I Woke Up as the Villainess Fated to Die, and Now the Emperor Can't Forget Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Rose Keeps It
I swear I don't know who poisoned me while the Emperor seals the hall, and sweet Rose kneels beside me, slides the crested vial out of my sleeve and whispers that she'll keep it safe for me.
"I don't know," I said.
My tongue was thick, and the words came out slow.
The Emperor's eyes moved over my face.
"You don't know," he said.
"I don't know."
He didn't look away from me.
"Seal the doors," he said.
He didn't raise his voice.
Somewhere behind me, iron bolts slammed across the great doors, one after another.
The violins had stopped.
Three hundred people were standing up from their benches to see.
I was lying across the Emperor's knee on the floor of his own banquet hall, with my emerald skirts spilled over the stone.
In the book, this was Rose's place.
In the book, Rose's head fell back against his arm and her lips went blue, and every lady in the hall cried.
Nobody was crying for me.
"It's the Montclair girl," somebody said.
"Vivi Montclair, poisoned? She's the one who poisons people."
A man laughed and then stopped laughing very fast.
"Physician," the Emperor said.
An old man in a grey robe pushed through the crowd with a leather bag.
He knelt and picked up the golden cup from where it had rolled.
He sniffed it, then touched one finger to the last drop and put it to his tongue.
His eyebrows went up.
"Widow's sleep, Majesty. A strong dose."
"Will it kill her?"
"Not if it's only the one cup. She'll sleep two days, maybe three."
The Emperor's arm tightened under my back.
"Whose cup was it?"
There was a silence.
Then a soft voice said, "Mine, Your Majesty."
Rose had come around the table.
She stood with her small hands clasped in front of her pink dress, and her eyes were full of tears.
"Lady Vivi took it out of my hand. She said I was too slow, and she drank it before I could."
A murmur ran through the ladies at our table.
I watched it reach the far end of the hall.
"So it was meant for Lady Delmar," the Emperor said.
"I suppose it must have been," Rose whispered.
She pressed her hand to her heart.
"Lady Vivi saved my life."
The murmur changed.
I could hear it changing.
Vivi Montclair, the viper of the court, had swallowed poison meant for the baron's poor daughter.
Nobody believed it, and everybody was saying it.
My fist was getting weaker.
The vial was slippery with sweat inside it.
"Search the table," the Emperor said. "Every lady, every servant, every sleeve. I want the bottle this came from."
My heart lurched.
Guards in black and gold were already coming down the length of the hall.
A lady near me gave a little shriek as one of them reached for her wrist.
I tried to make my fingers open.
I couldn't.
If I let go now, it would roll across the floor in front of the Emperor's boots.
If I held on, the guards would find it in my hand.
Either way, it was a hawk stamped in silver, and every person in this hall knew whose hawk that was.
Rose dropped to her knees beside me.
Her skirt pooled against mine.
"Please, Majesty, let me sit with her," she said. "She's frightened. Look at her hands."
She took my hand in both of hers.
Her fingers were warm and very small.
They slid under mine, inside my curled fist, and they were not gentle.
She pried my fingers open one at a time.
I felt the vial leave my palm.
I felt it go into her sleeve.
Nobody saw it.
The Emperor was looking at the guards.
The ladies were looking at the Emperor.
Rose looked down at me with her big wet blue eyes and stroked the back of my hand with her thumb.
In two hundred and twelve chapters, Rose Delmar never told a single lie.
That was what the book said about her, again and again.
"Brother."
A man was crouching on the Emperor's other side.
He had wavy light brown hair and grey eyes and a dimple when he spoke.
He wore a soft grey coat and no sword.
Prince Lucan Aurelian.
The Emperor's younger brother, twenty-six years old, the kind one.
In the book, he cried at Rose's wedding because she hadn't chosen him.
In the book, he was the one who led Vivi to the block.
"Give her to me, Ceasar," he said. "I'll take her to the physician's rooms. You have a hall full of people to question."
"No," the Emperor said.
Prince Lucan's smile stayed exactly where it was.
"Then let the guards carry her."
"No."
The Emperor slid his other arm under my knees.
He stood up with me.
The whole hall went silent again.
"Your Majesty," the physician said, "she should go to my rooms."
"She'll go to mine."
Somebody gasped.
Somebody else dropped a cup.
My head fell against his chest.
I could hear his heart, slow and steady, under the black wool.
This was wrong.
All of it was wrong.
He was supposed to carry Rose out of this hall.
He was supposed to sit beside her bed for three days.
On the third day she was supposed to open her eyes and say his name, and he was supposed to decide he would marry her.
I didn't want him to sit beside me for three days.
I wanted him to forget my face.
"Put me down," I said.
It came out as a breath.
"No," he said, for the third time.
He started walking.
Rose rose with us, still holding my limp hand, walking quickly at his side.
At the doors, the guards drew the bolts back.
Cool night air came in from the corridor.
The Emperor stopped for half a second while the doors swung open.
Rose leaned close to my ear.
Her hair brushed my cheek, and it smelled like roses.
Of course it did.
"Don't worry, Lady Vivi," she whispered.
Her thumb pressed hard into the inside of my wrist.
"I'll keep it safe for you."
Then the dark came up, and I went under.
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