement. “I must admit, I think I’ve rather fallen in love with this little island. Its lagoons are teeming with fish, its trees heavy with fruit, and the liquors Basset has managed to tease from its flesh are as sickly sweet as they are intoxicating. I always thought it a shame that he only brewed them for himself. Now the whole Kingdom will get to taste them.
“You played the grieving bride most convincingly, I might add.” Tristan’s long fingers wrapped around the tiny silver spoon that had been settled beside the cup, engulfing it. “I was nearly driven to tears mys
elf, just watching.”
They both knew full well that Tristan had never once shed a tear. She doubted if he was even able to. “Well, now Basset’s dead. You’ve gotten want you want. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to have a day’s peace before you send me off on another murder.”
“There will be no more murders.” Tristan clinked the spoon obnoxiously against the cup’s mouth as he stirred the lavender brew. “You’ll stay here and run Greenblood for me. You’ll make certain my ships are stocked with liquors. There’s war brewing in the Kingdom … I imagine people will be more eager than ever to forget their troubles. We’re going to turn spirits into the Kingdom’s currency, you see. We’re going to turn its sorrows into gold.
“And you’re going to be my chief miner, Olivia. Oh, I might ask you to slip something into a few bottles here or there, but you needn’t know anymore than that,” he said quietly, his eyes finally dragging up to hers. “I’m going to use Greenblood and your charming little poisons to control the war. I’m going to make certain the most deserving side wins out.”
Olivia knew nothing of a war in the Kingdom and frankly, she didn’t care to. Her fists clenched and her mouth twisted into a snarl for an entirely different reason: “You’re going to keep me here? You’re going to trap me forever on this bloody island?”
Tristan stopped stirring. “Yes. You’ve become a liability, I’m afraid.”
“How so?”
“I saw you with the Shrewd today … saw how you allowed him to stay so near when you keep every other man at a distance. And you’ve certainly spent a rather unhealthy amount of time in the forest. You’ve gone soft, as women often do. It isn’t your fault, understand — softness is merely a flaw of your gender. I was a fool to think you’d be any different.”
He took the tea in one of his large hands and brought it delicately to his lips. He drank, watching over the cup while Olivia fumed. “I won’t do it. I won’t be trapped. You can’t —”
“I can,” he murmured. He took another sip of tea and winced at the flavor, but kept it stubbornly in his hands. “I can — ahem, ah — I can do whatever I please.”
Something like blood coated Olivia’s tongue. She spun back to the hearth; she locked her eyes onto the flames and dug her nails in deep. They bit through her flesh and a thin, warm line began trailing its way down her arm. But not even the pain was enough, this time.
She felt something horrible pressing against the backs of her eyes, beneath her skin. It was the thing that drowned The Poison. It would leave her vulnerable and helpless, as it had the last time she’d dared to cry … as it had the day Tristan murdered her mother.
The tears would wash her away and force her to start all over again. She would meet the crashing of the tide with a body made of sand. She didn’t know what new creature would rise from the depths …
But she feared it would be even more terrible and monstrous than the last.
“Or I suppose there’s a third choice,” Tristan murmured, rising to his feet. “I could grab you by the hair and hurl you out this chamber window. Everyone would assume you’d jumped, of course — and after the many convincing tears you shed today, there’d be no reason to doubt that you’d simply been overcome by sorrow. Perhaps that would be …”
Olivia had spun around at the mention of being hurled out the chamber window. She grabbed the iron poker and was prepared to battle for her life. But for some reason, Tristan hadn’t advanced.
He stood frozen before the chair, staring past her — his mouth half-open. The pits around his eyes suddenly seemed darker. Perhaps it was because his skin had gone pale.
His tongue dragged across his lips before he straightened. “But as I’m feeling particularly generous today, I’ll allow you to live — provided you never cross me.”
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought Tristan’s chin might’ve trembled a bit as he turned towards the open window. He glowered at it for a moment, teeth bared. Then quite suddenly, marched for the door.
“Out of my way, girl,” he barked. He shoved past her and was nearly there when his boot caught on an uneven patch of stone. He stumbled …
And that was something Tristan never did.
“Please! Don — ah!”
But Olivia didn’t stop. She lashed him mercilessly — slamming the poker against his upraised arm, against his wrist and finally, to the side of his head. He dropped to the ground and could do little more than moan as the iron cracked his ribs. She stubbed a toe breaking his nose.
But it was worth it.
“Please … please!” he said thickly.
