Page 2 of Poisoned Kingdom
‘His wife. She died a few months back, but we never retrieved the body,’ Tova said from my side, and I let the man feel a touch of happiness before he died in my arms, just like the many before him. I hummed my mother’s lullaby, easing him past the Veil with a song about a world of talking trees where cruelty and greed had not yet tainted nature.
I felt the heaviness of his body when death took him.
Strange how what’s left behind always weighs more when there is no soul to lighten its steps.Have a peaceful journey, my friend. May Veles welcome you to a better place.
Closing his eyes, I slowly lowered the body on the cot, finally free of suffering.
‘Take care of his remains,’ I said as I walked to a side room to wash my hands and change into clean clothes.
Alone in private, I pressed my head to the cold stone sink and let my tears fall, taking a moment to compose myself. ‘I gave him peace. His death is not my fault,’ I whispered, repeating it over and over again until his face faded into the crowd of those that had died by my hands. Only then was I ready to rejoin Tova.
When we returned to my office, I noticed it’d been cleaned. The maids had used my absence to neatly stack the books on the shelves, while loose paperwork had been piled up on the desk, ready to be read. I grabbed the second tankard Tova had brought and finished it without taking my lips from the edge.
‘You don’t have to hide your tears from me,’ Tova said, gently stroking my back. ‘The king wasn’t like this before the war. That is, he was always short-tempered, but he allowed mages to help his men, and the gods as my witnesses, you need that help.’
‘Tova Orenson, you want me to believe there was a time our noble Mlot wasn’t a paranoid twat waffle who believed evil mages weren’t out to get him? How naïve do you think I am?’ Bitter laughter escaped my lips, but Tova didn’t join in.
‘You don’t know what war’s like, Sana. It changes you,’ he said quietly.
The Battle of the Rift, the bloodiest conflict of the Second Necromancer’s War, was fought five years ago, just as I had left my old life in Truso to settle here. I’d only ever heard the rumours of the blood and gore that covered the battlefield when a conduit mage had levelled the mountains to kill our immortal enemy. I couldn’t imagine what that was like.
‘I’m guessing when one’s seen true carnage, a few bodies pulled from a mining shaft must feel insignificant. Still, they are his people, and they deserve more from their king,’ I snapped. Over the past three months, death had hung over the dwarven capital like a thundercloud. Hatred for mages had blinded the king, fuelling his rising paranoia. Now, he believed that only srebrec weapons could protect him. Meanwhile, the victims of his fear kept dying on my watch.
‘You’re right, but what can we do? Now that he’s discovered another vein, there’ll be even more casualties.’
‘What? Blasted idiot, does he want to kill us all?’ I cursed, rubbing the bridge of my nose. ‘Even the dwarven furnaces can’t smelt so much srebrec into augurec1. You already can’t walk through his court without tripping over those weird cubes that are supposed to shield him from mages. He’ll end up slicing his own foot off one of these days.’
‘He’s started selling it.’
Now, that news made me gasp. ‘To whom? The mages?’ I didn’t know who else could, or would, buy srebrec. Only mages or those who wanted to control them or other magical beings had a use for it. It was too soft for making swords or armour, and too unstable to be worn as jewellery.
‘Be serious.’ Tova’s voice was laced with bitter amusement. ‘He found a buyer in the south. Someone who hates Dagome and their mages as much as he does, so expect the worst.’
‘I always do, but I don’t know how to find any reason in this madness,’ I said with a shrug, inhaling deeply to clear my mind. The smell of herbal remedies was overpowering but reminded me I still had more salve to make. I’d slacked off today, too engrossed in studying.
Examining the dwarf’s muscular body, I grinned.
‘Since you’re here, Master Artificer, would you help this poor, besieged woman whose arms are as weak as spring twigs with all the burdens she bears?’
Tova’s brow shot up as I pushed a mortar and pestle filled with half-crushed herbs into his hands.
‘Sana, you’re a bloody menace. I came to get you to stop working, not to do your work for you . . .’
When I patted his shoulder, my friend fell silent. ‘You can do both. The sooner it’s done, the sooner I leave. Please, just onebatch, then we can go to the tavern. I’ll even buy you a beer . . .’ I taunted.
‘Fine! But not awordto anyone. I mean it, drah’sa.2 I don’t want anyone knowing that the best artificer in Wiosna is mashing herbs like a hedge witch.’
I nodded eagerly, grateful for his help. It was a never-ending need I could barely fulfil. The salve and potion didn’t cure those affected by aether flux. However, the nivale oil and other herbs provided my patients a peaceful, painless death. It was a better alternative to them writhing in sweat-soaked beds, chafing swollen grey skin full of bleeding pustules that didn’t heal.
Because death always comes.
All I could do was ease their passing.
A flashback of my recent patient’s face forced a frustrated curse from my mouth. I’d never been trained. Even admitting to being able to see aether could be a death sentence—one, if not issued by my old master, then by the mages who wouldn’t tolerate me working independently. Mlot, who’d banished every aether user from his kingdom, would certainly have my head.
My only magical achievements were being able to influence aether to purge poisons and the ability to resist psychic manipulations. Neither of those had come from books. With poisons, I was always balancing on the edge of death, and instinct took over. And after a certain psychic arsehole had tried to force his suggestions into my mind, I had spent months working with a dark fae learning to set up a mental barrier.
I’m bloody useless. A wave of helplessness crashed over me, and I smashed the herbs I was working on with such force that the paste splashed onto the table.
