Bound to the Alpha King novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Nightshade

I hit the cup with the back of my hand before Rorik's fingers reached it.

It flew off the table, spun through the torchlight, and burst against the stone floor.

Hot tea spattered the Chancellor's grey sleeve.

Nobody breathed.

"Healer," said Rorik, very evenly.

"Nightshade," I said. "That tea has nightshade in it."

Every head at the long table turned toward the broken cup.

The servant who had carried it was already backing toward the door.

He was a thin man with a wet upper lip.

"Seize him," said Brack, and two guards moved.

The servant ran.

He barely reached the doors before finding them shut.

Brack's men took him by the elbows and dragged him back to the high table, and he started babbling.

"I only carried it. The steward said it was the king's tea. I only carried it."

"Which steward?" said Rorik.

"The kitchen steward."

"Name him."

"I don't know his name!"

"You carry the king's tea and you don't know the name of the man who hands it to you?"

The servant's mouth worked.

"He wore a grey coat," he said.

Half the hall wore grey.

I knelt on the floor beside the broken cup and touched my fingertip to a drop of the spilled tea.

I smelled it and did not taste it.

"Sleeping tea with a spoonful of nightshade juice," I said. "Enough to stop a heart in an hour."

"You can tell that from a smell?"

"I can tell it from the colour too, if the light is good."

The Chancellor had risen from his seat.

"This is a convenient accusation, Majesty," he said gently. "The healer is the only one at the table who knew the tea was tainted."

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