THE CLOUDED BOTTLE

Elaris’s POV

The black glass of the high palace windows reflected the darkness of the night.

Neryss and I sat across from each other at the small table, neither willing to look away from the bottle that sat between us.

The liquid inside was no longer the clear blue liquid I’d measured for Maevra days ago.

It had turned a cloudy grey under the candlelight, flecks of unknown substances floating lazily inside the glass container.

I gripped the edge of the table uncomfortably.

“How long has she been doing this?” I whispered, mainly to distract myself.

Neryss gulped, her eyes fixed on the bottle. “Long enough for us to be wondering how much of it was Luna Maevra’s ‘illness’ that wasn’t.”

That thought hit me harder than I expected.

Every wheeze, every weak moment – had it really been Virelle’s doing all along?

I studied the suspicious liquid carefully and felt something inside me twist unhappily.

If Maevra truly had been poisoned for weeks, it meant that Virelle hadn’t wanted her dead before this.

She’d only wanted everyone to believe the old woman’s ‘illness’ was natural.

“We can’t leave this here,” Neryss muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. “But where can we take it?”

I stared at the heavy wooden door at the far end of the room.

“Averic.”

Neryss frowned. “After what happened?”

We both knew what it meant for me to seek audience with Averic directly after Maevra’s passing.

He’d banished me from the palace immediately after the funeral and hadn’t lifted the decree despite learning of Caedmon’s involvement in the matter.

Now that I was back in the palace, the last thing he wanted was any reason to send me away again.

“If we bring this to him, he may well ask how Neryss managed to take it from the shelf, whether the bottle was tampered with between the time it was placed there and when we retrieved it ,” I swallowed hard and rubbed my palms together in nervous anticipation.

“But if we keep it here, Maevra could very well be given another dose before we’re ready to prove what’s in this bottle.”

Neryss shot me a worried look.

“So you’re saying either way, Maevra could be in danger?”

“And the child.”

I didn’t say it, but we both knew it to be true.

Neryss didn’t speak again for a long moment.

“We are wasting time.”

I nodded sharply and stood up. “We need to find the Alpha.”

“No.”

I turned to her in surprise.

“I mean, yes, we do need to find him – but send someone to him. If Virelle has men watching him in his chambers, I don’t want her to know we found this before he sees it.”

Neryss agreed and slipped out the back door towards the servants’ entrance.

“Tell him you need a private meeting. Alone.”

She paused with her hand on the door.

“What if he refuses?”

I looked back down at the bottle.

“Then tell him Maevra’s life may depend on his answer.”

Neryss disappeared into the darkness.

I stood at the table, listening to the steady tick of the brass clock.

The palace was deathly silent.

Too silent.

For the first time since entering the room, I considered the possibility that Virelle already knew the bottle was gone.

The minutes crawled by until I finally picked up the cloudy bottle and held it up to the candle flame.

Something – or someone – inside the bottle seemed to stir.

No, not something.

A length of silver thread unspooled itself from the liquid and sank beneath the surface of the mixture.

I inhaled sharply as a sudden pressure built in my lower abdomen.

The baby was kicking.

I pressed both hands against my stomach in mild surprise.

For a brief second, a thread of silver light illuminated the space between my fingers before vanishing just as suddenly.

I stared at my hands in astonishment.

The baby had reacted to the bottle.

Not to Virelle’s approach, nor to whatever unseen threat hovered in the hallway outside these doors – the poison.

A frightening thought occurred to me – the magic that had shielded the child from the poison’s effects might also be able to sense it.

Perhaps that was why Virelle had been unaware of it in the first place.

I thought of everything the palace’s resident doctors had done and said about the child’s affliction and a single horrifying possibility took root in my mind.

If what I suspected was true, the unborn child within me might be the reason I was still breathing after Virelle’s first attempt on my life.

Just as the first rays of morning began to bleed through the tall windows, a knock sounded at the door.

Averic stepped inside the chamber and regarded the bottle I held with narrowed eyes.

“You summoned me before sunrise,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

I had to smile at the absurdity of it.

The council had spent the last half of the night arguing over what to do with Caedmon.

Several elders had taken umbrage with the idea of keeping him locked up in the palace dungeon without a formal court hearing.

“Your mother could be dying and you’re arguing about the laws surrounding the imprisonment of traitors?”

Averic frowned.

“Show me what you found.”

I set the bottle down on the table between us.

“Neryss saw Virelle inside the healer’s quarters.

The woman was alone in the medicine room with Maevra’s shelves.

When Neryss confronted her, Virelle replaced one bottle and left.”

Averic’s brows rose in surprise.

“Neryss took this from her?”

I nodded.

“Who else handled it?”

“Neryss and I.

After she stole it from Virelle, I took it from her.”

I watched Averic’s face closely.

“I overheard Virelle and Caedmon talking about the child.

They plan to take action before the blood moon rises.”

Averic’s eyes snapped to mine.

“You should have told me this right away.”

“I tried.

You keep asking for proof while she gets closer and closer to the one person who has the power to stop her.”

Averic said nothing.

I pointed the bottle at him.

“This is what she left behind.”

Averic took the object from me and held it up to the light.

The expression on his face changed as he stared into the swirling liquid.

“That color is not normal.”

“No.”

Averic turned the bottle slowly, studying the thick liquid and the flecks of grey matter suspended inside it.

