Chapter 9 - THE VENOM OF THE CROWN
The stone corridors beneath the inner keep were cold, wet, and ancient.
Maeve moved through the dark tunnels like a phantom, her left hand unmoving, her breath quiet and controlled. Behind her, Prince Theo walked with his sword drawn, his eyes searching every shadow for the remnants of Voss’s hidden strike force.
"You said Voss was not working alone," Theo whispered, his voice echoing faintly off the damp granite walls. "Who else could have supplied the northern Vipera Mortis? It is a chemical reserved only for the King’s High Council."
"Look at the delivery," Maeve said softly without breaking her stride. "The poison on Aurelia’s ring was not designed merely to murder a bride. It was timed. It was meant to execute her at the exact moment the contract of manumission was placed on the high table. Whoever engineered this needed the Crown to execute me on the spot—to burn the only witness who could identify the chemical signatures of the Royal Laboratory."
They reached an arched iron door set into the foundation of the High Keep—the entrance to the Vault of Records.
The heavy lock had been shattered from the inside.
Inside the vault, among thousands of dusty ledgers and tax scrolls, stood Lord High Chancellor Vane. He was holding an iron torch in one hand and a thick velvet pouch in the other. Beside him, three mercenary crossbowmen were stuffing royal bonds into leather traveling sacks.
Vane turned, his pale, aristocratic face twisting in shock as the light caught Maeve’s silver-streaked hair and Theo’s blood-stained tunic.
"You..." Vane gasped, dropping his scroll. "Physician Voss said you were dead in the catacombs!"
"Voss is dead," Theo said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register as he stepped into the room. "And his master is standing before me with his hands in the treasury."
Vane panicked. "Kill them! Leave no one alive!"
The three crossbowmen raised their weapons. Before the first bolt could fly, Maeve acted. She did not draw a blade. She reached into her apron, pulled out two small glass vials of Voss’s concentrated sleep-dust—compounds she had spent four years building total immunity against—and smashed them against the stone floor.
A cloud of white powder erupted into the enclosed room.
The crossbowmen choked, dropped their weapons, and collapsed onto the stone floor in seconds, their breathing slowing into an involuntary, deep sleep.
Lord Vane stumbled backward, his eyes wide with absolute horror as he watched Maeve walk straight through the white cloud without coughing, her dark eyes flashing in the torchlight.
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"You are a monster..." Vane whimpered, pressing his back against the stone wall.
"No," Maeve said softly, grabbing him by the silk collar of his doublet and dragging him to his knees before Prince Theo. "I am the taster who survived your politics."
