Page 42 of Poisoned Empire

He retracted his former thought. She was a harridan, through and through. His thighs were perfectly proportioned! He slapped down her hand, her fork clattering on the embroidered tablecloth.

“As Prince of Lethe, I’ll eat whatever I damn well please.”

“But yours looks bigger than mine! At least give me a piece so we’re even,” she whined.

“No! Keep your thieving hands to your own dessert.”

“I seem to recall these thieving hands saving your ungrateful life.” She pointed at him.

He arched his brow, cut off a large portion of the pie and made to give it to Selene, whose smirk was equal parts bright and smug. Just before it reached her plate, he bent over the table and popped it into his mouth. As he sat back, he relished the look of utter betrayal, her mouth agape. The sight was almost as delicious as his dessert.

“Mmmm. Possibly the best piece of pie in theentireempire,” he crowed.

“Monster!”

Just as he was about to laugh, a horrible feeling of disorientation came over him. The floor rose up to greet him. Selene raced over and licked his fork. Was now really the time for such pettiness?

“Shit! I know this one.”

Fuck.

Had he really just eaten poison? It was just his luck. Was someone trying to frame Selene for his murder? He gasped, his heart pounding wildly as breathing became a chore.

“Tell anyone I can do this, and I’ll kill you.” Selene warned as she hovered over him. Splitting his tunic in half with a concealed knife, she placed her hands on the bare skin of his throat and chest. “Why the fuck isn’t this working?!”

Belisarius put all his effort into dispelling the mage gift he habitually kept himself cloaked in. Panic swelled as he failed to drag in a single breath.

“There! Okay, this is going to hurt, so brace yourself and try not to scream too loudly.”

Fire consumed every particle of his innards. He fought to control his gift from reasserting itself as Selene worked. Sweat soaked his body from the strain, but at least he could breathe, however laboured. Just as quickly as the pain had come, it vanished, leaving him winded and shaky. Above him Selene toyed with a blue liquid coating her palms. Within seconds it seemed to vanish into her skin. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sweets really will be the death of you, Your Royal Highness. It would be safer if I ate them all from now on.” Her half-grin was sympathetic, at least.

He tried to laugh but coughed instead.

“So, you can cure poison too?” he asked, his voice hoarse. Belisarius put his palms on the floor, pressing them into the mosaics hard enough to stop his hands from trembling.

Her eyes were deadly serious as her finger touched his lips. He held his breath.

“Hush! Never say it. It’s against a poisoners’ code to save someone from a fellow practitioner.”

“Then why do you even know how?” he asked, holding back a shiver as she removed her hand, brushing his lips.

“I had to. What if Iliana accidentally got into something?”

The notion struck him as so ridiculous he couldn’t contain his mirth. He gasped for breath between peals of hysterical laughter. When he finally calmed down, the reality hit him. Gods below, he’d been so close to death. Twice in one day was enough to undo any sane man. First a bear abused by fire and whipped into an unholy rage, loosed upon his hunting grounds, now poison.

“So, what did someone try to kill me with this time?” he sighed.

“You’re taking this better than I expected.” Her brows were pinched. Perhaps she too questioned his sanity.

“What choice do I have? I can hardly go crying off about the unfairness of it all.” He ruled an empire. Assassination was par for the course, whether he liked it or not.

“True. This one was a depressingly common berry. You can find it throughout the capital region. I’m sure even those hacks in your poisoner department have tasted it once.”

So, whoever wanted him dead was wealthy enough to afford the deadliest poison, but too lazy to go the extra mile on the second try? What in the hells was he supposed to make of that? And not only that, but he couldn’t get the bear’s burns out of his mind. No one had found any evidence of a fire in the forest and he certainly hadn’t attacked the bear himself. Someone had deliberately frenzied the bear, as if it were a beast set to take part in gladiatorial combat. It was simply too much of a coincidence for it to rampage on one of his favourite trails. Had the burns only been to enrage the bear, or had it been an attempt to make it appear as though he’d fought back and failed? Worse, did someone know he couldn’t conjure flame to protect himself, or were they merely testing him?

Belisarius set his unanswerable questions aside. He would simply have to be grateful he’d survived. Who had the time to think up all these elaborate assassination attempts? He rolled onto his side and hauled himself into a seated position, leaning against the leg of the table. Selene stared, rapt by his bare chest.

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