Laosh reached the wall. There was nowhere else for her to go. Chen slowly drew his sword. “And she is not the first.”
His wife glared up at him. “You swore when you married me that you would take no other! You promised my father.”
He lifted his sword above his head. “Part of our arrangement was that you provide me with sons. Your barrenness voids our contract.”
Her eyes flashed a warning. “Kill me and my father will raise his armies against you. He’ll destroy your city, your people. Everything!”
“Even your father cannot save you from the law, Laosh.”
She screamed until the sword came down, silencing her. Lilette had just watched Chen kill his wife. She waited for the horror to come. The disgust. But it didn’t. Instead, all she felt was a numb detachment, like nothing she saw was real.
Chen stepped back, a look of revulsion crossing his face. “Eunuchs, clean this mess up. Send her body back to her father. He can go to the trouble of burying her.”
He strode toward Lilette, blood dripping from his sword. “She is dying?”
Silence was the reply.
He cuffed the physician. “Answer me!”
The man lay blinking where he’d fallen on the floor. “Yes, Heir. She is dying.”
Chen turned and left without a backward glance.
Chapter 7
Lilette saw something that night, something that haunted her the rest of her days. ~Jolin
Lilette’s heartbeats grew farther and farther apart until she again floated in the uneasy space between life and death. As if from a distance, she sensed movement and unease. Finally, an explosion jolted her into consciousness. Even through the blankets darkening the room, she could see flashes of lightning. Wind blasted against the house.
Chen stood in the doorway, sword in hand, water dripping from his clothing. Before him was a woman, this one very different from the last. She was gaunt and looked about Lilette’s age. Her wet, chin-length hair, the color of ashes mixed with dirt, was parted exactly down the middle and tucked behind her ears. Her strange, floor-length tunic had a fitted bodice and billowed out below the hips.
She was one of the witches. Lilette tried to make her mouth work, to say something—anything—but she couldn’t move past the wall of pain and weakness.
“I am told you are the best healer, so heal her,” Chen said to the woman.
“I’ve already told you, I’m not a healer, I’m a potioner,” she replied in almost perfect Harshen. “But it’s true, I am the best—and an argument could be made that the best potioners are also the best healers.” A look of curiosity swept over her face as she took in Lilette. “What happened to her?”
Chen clenched his teeth. “She’s been poisoned, which is why I need a potioner.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “With what?”
He handed her a familiar-looking tea towel. “We found this in her house.”
She opened the towel, and her eyebrows came up as she surveyed it. She picked a few of the limp greens out of the spring rolls and held them up to the light.
She nibbled the end of one before spitting it onto the floor. She wiped her tongue on her rain-dampened sleeve. “A simple yet very effective variation of morte. It’s rather rare, only available from the black-market witches, and without the antidote, always fatal.”
She smacked her tongue on the roof of her mouth as if to clear out the aftertaste. “Have you questioned the poisoner? It would be helpful to know how much was consumed.”
Chen’s eyes flicked to the corner. The eunuchs had scrubbed the floor, but the blood had stained it a dark brown.
The woman followed his gaze and gasped. She turned to face Chen. “What happened here?”
He refused to look back at the stain. “The poisoner admitted to the crime and was punished.”
“So you just killed him?” the woman whispered.
Chen didn’t bother to correct her. “I am the heir. My word is justice.”
She clamped her mouth shut. “I want no part of this.”
She made to move past him, but he blocked her. “You would really let her die because of something I did?”
She glanced over her shoulder at Lilette as if she’d forgotten she was there. “I can at least provide the antidote.” She squared herself in front of the rotund physicker. “What have you given her?”
The man laced his fingers and set them on his stomach. “We are sweating her—”
The woman shook her head as if disgusted. “Clearly. The heat is going to kill me, and I’m perfectly healthy. What else?”
He frowned and glanced at Chen. The heir simply waved for him to continue. “The ashes of poisonous creatures to battle the poison inside her, and ground shells to trap her soul within her body,” the physicker said.