THE NEXT DOSE

Elaris's POV

I didn't stop running.

It felt as if the hallways led on forever, but I forced myself onwards

Maevra was in there.

And Virel was holding the bottle.

I arrived as the healer's hand hovered over the object

"Give it to me," he said, sounding nervous.

Virelle placed the glass bottle in his waiting palm

I lunged forwards.

"don't!"

The healer was taken aback.

Virelle had barely reacted as I seized the item from his grasp

The substance inside swirled and bubbled with dark, cloudy liquid

Grayish.

Uneven.

Something was wrong.

Her gloved fingers hovered just above the glass before she let it drop to her side.

"Elaris,"

She didn't sound surprised

I held it up to my chest.

"You're not giving it to her."

The healer's gaze darted between us.

"Lady Elaris, I was ordered to give the medicine."

"And you were ordered to poison her."

The hall went deathly quiet.

Virelle's expression barely showed emotion, but I could see the tightening muscles around her lips.

She hadn't expected me to stop him before he reached Maevra.

her mouth curved into a smile.

"You're in danger of speaking out of turn, Elaris."

She purred, her voice low enough for the healer to hear.

"make accusations without evidence is a precarious position to be in."

I turned on her.

"I have evidence."

"do you?"

Her calculating eyes swept up the liquid in my hands before settling on my face.

"You've made accusations since the day you arrived in this palace."

The healer shifted awkwardly.

"I'd rather not get involved in a personal quarrel."

"This isn't a personal quarrel,"

I held up the bottle.

"look at this."

His fingers twitched at his sides, and Virelle folded her hands primly in front of her.

"If you're finished, I think you'll find it's quite simple to assume it's the same solution Maevra has been drinking."

Not good enough, said her body language. Someone who was in total control of whatever was going on here.

That was what frightened me most.

I turned back to the healer

"Tell me, is this the same medicine Maevra has been given?"

he peered at it doubtfully.

"I would need to compare the two."

"You have your chance,"

Virelle sighed.

"You see? She can't take the word of anyone."

"I'm not asking you to take my word,"

I took a deep breath,

"Bring me a sealed bottle from the locked away supplies."

The healer hesitated, shooting a glance at Virelle.

She smiled

"Go on then."

I rummaged around in my tunic before pulling out the first bottle Neryss had taken from the healers quarters.

I stood it next to the other cloudy liquid.

Two identical mixtures, and two suspiciously similar glass bottles.

The healer stared.

"They look very similar.'

'Not similar," I corrected

"the same."

Virelle arched an eyebrow.

"You can't tell by looking at it."

"Neither can you tell me it isn't poison."

I turned to the healer.

"You can compare the two samples with an unopened bottle."

He hesitated.

"There are sealed bottles in the medical storage."

"Yes there are," Virelle told him.

"Now why don't you fetch one of them?"

"Why are you so insistent about doing this in the dead of night?"

Virelle asked suddenly.

"Because right now, behind that door there's a woman who should be resting."

Her false smile slipped for the briefest of moments, and I pointed towards the heavy oak door.

"If this isn't harming Maevra, then neither do you have anything to lose."

The healer finally relented

"I'll go,"

Then he was gone

Virelle came closer

"You're making a mistake."

"One-sided conversations are usually a prelude to executions."

I snapped, and she took a step back.

"Perhaps,"

Her lips curved into a small smile, showing off a row of tiny white teeth

"but it's too late for that, isn't it?"

Two guards escorted the healer back, one with an unbroken sealed bottle of medicine in his hand and the other looking uncertainly between us.

The servants gathered farther down the hall and muffled gossip.

A couple of palace guards ordered them to clear out of the way but nobody took the hint straight away.

Virelle, meanwhile, said nothing and watched me closely.

"Open the clean bottle,"

I said tightly

The healer fumbled with the seal on the bottle before pouring a small amount into a metal tray.

The liquid was a clear sky blue, almost translucent, revealing the silver rim of the dish beneath it.

He did the same with the other bottle, and the murky brown solution produced a similar effect.

My heart pounded.

"Now test them," I urged

The healer rummaged around in an apron pocket before withdrawing a bottle of testing powder.

But before he could add it to the first solution, a door at the far end of the hallway burst open, and another healer hurried out onto the landing.

His gaze swept past us before fixing on Virelle.

"Her breathing is becoming more laboured."

"How long?" I demanded

__

“But if I’m wrong, Maevra lives.”

Virelle's eyes went to the open door

A look of alarm passed over her features, but it was gone almost as soon as it came.

"Then perhaps you'd better hurry, since everyone seems so anxious to look at a bottle of medicine."

