CHAPTER 51

She was slightly late to the Queen’s parlor. Eveera, fussy as she was, both wanted Tianna near as well as far away. Chelsey had reassured her by rocking the girl with obvious experience and strolling in front of the large windows, pointing and distracting her with the sights outside. She had spent a precious few minutes giving instructions to Zacharia to grab some oats from the kitchen, and sent a missive to Thanlos in the city for anything he might have to treat child pox.

Now that she was no longer rushing, her thoughts were finally able to catch up to her. Guilt was foremost. Not only had she been slipping away to see to her project in the outer city, but she had likely picked up the virus and transported it back with her, as well. She was so wrapped up in chiding herself that she was most of the way across the room before she realized that the Queen wasn’t even there. Ar’miel sat serenely in a high-backed chair, flipping through a book and sipping from a delicate looking cup. Tea and all of its trappings was set out upon the table in front of her.

“Oh, Tianna,” she blinked up as she caught Tianna’s movement. She set the book down and sat, smiling kindly. “Please sit, the Queen will be but a moment. I am to ensure your comfort in the meantime. Another of those emergencies only she can oversee, I am afraid. Where is Eveera today?”

Tianna sighed. “She’s come down with the child pox. I was told it is better if she remains isolated until the pocks begin to scab over.”

“Oh, the poor girl,” Ar’miel leaned over and poured Tianna a cup of tea. “Have you tried oats in a bath?”

Tianna sat and accepted the cup and took a sip.

“I just sent for them. I’ll make sure to do it when I get back.”

Ar’miel nodded, “I hope that helps her comfort. And I hear you have your doctor that you might call on should any complications arise, that is a lucky thing.”

“Yes, I am thankful to be reunited with him.”

“Strange how fate sometimes ties us together,” she smiled. “And I hear the hunt was an exciting one, but I have only heard bits and pieces through the gossips at court. Perhaps you could entertain me with the entirety of the tale while we wait?”

Tianna grimaced. It wasn’t a day she really wanted to re-live...well maybe except that one part...god she missed Xor’annan. Still, she described, as best she could without getting too much into gory details, the events of the hunt.

“Amazing,” Ar’mile said. “Did the man survive?”

“Yes, he will likely always have a limp, so his hunting days might be over, but he is alive to go home to his family.” In fact, Tianna was considering hiring him...for what she hadn’t yet decided. The look on the poor man’s face, on the face of his wife and children when Thanlos had informed him he would remain forever disabled, was devastating. He was not a wealthy man and they had depended on his income to feed the children. She had no desire to hunt as Mizare did, but there must be some way that the man’s skills could be transferred to something useful.

“You are an inspiration, you know,” Ar’miel smiled gently. “There are not many who are willing to place other lives above their own…I would that we could be friends.”

Tianna’s brows crashed together. What Ar’miel said wasn’t unusual, but the way she worded it…

“I never had a chance to thank you for your encouragement the other day,” Ar’miel continued. It took Tianna a moment to remember what she was talking about. When she had told the woman to keep trying to aid the Queen, that everyone needed a friend who put them first. Why were her thoughts so hard to reach? She looked for the Queen, shouldn’t the woman be back by now? If the Queen wasn’t going to return, she should probably go and tend to Eveera.

“In fact, your selflessness has inspired me greatly. I have spent many years standing behind Vilvauze, supporting her as best I could and doing my best to ensure her success. I thought I was doing everything I could, but you showed me that, to be true, I cannot care about the consequences to myself.” Ar’miel stood now, her smile still kind and gentle. She pulled the empty cup from Tianna’s hands and knelt. “I am sorry it had to be this way; you are quite the inspirational woman. If I survive this, I will see to it you are remembered.” She reached a hand toward Tianna’s face, cupping her cheek gently. Tianna tried to pull away, but found that she couldn’t. All of her reactions had slowed, grabbing thoughts from her mind felt like scrambling through a deep well of cotton. “I know you will understand.”

There was something intensely wrong. A thread of panic wound its way into her core.

Xor.

It was the tea.

She fell to her knees and did the only thing she could think of, pushing her fingers down her throat until her body brought up what was left in her stomach. On Earth, it wouldn’t have been the best course of action, but she doubted they had activated charcoal laying around here.

“It won’t help,” Ar’miel murmured. “The poison is very quick and mostly painless. It is the least I could do.”

Tianna had miscalculated. The enemy’s actions had thus far centered on physical attacks from hired mercenaries that left them anonymous. They had counted on the motivation remaining the same, that the enemy would wish to remain anonymous. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of poison. That she had been the one to encourage a change in Ar’miel’s behavior was an irony that she didn’t miss.

Still, she hadn’t been the only one to miscalculate.

