Talia woke up almost the instant she was lifted from the floor. It took her a few seconds to remember what had happened and why she felt so weak and sick.
She did not open her eyes. As she was carried from the court, she could hear the chaos around her. Several voices were shouting about poison and assisantions. The Emperor called for a physician.
Despite what she had said to Prince Mikhail, Talia had felt absolutely fine right up until she'd arrived at court.
The symptoms started soon after and continued to grow worse throughout her discussion with the Emperor.
It had been hard to concentrate. It had been even harder to stand still and appear calm while her stomach twisted in agony and the room tilted back and forth. She'd felt like vomiting several times, but had somehow held back. The last thing she remembered was realizing that she must have been poisoned, and that there was only one person who could have poisoned her.
She'd had nothing to eat or drink for an entire day except for the wine she'd swallowed from Prince Mikhail's own mouth.
She was dropped roughly on a bed, and soon after, a pair of gentle hands skimmed down her arm.
Shocked, she jerked herself free and rolled away, but her stomach lurched violently, and the hands caught and restrained her.
"Princess, please! Be still, please!" an elderly voice insisted.
She blinked a few times and realized that she had returned to Prince Mikhail's room and that the hands belonged to a royal physician.
He was an old man with a long white beard and small watery eyes, and he appeared almost as startled as her.
"Please, Princess, I mean you no harm. You aren't well. You've had a fainting spell, and I need to-"
"It... it... was..." Talia interrupted, trying to explain. It was difficult to form coherent thoughts with the way her head spun and the room seemed to fade in and out. "It was... Prince Mikhail.... I.. he did this... he... when he... when he kissed me... "
"Yes, Princess. I understand. Please lay still and let me check your pulse," the old physician soothed her.
He did not truly understand. She could tell by the way his brow wrinkled with concern as he studied her. He probably thought she was mad.
He gently pressed her wrist, and closed his eyes. After a moment of silence, he smiled slightly and opened his eyes to look at her.
"There isn't anything to worry about, Princess. This will pass. This is all very normal. You will feel better in a little while," he said and patted her arm gently. "Rest is all you need."
Talia scowled and ripped her arm away from him.
Rest indeed! Normal? The physician was obviously a fake! Healthy people didn't pass out in the middle of a conversation. The room wasn't supposed to pitch back and forth like the deck of a ship in a storm. Perhaps he was one of the Prince's or even the Emperor's servants. They'd probably brought in a physician to make it look like they were trying to save her.... but why would Prince Mikhail do such a thing?
She hadn't outright rejected his proposal. Perhaps the proposal and everything that came after it was merely a distraction to keep her from realizing what he had done.
Still, it did not make sense.
But what if.... what if he were compelled to do it? What if the Emperor had used the blood bond to force Prince Mikhail to get rid of her before the council arrived?
It was entirely possible.
The physician stood and bowed to her.
"Rest now, Princess. I will return later to check your condition, but I must hurry to assure the Emperor that you will recover."
Talia waited until the door closed behind the old man, and then slowly crawled across the bed and carefully set her feet down.
If she was going to die, it wouldn't be in secret. Perhaps she could get a message to Mahet and Judice, or perhaps...
As she stood on wobbly legs and began to walk toward the door, she realized that her nausea and the pain in her lower abdomen had faded substantially.
Talia paused and rubbed her head. What was the Prince plotting? This was the second time that Mikhail had poisoned, but not killed her.
Her eyes fell on a small side table near the door where someone had placed a basket of small packages.
Without even wondering if she should, Talia picked up the first small bundle and unwrapped it to discover a glass bottle labeled: 'goat's milk'.
She quickly tore through each of the other packages, finding the ingredients she had asked for.
Further proof that Prince Mikhail had not meant to kill her- or perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps she simply wanted to believe that it was not his intent and she was trying to convince herself of it because.... because...
The memory of Prince Mikhail kissing her... the feeling of his hands moving across her body, and of his mouth...
Talia shook her head roughly to clear it. Prince Mikhail had admitted many times that he felt lust for her, but he had never, at any point, spoken of love. She was the one who was always conflating the two.
She picked up each of the ingredients and studied them intently. She had felt slightly guilty asking for them earlier, knowing full well that the Prince believed her when she said that she planned to concoct a medicine for indigestion.
In truth, the potion was meant for him.
Talia set the milk back in the basket and stepped back, crossing her arms.
It was true that she had long suspected his marks meant that he had taken part in some sort of blood oath ritual. It was also true that she had not known, until that very day, that he was bound to the Emperor like a slave.
However, she had not been honest about her ability to break a blood oath-- well, a normal blood oath anyhow. She had extensive knowledge of healing in the ancient ways taught by the Alulians. In fact, every child of House Eosin was trained in blood magic from the time they could talk.
They were also trained to never speak of it outside the family.
Nodding determinedly to herself, Talia picked up the basket, and walked toward the bathroom.
She could not free him. She could not break his bond entirely, but she could loosen his tongue. The potion was relatively simple. It would not be hard to make. It would be hard to watch.
The potion for allowing a person to speak while under a blood oath was a powerful one-- strong enough to kill if used incorrectly, and it would be very, very painful for Prince Mikhail.
When she had asked for the ingredients, she had only meant to make the potion and keep it on her. She had not yet decided to use it. After all, his marks were not exactly like the ones she had learned about. Giving him the potion could work, or it might kill him, or it might do nothing at all. It seemed a very risky proposition.
But then he had poisoned her.
She would discover the reason for it! She would discover many things if he was able to withstand the pain.
Talia set the basket on the floor of the bathroom and removed the mortar and pestle first. She sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of it and felt for the knife hidden beneath her skirts.
Removing it, she held it up to inspect before taking a small bottle of alcohol from the basket, pouring some onto the cloth and wiping the blade.
She smiled faintly, remembering how nervous she'd been earlier that he would remember the knife he'd tossed to the floor and demand it from her.
She had chattered on about nothing, trying to distract him, to keep him from remembering. She needn't have been worried. He was likely so preoccupied with his own plans for poisoning her, that he hadn't even given it a thought.
Talia set the knife aside and dropped the hutteroot into the bowl, along with the powdered kesh, and began to grind.
It wasn't just her anger, she reasoned. If she was going to do it, it had to be now. The entire court and the Emperor had seen her become ill and collapse. If the Prince did happen to die...
If he did happen to die...
She dropped the pestle into the bowl and pressed her hand to her forehead, as though she could physically force out the image of his body convulsing on the floor as he choked.
If the worst happened... then she could say that she had also been poisoned. She would appear blameless.
Talia picked up the knife again and set the point to the palm of her hand. Holding her shaking hand over the bowl, she drew in a deep breath and held it.
At some point during her captivity, she had grown weak and indecisive. A year ago, she would not have hesitated for a single second. Now, she was fighting herself and her traitorous desire to protect the enemy who had starved and killed her people for years.
"For Vezda," she whispered as she slashed the palm of her hand.
Her blood pooled quickly in her hand. Talia swallowed at the lump in her throat and let it fall into the bowl.