Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)(108)

Ash braced himself. Take whatever you need. Take whatever is left.

Power flowed from the amulet, a river of magic that joined the three of them together. The queen took a breath, released it, took another breath. Ash could see her eyes moving under the lids, as if she were dreaming. Her fingers tightened on the amulet, and she smiled. Ash pressed his fingers into her wrist, and her pulse thrummed strongly under the skin.

And, then, his father’s voice again. I sent her back to you. You are spent, and I need to go. Come see me in Aediion. You and your mother and sister have enemies at court. Enemies on the Council. Don’t give your trust easily.

And his father was gone.

Eventually, he felt Ty’s presence beside him. “Can I help?”

“Yes,” Ash said softly, without taking his eyes off his mother. “Get everyone out of the room except for you, Magret, Jemson, Talbot, and Byrne. Now.”

Ty nodded and slipped away. Dimly, Ash heard people protesting, demanding answers as they were ushered from the room.

“But . . . can’t we help?” Julianna said. “Isn’t there anything I can do for Aunt Raisa? If we can figure out what kind of poison was used, perhaps my eyes and ears—”

“At least let me sit vigil with my sister’s body,” Aunt Mellony argued.

Once the door was closed, it was blessedly quiet.

The queen opened her eyes, looked around wildly, then seemed to relax as she focused in on Ash’s face. “Adrian,” she said, smiling. “I saw him. I spoke to your father. It was—it was miraculous.” Tears leaked from her eyes. “He’s been with us—with all of us—all along. But he couldn’t find a channel, a way to connect.” She looked down at their joined hands, the light from the amulet leaking out between their fingers. “We were together at last. I have missed him, so very much. I wanted to stay.”

“But you didn’t,” Ash said, unsure exactly what she meant.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “There is work still to do, and there are battles yet to be fought. Han will help us. He says to come to him—that you’ll know how.” Then, looking past Ash, she spoke, a little impatiently, to someone he couldn’t see. “Go, sisters. I will stay awhile longer in this world.” She seemed to listen for a moment, then said, “Just because it’s never been done does not mean it cannot be done. Now. Go and speak with my daughter. She needs to know.”

Captain Byrne fell to his knees beside the bed, his weathered face wet with tears. “Rai,” he said, in a low, husky voice. “I don’t understand. My connection to you—to the Line—is broken. I—I thought— How can I protect you if there’s no longer a bond between us?”

“Shhh,” she said, ruffling his hair, then smoothing it down again. “I will explain. Han gave me a message for you, too. When one door is closed, another opens. We have much to talk about. But right now, I am so very sleepy.” With that, she closed her eyes, still smiling, and slept.

They all stood speechless, until Speaker Jemson knelt next to Byrne. “Let us give thanks to the Maker for this miracle that we’ve all witnessed. Shall we pray?”

And they did.

When the speaker had finished, Ash returned to his examination of the cup. Though it was apparently empty, it still carried that faint, familiar scent, like old stone and rot. When he carried it to the window, in the daylight he could see a pinprick of light passing through to the inside. There seemed to be a tiny hole under one of the jewels on the outside. Using his belt blade, he pried at the stone, an amethyst, finally working it loose.

Underneath, he found a tiny wad of plant material. He scraped it out of the hole and onto a glass plate. This time, the scent surfaced a different memory.

He was back in Taliesin’s cottage at Oden’s Ford. They’d been going through her little book of poisons, studying each one from a healer’s perspective. Since she grew many of the plant sources in her garden, they were able to move from plant to processing to final product to treatment.

There was one poison that she didn’t grow in her garden. She kept it sealed in a glass jar, buried under a stone in the garden, unearthing it only for teaching purposes.

“Don’t touch it!” she’d snapped when he unstoppered the jar. “Be careful about breathing it in.”

“What is it?” he’d said, startled by the urgency of the warning. When they worked with poisons, the Voyageur usually relied on him not to be stupid.

“It’s called ‘two-step lily,’ because victims rarely manage two steps before they go down.”

Ash eyed it with new respect. “How do I treat it?”

“Pray,” his teacher had said. “I’ve never known anyone to survive it.”

When he’d sniffed at it, it smelled of death and decay. Even then, it was hauntingly familiar, but he couldn’t remember why.

Now he remembered.

Head swimming, stomach churning, he set the cup aside and washed his hands thoroughly.

“I suppose you have a good reason for damaging your grandmother’s cordial cup.” Ash looked up, and met Magret’s eyes.

He nodded. “The poison was embedded in the cup, under one of the jewels,” he said. “When wine was poured into the cup, the poison diffused into the wine. So it wouldn’t help to have a taster. Everyone drank from the same carafe, but she was the only one poisoned. Depending on who examined her after death, the fact that it was poison might have been overlooked. If it was suspected, we would blame the Carthians.”