Page 7 of Poisoned Empire

“You have me beat, Leo. The warhorse and racers are yours.” The magister turned to Iliana, the light in his eyes dying instantly. “One of the women will be down in an hour. You will learn to be a domina in the time allotted, or she will die in front of you.”

The two made their way to the staircase.

“What about the girl?!” Iliana rattled her wooden bars with dirt-encrusted hands as they passed by their kin, sparing her no more than an afterthought.

“She will be left as she is. If she dies of her wounds, let it be a lesson. Had you agreed to my terms earlier, you might have spared her.”

Iliana was left to stare into the agonized sapphire eyes of the dying girl as she slowly bled out.

“It’s all your fault,” the girl whispered.

Iliana shivered and could only pray that Selene found her own situation less dire.

Selene watched dispassionately from behind the metal bars of her cage as the magister’s men rounded up her captors and her father electrocuted each one, blood, guts and fried gore flying. She supposed it saved her the trouble of making their innards melt at some later date. Father evidently wanted to impress upon her his power—both magical and political. He killed knowing he’d never face the consequences. Lucky, that. The only true shock of the day for Selene was the magister’s short, flaming red hair—something she had not suspected was in her lineage.

Why he wanted her compliance so badly was still beyond her. She only hoped Iliana’s father hadn’t put on such a gruesome display to cow her. Her friend had been raised with love and care. This kind of mindless barbarity was beyond Iliana’s scope of experience, even after years of selling at the black markets and dealing with scum.

Selene, like Iliana, had been born a bastard, her commoner mother tossed out after she’d given birth. But unlike her friend’s skill with metals, Selene’s poison magic was considered unsavoury, and her mother far less dedicated than Iliana’s to making Selene a contributing member of society. While her foolish, heartbroken mother had drowned her sorrows in drink and the company of lowlifes, Selene had found herself subsisting on poisonous mushrooms and ordinarily inedible creatures. As she grew, so did her repertoire of poisons. Not even her mother’s wastrel suitors had dared upset her.

She’d spent her youth travelling from village to village, selling potions no respectable person would offer, eking out a threadbare existence and dealing painful death to anyone foolish enough to try and harm her. Then, as if the heavens had finally decided she was worth noticing, a ray of sun named Iliana had looked her in the eye, spoken to her like a person, and invited her to share the cramped apartment she’d called home. To this day, Selene didn’t understand why she’d done it, but she would forever repay that debt.

If Magister Sapphire was terrorizing Iliana, Selene vowed to kill him.

When her father was done his grisly chore, he turned his amethyst eyes on her, adjusting the military-style belt about his short purple tunic. Not a single drop of blood sullied his immaculate attire, his confident strides eating up the distance on the gore-strewn dirt road.

“Six out of ten. Points for the exploding eyes, but the jelly didn’t fly nearly as far as the first one’s fingers.” Selene raised her chin, pointing out the relative distances of the two substances.

Selene’s grin was hardly inviting when he stopped, a baffled expression on his face. Had he expected her to tremble or whimper? His ilk had come and gone all her life. He obviously wanted her alive for a time at least, else he’d have sent an assassin, and she didn’t need examples to know the impact of lightning on a mage body. Had he expected her to beg for mercy on their behalf?

“Perhaps this will be less tedious than I had imagined,” Magister Amethyst muttered as he approached the cage.

He stopped just out of range and stood upwind, safe from her poison. Selene bit back a curse. She really would need to learn to throw darts, as Iliana had insisted many a time. His calculating eyes searched hers.

“I have a task for you, bastard. If you complete it, I’ll give you whatever you desire.”

Selene raised a dark brow.

“And if I want to make your insides liquefy?”

The magister laughed uproariously as if she’d meant it in jest, wiping away a mirthful tear with a manicured finger.

“Ah, you really are mine. No, you damn menial scum, material things.”

Menial. The favourite insult of elementalist pigs the empire over. So unoriginal.

“Can people be these material things?” Selene asked.

“As long as I don’t care about their survival, yes.”

Selene pondered his offer. Best ask for the moon first, and be prepared to haggle later.

“Then I want the royal copy of the Poison Compendium, enough gold to live like a queen until I’m an old hag, and I want Magister Sapphire’s bastard daughter, Iliana.”

“You want your companion? How sentimental.” The magister’s gaze turned predatory.

Selene slipped into his skin, that of a man who cared even less for mage life than she did, saw any emotional attachment as weakness—much as she used to—and ruthlessly exploited any opening. Her next words would be critical. Iliana was a whole province away, but in infinitely more danger if Selene didn’t play this negotiation right. Thankfully she’d had a lifetime of dealing with dangerous men like him.

“I want what ismine. It’s bad enough you had those men burn my stores of poison, but then you went and let my well-trained dog get sent off across the continent too!”

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