"Because one of these bottles can kill the woman in that chamber."

"If that's true, you have nothing to fear," The healer told me, ignoring Virelle.

"But it might be good to double-check," I said.

He looked uncertain.

"There are sealed bottles in the medical storage.'

"I'll find one,' said the other healer, already walking away.

And so it happened, a few minutes later, an entirely new set of palace guards appeared at the end of the hallway, Averic among them.

He was still fastening his coat when he spotted us, several senior members of the palace guard following in his wake.

His calculating gaze swept over the two suspicious bottles in my hands, then past me to the small chamber, where Maevra's breathing was becoming increasingly erratic.

"What is happening?"

I answered before anyone else could.

"Virelle has just attempted to give Maevra a second dose."

Virelle's serene mask didn't waver.

"She was already receiving medicine from the healers."

"She gave this to the healer," I informed him, holding up the cloudy bottle,

"and it can't be very different from the sample Neryss uncovered earlier."

The older man's piercing eyes swept over the three of us before settling back on me.

The moment he focused on me, I understood what he was really asking.

"Bring them to me.

I walked forwards, placing both bottles in his waiting palm.

"She was about to give the second dose.

"Are you certain of that?" Averic asked quietly.

"I saw it happen,"

Virelle spoke up.

"Alpha, I was only trying to help,"

But Averic paid her no attention.

"Where is the other bottle?"

The healer hesitated then produced the sealed container.

Averic's mouth tightened into a firm line.

"Test them all, in front of everyone."

The guards murmured amongst themselves, growing restless. I was just as anxious, but for a different reason.

"Elaris," Averic said suddenly, focusing on me again.

"I want it done here.

The entire corridor held its breath as I nodded consent.

If you were to disappear afterwards, people would question what had really happened.

"Not in front of the entire palace," Averic said softly, his expression unreadable.

"You don't trust me.'

"This isn't a matter of trust," I told him.

"It's a matter of ensuring that no one can twist the facts to suit them.'

Averic's gaze held mine for a long moment before tightening into a hard stare.

"Very well.

He turned to the healer.

"Test them, in front of everybody."

The healer arranged the three bottles side by side.

The clear liquid remained the same.

But the first cloudy sample darkened almost instantly when a few drops of the powdered testing drug were added.

The second did the same.

The healer paled as he stared at the results.

"Alpha..." he began, and Averic's cold voice silenced him.

"Say it."

The healer swallowed hard.

"These two samples of solution have been tampered with,"

A murmur of shock swept through the crowd gathered in the corridor.

Virelle's serene mask remained in place,

but her hands were clenched at her sides, her knuckles white.

The testing powder wasn't enough to prove that the solution contained poison, so the healer added another liquid to test the reaction.

It was enough to turn the cloudy solution an inky black colour, but the clear liquid remained pure and untouched.

The healer turned away, shaken.

"There's a toxic agent in these two samples."

"What kind of agent?" Averic asked.

The healer hesitated.

"I would need to run some further tests to determine the concentration,"

"But it is poison?"

"Yes," he said.

The weight of those two words pressed heavily on me.

Virelle was the first to recover, her mask slipping just slightly to reveal something close to shock.

Averic turned to her

"Where did you get the bottle?"

"You were holding it." Virelle replied, surprised.

"I was about the give it to the healer.

"Who gave it to you?"

Virelle hesitated

__

“We don’t know.”

I stared at her.

__

“I didn’t prepare it.”

Virelle glanced at me.

"There were a number of bottles in the medical storage,"

Averic's voice was colder than before,

"You're asking me to believe that?"

Virelle's mask slipped just enough to show me how afraid she was.

"I only wanted to help Maevra,"

Averic turned to his guards

"Confine her."

The guards moved to comply.

Virelle didn't fight them,

I couldn't read the expression on her face as she walked past me, stopping only inches away.

"You think you have won," she whispered, low enough for me to hear

"I think you should understand what you carry,"

The last of Averic's guards took her arm, and she allowed them to lead her away.

A shiver of unease ran down my spine as I followed, watching her retreating back as she turned the corner out of sight.

Inside Maevra's chamber, the healers had made little progress.

I stepped inside and hurried to Maevra's side.

Her skin was sallow under the light filtering through the window and her breathing, normally even and steady, came with shallow, irregular gasps.

"Maevra," I whispered, brushing the damp hair from her sweaty forehead,

Her eyelids fluttered, then moved in slow motion as she focused on my face.

She knew I was there.

Her fingers slid down the bed, still grasping uselessly at the air. I took one hand, mindful of her pain.

"I'm here,

Her lips parted in response, trying to form some sort of response - and failing spectacularly.

