Page 1 of A Touch of Poison
1
Bastian
In red paint, not quite blood coloured, but close, foot high letters read:
Hydra Ascendant!
A couple of drips spattered from the dot of the exclamation mark, adding to the gory impression. It looked like it had been painted on the side of the sculptor’s house by an overeager teenager.
Below, a crude serpentine form with three heads watched me, its eyes left blank so they shone with the pale gleam of Luminis’s moonstone.
Hydra fucking Ascendant. Inmycity. Marking what would normally be a busy street if we hadn’t cordoned it off.
In my pockets, my hands fisted.
At my side, Faolán tilted his head like this was an art gallery and he was trying to work out what this masterpiecemeant. “What’re you thinking?”
I made a soft, dismissive sound. “That someone needs to go back to art school.”
He shot me a look, the full weight of his brow crashing down. “But—”
“I know. I know.” I lifted one side of my mouth to tell him it was a joke. Better a joke than stating outright just how much those two painted words made my bones itch. “I thought you said they’d been quiet while I was away.”
“They have…had.” He turned his frown to the graffiti as though he could stare down the painted hydra and make it disappear.
I couldn’t blame him.
Over the past few years there had been reports. Supplies stolen from a guard outpost, a hydra daubed on the wall the only clue to the perpetrators. Caravans raided by folk wearing an insignia of the three-headed creature over their hearts. Not quite the Wicked Lady, but…
Deep red hair across a crisp white pillow. Brow furrowed in a sleep that went on too long. Fingers that—
“Bastian?” Faolán ducked into my eyeline, and I flinched. Not at his giant size, but at the fact I’d drifted off while I was meant to be working and, even worse, he’d noticed.
I folded my arms like that could protect me from my friend’s long, long look, but he knew me too well. At that moment I hated him for it—just a little.
He cleared his throat and leant in, arm butting mine. “Is she still—?”
“Yes.” The word cut through the street. “Still unconscious.” After a week. I went every day to the Hall of Healing, spent as long there as I could. If she woke alone…
I squeezed my biceps in an attempt to hold back the thought.
An entire week. The healer, Elthea, didn’t seem worried, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that each day her eyes remained closed increased the chance they would stay that way forever. Bile licked the back of my throat.
“You should bring her to dinner when she wakes up.”
My head snapped around. “What? Why?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Because… you need to eat? And I’d like to get to know her.” He shrugged casually.
Too casually.
“You’dlike to? Or Rose would like to?”
“My wife’s desires are mine.”
I sighed. I might’ve known Faolán would be like this once he found his person. Insufferably smitten. With his hulking size and fierce glower, it was amusing, at least.
The problem was, I now found myself understanding how he felt.