“Why?” Tianna whispered. She knelt before the pool of vomit, her hand around her stomach. There wasn’t a lot of pain, in fact, there was a distinct lack of it. How odd.

Her systems were shutting down, thinking was becoming increasingly difficult. Unnatural warmth began spreading through her limbs.

“To protect Vilvause. Always to protect her.”

Tianna shook her head. “I would never have hurt her.”

“Not directly, no. I know you wouldn’t. It is a simple matter of the unfortunate fate that Eveera bonded you. Had she not, she would have passed simply and we would not be here now.”

Xor! Tianna bent her thoughts toward him, desperate now, and growing weaker.

“Why?” Tianna demanded again, she struggled to breathe, the poison numbing all of her systems. Slowing them… Just. A little. Bit. Longer.

“I couldn’t let her grow up. There’s a chance she would never seek the throne, but one cannot depend on chances like that. I have learned that, as those of that house age, they become vastly more difficult to be rid of.”

“Anyone…could...seek...the throne. You...cannot...kill...everyone…” The Queen had several sisters and numerous nieces and nephews. Ar’miel’s claims made no sense.

A warm hand rubbed along Tianna’s back, offering comfort. She had no energy left to throw it off, her breathing had slowed so much that there was hardly enough energy to keep her from blacking out.

“Anyone could seek the throne,” Ar’miel agreed. “But no others have the right to it over Vilvause. I tried to preemptively solve the problem, did my very best to eliminate the house of the Hadrian before the inevitable happened and they bred into the royal line. If I had been more successful...I wouldn’t have to deal with this mess now.”

“Wh…,” Tianna couldn’t even get the words out.

Angry shouting and commands echoed from outside the parlor door. The hand left Tianna’s back and the front of Ar’miel’s dress faded from her view. She focused on calming herself, on getting every last drop of oxygen with every slow breath.

“Tianna,” Xor’s voice cut through the fog. It was desperate and pained.

She struggled, pulling in the air she needed, a long, painfully slow process. When she had gotten as much as she could, she gathered the remains of her strength and whispered one word.

“Mactha.”

The Queen’s parlor was chaos. People swarmed around like an angry hive of wasps. Raised voices and soft whispers converged together in a buzzing that grated on Tianna’s ears and shook her nerves until she felt nauseous. She wanted to pry her eyes open but even the light that came through her eyelids spiked pain into her head.

Ugh, she felt awful.

“You should be dead,” Thanlos’ voice sounded next to her.

Right, Ar’miel had poisoned her. Her heart thumped; its rhythm felt oddly irregular, like it wasn’t quite working properly. A touch on her forehead that was probably meant to be comforting hurt like hell. her skin so sensitive she wanted to pull away, even as calm and peace flowed through her.

Her pulse settled into a smoother rhythm and the hand left.

“Mactha,” she whispered through her aching throat.

“Yes,” Thanlos agreed, “more than enough to kill you. In fact, we thought you dead for a few moments, but you seem to be pushing the poison from your system at an oddly high rate.”

She groaned. It didn’t feel like she was pushing the poison from her body, it felt like she had the worst hangover in history.

“Ar’miel?”

“In custody, across the room,” Xor’annan’s voice sounded from her other side. “Tianna…,” his voice filled with regret and his emotions buffeted her. Pain and fear and guilt that he hadn’t foreseen this turn, had been unable to get to her quicker.

“Shhh,” she slurred. God, she just needed everything to be quiet and for her stomach to stop rioting. She still couldn’t stand to open her eyes.

“I’d best stay with her for the night,” Thanlos said over her. “Her heart still falls into arrhythmia every so often, though not as persistently as before...I do believe she will recover fully. How did the Mactha not poison you completely, Tianna?”

“I have a resistance to anesthetic. Always have, body just doesn’t respond properly to it.”

“Huh...I didn’t know that was possible...I will have to take that into consideration for any future operations,” he muttered.

The voices in the room rose, the Queen’s voice, in particular, had become fever pitched.

“Love?!” she nearly screeched. “You nearly killed Tianna. You did kill my sister. If you loved me at all, you would have never taken her from me, you would have protected her as fiercely as you claim to protect me, maybe more. You know nothing of what love is.”

Each word slammed into her like a physical force.

There was sobbing, and soft pleading...and that was somehow worse.

“Could we shut them up?” she wanted to know. There was a soft huff from Xor’annan’s direction and then he moved, gently putting his arms beneath her.

Her stomach heaved at the unexpected motion, and then settled.

“There’s a good chance I’m going to puke on you,” she warned him.

“I’ll risk it,” he told her. “Let’s get you to your apartments to recover, the rest of this can wait...or sort itself out, I don’t care.”