"Elaris," she managed after an especially painful pause.

"Yes."

Her fingers flexed around mine.

"Child......

I turned my gaze to my stomach.

"I'll protect him,

she gave me a weak, almost imperceptible smile as the healer adjusted the quilt over her.

Her pulse was steadying, but still erratic.

"As I suspected," he said, noting my reaction to her change in condition.

"Because she didn't get that dose?"

He nodded,

Maevra was lucky - or possibly me, depending on who you asked.

One more dose would most likely have taken her life.

"Someone else is targeting her," I supplied

Perhaps it was just my imagination, but Virelle looked almost amused at my discovery.

"The last thing Maevra was aware of was a bottle in my care.

Averic said nothing as he regarded the bottle at his side.

"It needs to be removed from circulation,"

he said eventually

The healers nodded.

"Not until tomorrow," the first one said

Averic narrowed his eyes.

"No,"

He turned to the captain of the palace guard standing closest to him.

"Inspect all the medicine supplies in this wing before first light,"

"Destroy them?"

"All of them,"

He said firmly.

"Not the unopened supplies, either,

"Remove, inspect, replace with the sealed royal supplies"

It was a heavy weight on everyone's shoulders, but the captain simply nodded before moving away.

"No one enters or exits the chamber without permission," Averic went on.

"Anyone who disobeys that order will answer to me personally."

Virelle was the last to exit the chamber.

The closer we drew to dawn, the more awake Maevra seemed. She could even sit up, supported against me as I sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed.

"She's still weak, but she'll make a full recovery," the healer assured me

"Thank you," I said, not trusting myself to say anything else.

It was strange to see Averic like this

ever the tactician, he always thought of every angle.

Even then, I doubted anyone could have foreseen this.

Later that evening, long after Maevra had gone to sleep for the night, we climbed back down that corridor to inspect the damage. Averic paused at my side, watching me for a moment before speaking.

"Elaris."

I turned at the sound of my name and met his searching gaze

"You were right," he said, not sounding angry for the first time in days.

"You took the right course of action,"

"I prefer to think it was because I saw the situation clearly from the beginning," I said.

"I saw enough to know there was manipulation involved in the attempt on Maevra's life, but I let the council's interference cloud my judgement."

The words tasted bitter as they left my lips, but I forced myself to continue.

"Did you believe me, just now?"

His eyes flicked down to my stomach for the briefest of moments before returning to mine.

"I believed you when I heard my own mother planning the murder of a woman who had defended this palace time and time again,"

Averic turned back towards the stairwell.

"Double the guards," he threw over his shoulder.

"We'll deal with the evidence in the morning,"

I didn't follow, watching the tall figure retreating into the night

The distance between us remained the same, just as it had for the past three years,

It remained the same right through to the time we reached the edge of the hallway.

He said nothing as he passed me. It wasn't until we were well past the threshold that he was looking back over his shoulder, expression hard to read.

"I have made my position clear.

A voice echoed from somewhere down the far end of the corridor.

Averic turned.

A soldier was already running up the hallway to meet us.

"Alpha!"

"Yes?

"Those soldiers you ordered to check Virelles rooms were able to retrieve one more item,"

One more item? That meant there must have at least four items to begin with.

"What kind of item?" Averic asked

The soldier held out a worn wooden box.

"One of these," his associate replied, opening it to reveal several smaller glass bottles filled with the same murky liquid.

Averic reached in to pull out one the vials.

His fingers curled around a folded scrap of paper tucked safely beneath the collection of bottles at the bottom of the box.

There was a moment of silence as Averic unfolded the page and studied the words. I stepped beside him to look at whatever it was, but his expression hardened when he noticed me standing there. He pushed the page into my hand.

"Did you see that?" I asked him.

"Once the old woman in gone, the child will be next. Be ready.

I stared up at him, searching his eyes.

"It was Virelle," I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.

Averic turned the note over in his hands before slipping it back into the box with the bottles.

"I suppose it doesn't matter who the culprit is," he said at last

What did matter was that someone was willing to go to such lengths to harm Maevra and, possibly, my unborn child. Someone must have foreseen that Virelle would fail - and wanted to take advantage of the situation before moving on to the second stage.

That was why Virelle had waited so long before making any attempt on Maevra's life.

She had plenty of time to prepare an alternative plan.

I stared at the bottles as Averic pushed it into his coat.

That meant it was time for the second phase of whatever this was.

I instinctively covered my stomach, and Averic looked from the bottles I was holding to the name scrawled across the top of the folded message from the box. Only this time, there was no mistaking what the message meant.

A new target was in place

My child was in danger.