Nash cries out and scurries away. Jaku is asking what happened. I’m screaming on the inside because I can’t control myself. I can’t do anything but feel my hand aim for Nash again as the First Queen prepares to shoot him again.
A second dart slips out and hits Nash in the arm. He weaves across the room, toward the door, as she aims again. I’m counting in my head, hoping against all hope that he’ll get out before I get to three. A third dart flies through the air and pierces his leg.
Jaku jumps across the room in a few long leaps and knocks the dart flinger from my hand.
Tinkling laugh fills the room. It comes from my mouth, but it doesn’t sound like me.
The presence of the First Queen withdraws as sudden as it came.
“Nash, are you all right?” is the first thing out of my mouth. “Jaku, send for Venda. Quick.”
“I’m fine.” But Nash’s words are slurred.
Jaku’s at the door, calling for a servant to run and get Venda. Puneah stalks out of my room and reaches Nash as he falls to the floor. She nudges his face with her nose, but he doesn’t respond.
“Nash, you have to wake up. You have to be all right.” I'm desperate.
Venda said only three darts wouldn’t kill, but I’m still worried because the poison has the potential to be lethal. Three is a lot—almost a deadly amount. What if something bad happens to him? What if there are long-term side effects? Why—oh why—did I agree to take the dart flinger from Venda?
Jaku is at Nash’s side, feeling for a pulse underneath Puneah’s watchful gaze. “He’s still alive.”
“Venda said only three shots wouldn’t kill. She said it takes all five, but I don’t know. I don’t think he’s been exposed to something like this before.” And then, I remember. “Quick, grab my poison pouch from around my neck. There’s a powder in there that counteracts most poisons.”
Jaku rushes to me and reaches for the cord that holds the pouch around my neck. It takes him a moment of fumbling with the cord, and then he gets it and pulls it over my head. It becomes tangled in my hair, and he stops to loosen it.
“Just yank it,” I yell.
He does, and I grit my teeth against the pain, but the pouch comes free. Jaku opens it and rifles through the contents. He pulls out another, smaller, black pouch. “Is this it?”
“No. That’ll kill him. It’s the light green one.”
He flounders before pulling out a green pouch.
“Not that one. Light green.” I try not to let frustration creep into my voice, but it’s there.
Finally, he pulls out the right pouch.
“Yes, that one. Give him several pinches’ worth. Put it under his tongue, if possible,” I say.
He scrambles back to Nash. Between him and Puneah, I can’t see what’s going on. I want to know if Nash is safe. Want to know Androlla didn’t end his life. She can’t take away the man I love, even if I can never have him. We’ve been through too much for me to lose him.
Venda bursts through the door, guards pouring in after her.
“Nash is injured. You have to help him.” The words tumble from my lips.
She takes in sight before her and says, “What have you done, you foolish girl?”
Jaku jumps out of her way, and Puneah comes to my side and nudges my hand. My traitorous hand.
We’re quiet while Venda looks him over and pulls the darts out of him. “Only three?”
“Yes,” Jaku answers for me. “Ryn had me give him some type of antidote.”
“It was hulic,” I say.
“That will help.” But her words come out angry. She takes something out of a pocket and waves it over him while chanting something under her breath.
The air is heavy with my betrayal. The lack of noise makes me want to scream for Nash. Tell him to wake up. To come back to me. That I didn’t mean it.
But Nash lies still.
“Is he…” I can’t finish the thought.
Venda glares at me. “Silence.”
I swallow my guilt as she goes back to chanting and waving the object over his body. The image is too much like what I last saw of Wilric, struggling for breath. He didn’t make it. Will the same happen to Nash, or will Venda be able to save him?
She drops her hand. “A bowl. Quickly.”
Jaku hurries to my room and is in the door with my washstand bowl in his hands when Nash jerks and vomits. Venda rolls him onto his side as he continues to be sick.
As much as I don’t want to see him like this, my worry eases from seeing him react—do something other than coldly lie there.
Until Venda says, “He’s not clear yet.”
“What do you mean?” Fear ebbs its way into my chest.
“If he has a bad reaction to it, the poison can be as deadly as if he’d been hit five times.”
“Bad reaction? He’s throwing up,” Jaku says.
“You should have told me there could be a bad reaction,” I practically yell.
Venda looks at me. “I didn’t want to scare you. I wanted you to protect yourself.” She turns her gaze to Jaku. “He would vomit regardless. What we are watching for now is seizures.”
Please tell me this isn’t happening.
