Mia sighed, sat back down with reluctance. But Ash spoke wisdom, after all. Mia wasn’t here to play the comfort maid; she was here to avenge her familia. Consul Scaeva and his cronies weren’t going to be dispatched by some fool with a bleeding heart. Whatever was eating Tric, it could wait ’til after lessons. Mia finished her mornmeal in silence (she couldn’t smell anything odd in the broth, despite Tric’s claims), then shuffled off after Ash and Carlotta in search of the Hall of Truths.
Of all the rooms within the Quiet Mountain, Mia was soon to discover it was the easiest to find. As she traipsed down twisting staircases, she found her nose wrinkling in disgust.
“…’Byss and blood, what’s that smell?”
Carlotta’s face was reverent, her eyes lit with a quiet fervor.
“Truth,” she murmured.
The stench grew stronger as they walked through the dark. A perfume of rot and fresh flowers. Dried herbs and acids. Cut grass and rust. The acolytes arrived at a set of great double doors, the smell washing over them in waves as they swung wide.
Mia took a deep breath, and stepped into Shahiid Spiderkiller’s domain.
If red had been the motif of Aalea’s hall, green was the theme here. Stained glass filtered a ruddy emerald light into the room, the glassware tinged with every hue—lime to dark jade. A great ironwood bench dominated the room. Inkwells and parchment were laid out in each place. Shelves on the walls were filled with thousands of different jars, a myriad of substances within. Glassware lined the bench, pipes and pipets, funnels and tubes. A discordant tune of bubbling and hissing rose from the various reactions taking place in flasks and bowls around the room.
Another smaller table stood at the room’s head, an ornate, high-backed chair behind it. Among the other apparatus, a glass terrarium sat atop it, lined with straw. Six rats snuffled about within, fat and black and sleek.
Tric had beaten Mia down here, sitting at the far end of the bench and ignoring her when she entered. Taking a seat beside Ash, Mia found herself studying the apparatus; beakers and phials and boiling jars. All the tools of an arkemist’s workshop. As she began to suspect what kind of “truth” they taught here, a honey-smooth voice interrupted her thoughts.
“I once killed a man seven nevernights before he died.”
Mia turned her eyes front, sat up straighter. A figure emerged from behind the curtains at the head of the hall. Tall and elegant, her back as straight as a sword. Her saltlocks were intricate. Immaculate. Her skin was the dark, polished walnut of the Dweymeri, her face, unadorned by ink. She wore a long flowing robe of deep emerald, gold at her throat. Three curved daggers hung at her waist. Lips painted black.
Shahiid Spiderkiller.
“I killed an Itreyan senator with his wife’s kiss,” she continued. “I ended a Vaanian laird with a glass of his favorite goldwine, though I never touched the bottle. I murdered one of the greatest Luminatii swordsmen who ever lived with a sliver of bone no bigger than my fingernail.” The woman stood before the terrarium, the rats inside watching her with dark eyes. “The nectar of a single flower can rip us from this fragile shell with more violence than any blade. And gentler than any kiss.”
Spiderkiller held up a strip of muslin, half a dozen chunks of cheese therein. Unwrapping the morsels, she dropped them inside the terrarium. Squeaking and squalling, the rats set about each claiming its own meal, devouring it within seconds.
“This is the truth I offer you,” Spiderkiller said, turning to the acolytes. “But poison is a sword with no hilt, children. There is only the blade. Double-edged and ever-sharp. To be handled with utmost care lest it bleed you to your ending.”
As Spiderkiller drummed long fingernails on the terrarium’s walls, Mia realized every single rat inside was dead.
The Shahiid lowered her head, murmured fervently.
“Hear me, Niah. Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. These lives, these ends, my gift to you. Hold them close.”
Spiderkiller opened her eyes and stared at the acolytes. Her voice breaking the deathly hush that had descended on the room.
“Now. Who will hazard a guess at what brought these offerings their endings?”
Silence reigned. The woman looked among the acolytes, lips pursed.
“Speak up. I have even less need of mice here than I do of rats.”
“Widowwalk,” Diamo finally offered.
“Widowwalk induces abdominal cramps and bloody vomiting before terminus is reached, Acolyte. These offerings died without a squeak of protest. Anyone else?”
Mia blinked in the emerald light. Wiping at her eyes. Perhaps it was her imagination. Perhaps the air down here was of poorer quality. But she was finding it hard to breathe …
“Come now,” Spiderkiller said. “The answer may prove of use to you in future.”
“Aspira?” Marcellus asked, covering his mouth to cough.
“No,” Spiderkiller said. “Aspira is inhaled, not imbibed.”
“Allbane,” came the calls. “Evershade.” “Blackmark venom.” “Spite.”
“No,” Spiderkiller replied. “No. No. No.”
Mia wiped at her lip, wet with sweat. Blinked hard. She glanced at Ash, realized the girl was having the same trouble breathing. Eyes bloodshot. Chest rising and falling rapidly. Looking around the room, she saw other acolytes now experiencing the same. Jessamine. Hush. Petrus.
Everyone except …
A smile was growing on Spiderkiller’s black lips. “Think quickly now, children.”
Everyone except Tric …
“Shit,” Mia breathed.
Dragging the saltlocks from his eyes, he offered his spoon to Mia.
“Does this smell strange to you …?”
Tric looked about in confusion as the acolytes around him began hyperventilating. Belle fell to the floor, clutching her chest. Pip’s lips had gone almost purple. Mia lurched to her feet, stool toppling backward with a crash on the stone floor. Spiderkiller looked to her, one immaculately manicured eyebrow rising slightly.
“Is something wrong, Acolyte?”
“Mornmeal …” Mia looked around at her fellow novices, now all sweating and gasping for breath. “Maw’s teeth, she poisoned our mornmeal!”
Eyes growing wide. Curses and whispers. Fear spreading among the acolytes like a wildfire in summersdeep. Spiderkiller folded her arms, leaned against her desk.
“I did say the answer might prove useful in future.”
Mia cast her eyes around the room. Chest constricting. Heart thundering. Thinking back through all her venomlore, the pages of Arkemical Truths she’d read, over and over. Ignoring the rising panic around her. Fearless with Mister Kindly beside her. What did she know?
The poison is ingested. Tasteless. Almost odorless.
Symptoms?
Shortness of breath. Tightness in her chest. Sweats. No pain. No delirium.
Looking about her, she saw Carlotta was on her feet, the slavegirl’s eyes scanning the shelves about them as she muttered to herself. Ashlinn’s lips and fingernails were turning blue.
Hypoxia.
“The lungs,” she whispered. “Airways.”
She looked to Spiderkiller. Mind racing. Black spots swimming in her eyes.
“Red dahlia …,” she breathed.
Mia blinked. Another whisper had echoed her own, spoke the answer at the precise moment she had. She looked to Carlotta, found the slavegirl looking back at her, wide eyes bloodshot. But she knew. She understood.
“You get the bluesalt and calphite,” Mia said. “I’ll boil the peppermilk.”
The girls staggered to the overcrowded shelves, pawing through the ingredients. Ignoring the pain, Mia dragged her arm from its sling, pushed aside a box of palsyroot, knocked a jar of dried proudweed to the ground with a crash. Up on tiptoes and lunging for a jar of peppermilk at the back of the shelf, she glanced at Tric, pointed to one of the oil burners lining the table.
“Tric, get that lit!”