Moriah pressed her palms flat against her thighs once, steadying herself and when the door opened, Elyndra stepped through it.
Moriah was already turning from the dressing table with the smile in place, warm and pleasant.
”Elyndra.” She rose.
“What a lovely surprise.”
Elyndra looked…
Well.
Moriah noticed that.
The rose robe she was wearing , the elegant line of her collar, the careful arrangement of her hair.
She looked rested.
She looked perfectly well, as though she hadn’t been poisoned at all.
Elyndra was smiling.
”Forgive the early hour,” She said.
Her voice was warm.
She stepped fully into the room.
Lyel remained outside, the door closed.
She looked around the chamber with the bright, interested expression.
“I wanted to stay a little before we head to the hall.”
”Sure, please sit.” Moriah gestured toward the low chairs near the window, the ones arranged around the small table.
She moved toward them.
Elyndra settled into the chair with a graceful ease, she folded her hands in her lap and looked across at Moriah with that bright smile, she said nothing for a moment just looking at her as she noticed.
Moriah’s shaking hands and the beads of sweat on her forehead.
They talked.
About the test yesterday, about the other princesses, about a rumour circulating that two more would be dismissed by the end of the week.
Moriah talked easily and warmly and Elyndra listened and responded and laughed in the right places and let the conversation breathe.
Moriah talked more than she intended to.
She laughed at small things in a way that seemed entirely genuine, she tilted her head when she listened, and she never once said anything that could have been a thread leading anywhere dangerous.
’She doesn’t know.’ Moriah thought again, and this time it settled more comfortably, and the heaviness in her chest lessened slightly.
‘She is here because she is friendly.
She doesn’t know anything.’ She thought and allowed herself to relax back into warmth.
She smiled at Elyndra, and the smile was almost real.
”Oh, before I forget.” Elyndra reached into the small embroidered bag at her side with the air.
”I brought you something.” She brought out a small parcel, cloth-wrapped, tied with a simple cord.
She held it out across the table with both hands.
“I hope you don’t mind. I noticed the way you spoke about the honeyed fig preserves at dinner the other day. The way your face changed when you described food you loved.” She said it warmly, a little amused.
”You clearly have a real feeling for good things.
And I had these sent from home, a family recipe, quite old and I thought you might enjoy them.”
Moriah looked at the parcel.
Something in her chest loosened further, moved by a sentiment she hadn’t been expecting.
”Elyndra, you don’t have to…”
”I wanted to.” Elyndra said simply.
“Sisters should look after each other. Isn’t that what you told me?”
Something moved in Moriah’s expression, just briefly.
Then she smiled and untied the cord.
Inside the cloth were sweets.
Small, golden-brown, dusted lightly with fine sugar, shaped into neat rounds.
”They’re beautiful,” Moriah said.
”They’re a speciality from Velmora.
We make them for celebrations, usually, but my household prepares them year-round.
They’re quite good.
Not overly sweet.
There’s something in the centre.” Elyndra leaned forward slightly.
“A particular spice they blend in it. Very rare. You can’t get it anywhere else.”
Moriah picked one up.
It sat lightly in her fingers, the dusted sugar sparkling.
”The whole thing?” she asked.
”All at once,” Elyndra confirmed warmly.
“That’s how they’re meant to be eaten. The centre releases better that way.”
Moriah put it in her mouth.
She chewed.
Her expression moved through surprise into pleasure.
It was genuinely, unexpectedly good, the honey, the spice and the soft dense centre.
She looked up at Elyndra with a smile.
She swallowed.
Elyndra watched her do it.
Then a smile crept on her face.
Slowly.
Devilishly.
”Sister,” Elyndra said softly.
“Do you remember what you told me? That first afternoon. When you sat beside me and took my hand.” She tilted her head slightly.
“Sisters protect each other. That’s what you said.”
Moriah smiled.
“I remember.”
”I’ve been thinking about that,” Elyndra said.
“About how true it is.”
Moriah looked at her.
Something in her face changed.
”Do you know,” Elyndra continued, her voice light and conversational, “that arsenic has a rather sweet taste?
That is why it went undetected in so many courts for so long.
It dissolves cleanly.
It moves through the body without much announcement, for a time.” She tilted her head slightly.
“You were fortunate, I think, that whoever administered yours chose a lower concentration. More patient. More refined. The idea, I imagine, was not a sudden death. But a slow, visible one. Something that would look like illness.” A pause.
“Something that would look,” she said softly, “like what happened to me.”
The colour drained on Moriah’s face entirely.
She stood, or tried to.
Her legs buckled and she caught the edge of the table with both hands.
”Elyndra…”
”The chest will tighten first,” Elyndra said, in the same calm tone.
“I understand the jaw follows. The legs, as you can feel, begin to…disagree with you.”
”You…you poisoned…” Moriah’s voice was breaking, each word costing more than the last.
Her hands on the table’s edge were white-knuckled, shaking.
“Help… help…”
Her mouth formed the word.
Her throat gave her almost nothing.
Elyndra watched.
She watched with stillness.
No pleasure in her face, no cruelty either, only the clean and even expression.
Her hands were folded in her lap.
Her back was straight.
Her eyes did not look away.
Moriah’s legs gave out.
She went down slowly.
Not a fall, more a collapse, the table holding her partway before her grip could not hold any longer, she slid and then was on the floor.
Her eyes were still open.
Moriah went still.
Elyndra sat for one more moment.
Then she rose, smoothed the front of her robe, set her embroidered bag over her wrist, and walked to the door.
—
She stepped outside.
The maidservant was now at her post, on the side of the door, heads bowed when Elyndra stepped out, eyes lowered carefully.
Elyndra walked past her without pausing.
She had taken three steps when she stopped.
She turned back slowly.
The maidservant was very young.
Sixteen, perhaps.
Seventeen at most.
She stood with her head bowed and her hands pressed together at her front and her shoulders drawn in slightly.
Her dark brown hair was pinned back under her cap and there was a small mended tear at the left cuff of her grey uniform that someone had fixed with careful, close stitches.
Elyndra looked at her.
Senna’s age, something said, quietly, at the back of her mind.
She is Senna’s age exactly.
She walked toward her.
The girl stiffened but did not look up.
”What is your name?” Elyndra asked.
A beat.
Then, barely audibly “Ressa, my lady.”
”Ressa.” Elyndra repeated it once, as though considering the weight of it.
She reached out and placed two fingers under the girl’s chin, and tilted it gently but with clear purpose until the girl had no choice but to look up at her.
Ressa looked up.
Her eyes were dark and very frightened.
They met Elyndra’s eyes fully, wide open and unable to look away.
Elyndra held her there, studying her face with an attention that was neither warm nor cold but simply complete.
She held her there for a long moment.
Then she released her.
She turned away.
Lyel had come to stand a pace behind her, waiting, reading the air with the silent attentiveness.
”Eliminate her,” Elyndra said.
Her voice was quiet.