Page 104 of A Drop of Corruption

I stepped closer, alarmed: Gorthaus’s face was quite red, and her eyes were beginning to bulge. “Ma’am…” I said.

“Speak, girl!” whispered Ana furiously. “Tell me thename!”

Then Malo swooped forward. “Her hand. Fucking hell, look at her hand!”

“Her hand?” cried Ana. “What of her damned hand?”

I glanced down. Though Gorthaus’s right hand was fine, the fingers of the left were a dusky purple and were as swollen as fish sausage, so much so that the ring on her middle finger bit into the flesh. Gorthaus gazed down at her own hand, as if mystified. Then she gasped, choked, and slid from the chair until she lay upon the flagstone floor, quivering and trembling.

“What is this?” demanded Ana. She gazed around blindly. “What’s happening?”

Malo stooped over Gorthaus’s body and slid her knife from its sheath. With deft movements, she parted Gorthaus’s left sleeve and ripped it free from her arm.

I gasped. The flesh below had been transformed: her forearm and bicep were horribly swollen, bulging about the elbow until the joint resembled that of a well-fed infant. Yet one spot seemed worst of all: a bright, puckered little volcano sitting atop her triceps, surrounded by whorls of horrid, purpled flesh.

“She’s been poisoned,” said Malo.

“What?” cried Ana. “How?”

“A tiny stab, or a sting. But it’s kerel poisoning, ma’am, by the look of it. A very small dose. That’s why it took so long. But it’s surely worked its way back to her heart by now…”

I gazed down on Gorthaus’s pink, bulging face and listened to her breathing, which seemed to be growing shallower by the second. I recalled what Ana had said:It’s far worse if it is directly fed into the blood, though. If even the tiniest drop gets into your veins, no amount of medicine or aid can help you.

Ana shot to her feet and thundered: “Then he’s still here!”

“What?” I said, startled.

“He’shere,he’s in thegoddamned building!” She blindly stumbled to the door, flung it open, and bellowed, “Darhi! Darhi, get in here, damn it!”

A flurry of footfalls, and Darhi arrived. His usual expression of frigid serenity dissolved when he saw Gorthaus lying on the floor. “Savariga…” he murmured. “What happen—”

“Lock down the castle!” thundered Ana. “Lock down the building! Search everyone,everyone! Our poisoner has struck again, right before our very eyes!”

Chapter 38

The guards of the king’shall refused to let Malo or me partake in the search for the poisoner. Whether the prince or anyone else had been attacked, we were not told: the guards kept us confined to our chamber, and all we could do was sit and listen to the shouts and cries in the halls beyond, and Gorthaus’s dwindling breath.

Malo tended to Gorthaus, cursing and swearing as she applied her tiny worms to her throat and arm. I assisted her in doing so, pulling Gorthaus’s uniform away to free the swelling, and eventually moving her body into a better position, though I had handled the fresh dead before in my service, and knew from the feel of her that Gorthaus was likely among them now.

Ana callously told us not to bother—“Surely you can hear that fucking girl’s breathing stopped long ago!”—but Malo was resolute: “I am a warden, true, but an Apoth first. If there is a chance I can breathe life into this flesh, I will try.” Yet after an hour of ministrations, Malo sat back from the body, sighed, and drew a symbol in the air beseeching the attention of Kesir, the deity of forgiveness. Then she began to pluck her worms from Gorthaus’s body and return them to her vial. “We may have need of them yet,” she muttered, “given how black this night feels.”

Finally a captain of the guard came to our chamber. He brought with him one of his subordinates: a sweaty and terrified-looking fellow whom I identified as the guard who’d escorted Gorthaus to our chambers. Stammering, he told Malo his story, and she translated hiswords for us.

“He says he was sent to fetch her from the guest chambers,” said Malo.

“By whom?” demanded Ana.

“Satrap Darhi,” said Malo. “He did as he was ordered, and got her and walked her across the great hall, then down the passageway to this chamber. But…then another guard came walking toward them, wearing a steel cap and a cloak. This second guard bumped into Gorthaus as she walked, and she cried out. The man mumbled an apology before hurrying down the hallway. Then Gorthaus and this fellow here came the rest of the way to this chamber, and…Well. We saw what happened.”

Ana snarled, “And what did he look like, this guard who simplybumped intoGorthaus?”

Malo listened as the man rambled on, then translated: “He doesn’t know, for it was dark and smoky in the passageway. He saw the cap, the cloak, the beard, and little else. He does think the beard was rather light colored. He has given this description to the satrap, and they search for this man now.”

“A light-colored beard!” said Ana. “Fucking hell. Get these damned fools out of my sight, so I can think!”

I escorted the guards from the room. Then we stood in the smoky chamber, too dismayed to speak.

“He has already slipped away as quickly as he came, I’m sure,” said Ana. “But hewashere. He was watching. And he did not love it when I called for Gorthaus to come to me, after speaking with Pavitar and Darhi.”