“Harwin needs to examine this.”

“He will”.

Averic’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the glass tighter.

“This is not enough evidence to accuse Virelle of contaminating every bottle of medicine in my mother’s cabinet.”

“This is enough evidence to accuse her of attempting to kill my mother and my unborn child.”

Averic’s stare was steady.

“I cannot go before the council and accuse any woman – especially a protected female carrying my child – of murder based on one vial of poison.”

A chill ran down my spine.

“What may be your child?”

Averic’s jaw tightened.

“That is not what I meant”.

“It is precisely what you said”.

Averic replaced the bottle on the table.

“I will need more than this before I can accuse her of anything”.

I met his gaze evenly.

“You are still waiting for proof”.

“I am”.

“And in the meantime, someone is poisoning your mother”.

Averic’s jaw tightened angrily.

I stood up so fast my chair screeched against the stone floor.

“You act as if the approval of the council matters more than the lives of those within these palace walls”.

Averic flinched.

“I think you care too little about what happens to those who are important to you”.

I had the distinct impression that I’d just crossed a line – but I couldn’t stop myself.

“I watched Caedmon throw you out of your home after I sacrificed our child for him.

I watched you believe that I could have poisoned your own mother.

I survived that because I refused to die.

I won’t die at the hands of another woman because you are waiting until the last moment to do what is right”.

Averic took a step closer.

His voice was low and steady.

“I am not afraid of what the elders will decide”.

“Then prove it to me”.

For a long moment, Averic said nothing at all.

When he finally spoke, it was with quiet resignation.

“I will”.

Averic wrapped the bottle in a fresh cloth and sealed the package with his personal wax.

“I am sending it directly to Harwin.

Two of my shadow guards will remain with him until he examines the contents”.

He turned to go.

“And Maevra?”

“Her entire cabinet will be placed under guard.

No one will be allowed to administer a dose unless they have verified it with me”.

The relief that should have flooded my veins at those words remained stubbornly locked inside my ribcage.

“What about Virelle?”

Averic hesitated.

“I will not confront her until Harwin confirms the contents of this bottle”.

I clenched my jaw in frustration.

“She is still free to wander the palace corridors”.

“Only for a limited time”.

“I am giving her enough time to find another way to kill Maevra and the child she carries”.

Averic turned back to face me.

“I will not lose another person because I allow doubt to rule my actions”.

Something inside me twisted at the raw honesty in his voice.

Then he was gone, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Neryss returned several minutes later and I could almost hear the tension in her voice as she asked, “What did he say?”

“He took it.”

Her shoulders sagged in relief.

“Then we’re safe.”

I shook my head.

“No.

We’re getting closer to the truth.”

I turned away from the table and stared out the tall windows.

The palace was coming to life all around me – servants drifting in groups across the courtyard, guards changing shifts, healers heading for the eastern wing of the building.

It should have been a comforting sight, but instead it filled me with a deep, gnawing uneasiness.

Neryss came up behind me.

“You did everything you could”.

“I know.

But a part of me keeps thinking that if I had seen what was happening sooner, Maevra wouldn’t be this sick”.

Neryss gently rested a hand on my shoulder.

“This was not your fault”.

I wished she were right.

Because for the first time since I’d been in this chamber, another, much more horrifying possibility occurred to me.

If Virelle had been poisoning Maevra for weeks – which Neryss’s discovery of the second bottle definitely suggested – then someone in the palace was helping her.

Late that morning, hurried footsteps echoed in the hall outside my chamber.

A young servant girl appeared at the threshold, her face pale.

“Lady Elaris, you must come quickly.”

I rose from my place at the small table.

“What is it?”

“Luna Maevra.”

My stomach dropped.

“What about her?”

“She has taken another turn”.

Neryss was already moving towards the door.

“How is she?”

The servant hesitated.

“Her breathing is shallow and she can barely stay awake.

Doctor Harwin and the other healers are with her now”.

I didn’t stop to gather my things.

I was already halfway down the corridor when it hit me – the medicine cabinet had been under guard.

Unless…

Someone had already given Maevra another dose.

When I rounded the corner into Maevra’s corridor, Virelle was waiting for me just outside the Luna’s chamber.

She looked perfectly composed, one hand resting lightly against the intricately carved wooden front door while she spoke in hushed tones to one of the palace healers.

“I understand.

She needs the next dose right away”.

The healer nodded and turned to the door, but she paused when she saw me.

Virelle’s expression didn’t change, but I could see the calculating look in her eyes.

She slowly removed a small glass bottle from the fold of her dress – the identical twin to the one Averic had just taken into his possession.

For a long moment, neither of us said anything at all.

Then Virelle smiled, a cool, placid expression that sent a shiver down my spine.

She tucked the bottle back inside her gown and held out her hand.

The healer took it without hesitation and disappeared into the Luna’s chamber.

“Lady Elaris,” the palace healer’s voice reached me through the open doorway, “we need you to prepare the next dose right away”.

My blood went ice cold.

The bottle Averic possessed had been safe – but what would happen if the next dose that went into Maevra’s body contained the same poison?

Virelle hadn’t just allowed me to stumble across the first vial – she’d wanted me to find it.

Now she was waiting for me to do the same to the second one.

I stared at the closed door, heart thudding in my ears.

Inside that chamber was Maevra, helpless and waiting – and Virelle had just given her exactly what she wanted.