Olivia’s breaths tore against her lungs. They wailed inside their cage and nearly ripped from her chest as she braced the poker’s tip against the pulsing vein in Tristan’s throat …
No.
No, death was far too kind a fate for Tristan. He’d taken everything from her, tormented her all these years — held her so forcefully beneath his thumb. If she killed him now, the thrill that rushed through her veins would hiss and die out. But if she let him live, let him suffer … oh, The Poison might thrill and ache for years to come. She could press him under her thumb. She could make certain he was paid back.
It took every ounce of her will to draw that point away, to deny herself the pleasure of feeling him wriggle against Death. Her legs shook as she paced back to the chair. A smile bent her lips as she sat.
Tristan lay in a puddle upon the floor. An arc of blood ringed his head; he whimpered as he tried to lift his bruised hand. She swore she could see the agony in his eyes as his lungs expanded against his cracked ribs.
She watched him for a moment, reveling in the ebb and flow of The Poison’s embrace — grinning against the revelation that Garron had been wrong:
Corpseweed was poisonous.
The properties of the tea seemed to have had a peculiar affect on Tristan. She’d found the sharp brew to be rather relaxing: it didn’t allow her to worry, it loosened the tightness in her limbs. But though she supposed a human would’ve enjoyed the calming of his mind, a whisperer who was rather dependent upon its powers might find it … crippling.
“What will you … do with … me?” Tristan moaned between shallow breaths.
One thought came to her — plunging in among The Poison, softening the deep black of her desires: if she truly wanted Tristan to suffer, she would have to think like Garron.
“I’m going to let you live,” she said quietly. “I’m even going to let you keep your office. But there’s one thing I need you to understand, and it’s very important: you work for me now, chancellor. You do as I say.”
His mouth twisted into a snarl. “If I … refuse?”
“Then I’ll kill you. If you try to go to the council, then I’ll expose you for the murderous rat you are — and they’ll kill you. Garron’s been keeping track of things for me, and I think you’ll find his accounts to be very, very detailed.”
“Garron …?”
“Yes. Garron and I have been working together for a long while, now. And I’m afraid he made me a better offer. He knows the formula, as well,” she added, when she saw the plan forming beneath the pained film over Tristan’s eyes. “So if you kill me, he’ll end you. And if you try to kill him … well, you’d better hope Death finds you before I do.”
It was all a monstrous lie: she was fairly certain Garron knew nothing about the corpseweed’s true powers, and she didn’t think he’d actually been keeping track of her murders — though as he seemed to keep track of nearly everything else, she supposed it was possible.
But Tristan knew nothing of this. All he knew was his pain, the taste of his own blood, and the smile upon Olivia’s lips. He didn’t need to know any more than that.
“Do we have an understanding, chancellor?”
He moaned unintelligibly through the blood that coated his face.
Olivia made to stand.
“Yes!” he gasped, eyes growing wide at the sight of the poker. “Yes, we have a bloody underst
anding!”
“Good.”
Olivia stood and headed for the door — laughing when Tristan broke into sobs. Without his whisperer’s strength to mask it, he’d been stripped down to the sniveling coward she always knew he was.
There was a guardsman pacing at the end of the hallway. Olivia waved him down. “Send for Carlton. Tell him to ready his wagon and bring along one of his largest feed sacks. I have something I need shipped back to the chancellor’s castle immediately.”
She listened to the clink of the guardsman’s armor as he hurried down the stairs, her heart pounding in the thrill of what she’d just done. Then she drew a dagger from beneath her collar — one already tainted with a numbing poison.
She was eager to see if Tristan would be so resistant without the powers of his mind.
“Oliv … Olivia,” Tristan moaned from behind her. His face paled to the color of snow as he managed to roll over onto his back; he choked against his blood. “What was in — gah! In that … tea?”
“I’ll never tell,” she murmured as she stepped in beside him. She crouched so she could reach him, grabbed a fistful of his hair so she could wrench his head back — so she could force him to look into her eyes as she whispered: “And from now on, you’ll call me by another name — the name you stole from me. You will call me D’Mere.”
Chapter X
A Name Reclaimed
IT WAS NEARING THE MIDDLE of the night. Olivia leaned against the belly of a wide oak, listening to the ghostly whisper of the canopy above her. The snow had only just melted from this stretch of the Grandforest, but the air was still sharp — it stung the noises and scents of the woods, brought them to life with a yelp. She breathed them in, using their simple tones to calm The Poison.
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 261