Venda calls servants in to clean up the mess as she keeps an attentive eye on Nash. He’s still on his side, pale as pale can be. He has to come through this. He just has to.
I want to send a note to his mother, but I don’t want to scare her without knowing if he’s going to be fine or not. “How long do we have to wait?”
“We’ll know within the next five minutes.” Venda keeps her focus trained on him.
That’s not enough time to get his mother here. I’ll have to settle for finding out what happens before I bring her wrath down upon me.
Time ticks by slowly. Is he getting paler? I wish I could go to him. There’s a deep ache inside me, to comfort him. To fix him. I don’t know how to do either. Besides, I can’t move, and even if I did, I’m not supposed to touch him, unless it’s to save my life, not his.
Valcora and its stupid rules. Things have to change. If not for me, then for those that come after me.
Puneah whines.
“Here it comes.” Venda’s words send a shock of fear through me.
His body tenses and then starts convulsing. I watch in horror as he shakes uncontrollably and Venda sits by him, doing nothing. “Help him,” I say.
“Anything I do now will only harm him more.”
This is it, then. Tremors wrack his body violently, and I can only watch. We all do. It feels like an eternity. It doesn’t seem fair that this is happening now, when he was doing better. When he was getting over the shock and pain of being tortured.
It’s too much. I want to close my eyes, but I force myself to keep them open and keep watch over him. All I can do is hope this isn’t the end. It’s not how he’s supposed to go—killed by his own queen, the woman who loves him.
It’s not fair or right. The movements wrack my heart with pain. I’d give anything to take his place. For Androlla to have shot me and not him. Though it wouldn’t be easy, with my limited mobility, it would be better than this pain and torment.
Finally, his shaking eases, but he’s so pale. So still. I want to ask if he’s alive, but I can’t bring myself to say the words when he looks so deathly.
Jaku does it for me. “Is he going to make it?”
Venda holds up a hand, palm out, and continues to stare at Nash. He gives a shuddering breath, and she’s over him like lightning, moving her object and chanting like her life is on the line. She has to help him. Has to bring him back to me.
Her murmured words only last a few seconds when his eyes flutter open. She stops and sits back, watching him. “He will live.”
Relief pours through me—I didn’t kill the man I love. But it was close. Way too close.
His eyes are glassy, looking around but seemingly not taking anything in. He blinks several times, and the glassiness fades while he tries to sit up.
“Not yet,” Venda says to him. “You need rest.”
He stays down but looks around the room until his gaze stops on me.
Does he remember that I tried to kill him? It was my fingers, my actions that put this thing into motion.
Dagger the First Queen and her controlling ways. I should have realized what she was when I met her, shouldn’t have been taken in by her soothing voice and ways. There has to be a way to fight this, but I don’t know what it is.
“What happened?” Nash asks.
Venda shoos everyone out of the room, except me and Jaku. Once the door is closed tight, she looks at me. “Tell him what happened.”
“I—I…” Can’t manage to get the words out. I clear my throat and try again. “I shot you with the darts. The poison got in your system, and Venda saved you.”
He grimaces, opens his mouth, looks at Venda, and snaps it shut.
“You people want to tell me what is going on?” Venda asks. “Why Ryn shot Nash, who she clearly cares about?”
A blush heats my cheeks, but I ignore it. Now is not the time to worry over who knows about my feelings. I glance at Jaku, who says, “It’s up to you.”
Would it be better for her to know or not? She’s helped us so far, and she believes in magic. I’d like to think that she’s on our side. “It may have been my body that shot him, but it wasn’t me.” I take a steadying breath. “The Mortum Tura does more than choose a queen. It makes the very first queen of Valcora part of whoever it chooses. At first, she said she was here to guide me, but I’ve since learned she’s there to try to take me over, so she can rule once again. It’s happens every time someone survives the Mortum Tura for the past thousand years.”
Venda purses her lips. “I was afraid a darkness was over your country, though I had no idea it was this bad.”
“Do you know a way to break the bond?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “None. It is dark, dark magic that made this. My people stay away from such things. Is this why you are practicing magic?”
“It’s why I’m trying to learn. Yes.”
“I see.” She turns her attention back to Nash, who’s trying to sit up again. Instead of scolding him, this time she helps him up. “Jaku, please fetch him a glass of water.”
Nash leans against the wall, head back and eyes closed. If only I could go to him.
Jaku leaves the room and returns a moment later with a cup of water. Venda helps Nash drink. The room is too quiet for what I’ve revealed to Venda. Do they blame me for drinking the Mortum Tura and bringing this down upon them all? Because I do.