Chapter 5 - THE ARCHITECT OF VENOM
Maeve reached Nell in three bounds, dropping to her knees beside her daughter.
"Nell! Look at me! Look at Mama!" Maeve cried, pulling the little girl into her lap.
Nell’s breathing was a shallow, rattling gasp. The binary poison was shutting down her diaphragm.
"I can't... breathe..." Nell sobbed weakly.
Maeve knew there was no medicine in her apron. There was no clean water that could wash this away. The catalyst was already inside Nell’s blood.
Think, Maeve ordered herself, her mind racing through the thousands of pages of apothecary texts Thomas had taught her, combined with the brutal physical lessons of her seven years as a taster. Binary toxin. Organophosphate base. Nitrogen catalyst. How do you neutralize a nitrogen catalyst?
With an overload of specific antibodies.
With my blood.
"Nell," Maeve said, her voice shaking violently. "Look at me, sweet girl. I need you to bite your tongue. I need you to swallow."
Maeve drew the small silver testing knife from her belt. Without a second's hesitation, she dragged the blade across her own left wrist.
Dark, thick blood—blood filled with seven years of refined immunities—welled up from the wound.
Maeve pressed her wrist directly against Nell’s mouth.
"Drink," Maeve commanded, tears spilling over her cheeks. "Drink, Nell! Swallow it!"
Nell, half-conscious and desperate for life, choked on the copper-tasting fluid, swallowing two gulps of her mother’s blood.
For five terrifying seconds, nothing happened. Nell’s body went completely limp in Maeve’s arms.
Then, Nell let out a violent, gasping cough.
A thick jet of clear, frothy phlegm burst from her mouth, splashing onto the floor. The blue color in her lips instantly began to recede, replaced by a flush of natural pink. Her chest heaved as she drew in a massive, clear breath of air.
"Mama..." Nell sobbed, her eyes fluttering open. "Mama, it tastes bad..."
Maeve buried her face in her daughter’s hair, weeping hysterical tears of relief. "I know, baby. I know. But you're safe. You're alive."
"Maeve..."
Maeve looked up.
Prince Theo was crawling toward her across the stone floor, his face pale gray, his lungs rattling like dry peas in a can. He reached out one hand, his fingers twitching toward her.
"My... my father..." Theo gasped, pointing toward King Alden, who lay motionless ten feet away. "Help... him..."
Maeve looked at the Prince. She looked at the King—the man who had torn up her freedom contract five minutes ago, the man who had doomed her to the gallows without a second thought.
Why should I save him? a voice inside her screamed. Let them all burn. Take Nell and run into the night.
She looked at Nell. Nell was watching her with big, frightened, innocent eyes.
If I become a monster to survive, Maeve thought, then Voss has already won.
Maeve stood up. She grabbed a silver wine goblet from a nearby table, sliced her wrist deeper, and let her dark blood fill the bottom of the cup. She mixed it with a splash of clean water from an untouched jug.
She ran to Prince Theo and forced the mixture down his throat.
Theo gagged, swallowed, and fell back, gasping violently as the antibodies in Maeve’s blood tore through the binary toxin in his system, neutralizing it in seconds.
"Father..." Theo breathed, his voice returning as he pushed himself up.
Maeve was already at the King’s side. She poured the remaining drop of her blood into King Alden's open mouth and massaged his throat until he swallowed involuntarily.
The King let out a loud, snorting gasp, his eyes flying open as life flooded back into his withered frame. He sat up, coughing violently, staring at Maeve in absolute, utter shock.
"You..." Alden rasped. "You... saved me..."
"I didn't save you for your crown, Alden," Maeve said, her voice like grinding iron as she bound her bleeding wrist with a strip of linen torn from her apron. "I saved you so you can watch me tear down the man who made you his fool."
She turned to Prince Theo, who was already standing, drawing his sword with a renewed, furious strength.
"Voss went into the catacombs beneath the high table," Maeve said. "He has an alchemical lab down there. If he gets through the lower tunnels, he escapes into the city."
"The catacombs are a maze," Theo said, his eyes burning with vengeance for his murdered bride. "No one knows them except the Royal Tasters and the Master Builder."
"I know them," Maeve said. "I spent seven years carrying poison out of those vaults. Come with me if you want to kill him."
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Theo looked at his father, then at Nell. "Keep the child safe, Sire. Guards—anyone who can still stand—lock the doors from the outside! No one leaves!"
Maeve didn't wait. She ran to the secret stone panel behind the dais, shoved it open, and plummeted into the dark, damp, stairwell that led straight into the bowels of Valedorn Castle.
