“Because someone put poison in it,” Jade snarled. “This was no accident.”
“Would one of the younger consorts do this out of jealousy?” Celadon asked, but she didn’t sound as if she thought it was very likely. “Someone go to Umber, make sure he and the others are well.”
As a warrior pushed through the onlookers and out of the room, Lithe said, “But how would they think of it? And what would they use?”
Another Arbora said, “No one’s ever done anything like this here, not as long as I can remember. Raksura don’t poison each other!”
Moon wrapped his hand around Stone’s wrist. Moving was a huge effort, but talking was worse. He croaked out, “Check the tea in the pot.”
Stone’s gaze snapped to the hearth, then he looked around the room. “There’s no pot here.”
“There was earlier.” Moon was certain now. “It was bitter.” He forced more words out past the pain in his throat. “It’s the only thing I had to eat or drink here today that I didn’t share with someone.”
Stone stared at Moon, realization hardening his expression. “The morning after you were sick the first time. The tea the Arbora left here smelled wrong, so I didn’t use it. I thought it had gone bad.”
Jade hissed in fury. “Who removed the pot?”
“It must have been the Arbora who were watching him.” Celadon’s voice held a suppressed growl. “Find them.”
Pain seized Moon’s stomach again, not a stabbing sensation but a burning one, extending out through his arms and legs, as if tracing the path the poison took through his body. For a time he wasn’t aware of anything else, then someone wiped his face with a cool damp cloth, and made him drink something that tasted pungent and milky. It was like the simple Lithe had given him before, and it eased the pain a little. Then he heard more people enter the room, and voices raised in argument.
He heard Russet say, “It was Moss who tended the bowers today.”
A young male voice answered, sounding confused and taken aback. “No, I did it before they left with Celadon for the groundling city. I was working in the gardens today. You were the only one who came up here.”
Russet was calm. “No, you’re mistaken. I wasn’t up here. You were the only one in the hall.”
“I’m not mistaken,” Moss said, his voice trembling. “I – I—”
“Moss is twenty turns old and barely out of the nurseries.” Celadon cut through the voices raised in protest. “What reason does he have to poison a consort he has never met?”
“What reason does Russet have?” someone countered. “She helped take care of the royal clutches in the nurseries, with Feather and Yarrow, when the Fell attacked.”
Her voice grating with the effort not to growl, Jade said, “So the boy Moss has never met Moon before, but Russet has.”
“And she’s met the Fell,” Chime said, grimly. “Why else would someone do this, unless they were influenced by the Fell?”
Still sounding far too calm, Russet said, “Lithe was the one who gave him a simple.”
Moon managed to get his eyes open. He couldn’t see Russet, who must be standing toward the front of the room. Jade still sat next to him, her claws clenched and her spines raised in impotent fury. Celadon stood just past her, facing the group of Arbora. Her spines shivered and her shoulder muscles bunched, and with a clarity born of the near-death experience he was having, Moon read frustration and a slowly growing, incredulous rage in her body language. Celadon said, “That was two days ago, and Lithe wasn’t born when the Fell attacked. Obviously.” The last word grated like claws on rock.
Stone tilted his head in a way that suggested his patience was about to violently snap. His growl made the floor vibrate as he said, “And I tasted that simple. It was herbs and plant milk, that was all.”
Incredibly, Russet sounded unmoved. “Herbs can be poisonous.”
Jade hissed and surged to her feet. Balm lunged forward and caught her arm.
As Jade wrenched free, Celadon snapped, “Stop!” Jade hesitated, threw a desperate look down at Moon, then stepped back. Balm hissed in relief.
Celadon turned again to the Arbora. “One of the other mentors will look into the minds of Russet and Moss and Lithe, and settle this.”
Still as cool as if Moon wasn’t dying here in the middle of the room, Russet said, “No. I refuse. Why does everyone doubt me?”
Lithe snarled, “I’ll let a mentor—any mentor—look into my mind. I have nothing to hide. What about you, Moss?”
“Me, too.” Moss’s voice trembled, but more with anger than fear. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
Russet said again, “I refuse.”
Moon had to see her. He tried to get his arms to move, to lever himself up, but he felt as if there were rocks piled on his chest. Stone slid an arm under him and pulled him up into a sitting position. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and focused on Russet.
She stood alone against the wall of the bower. The other Arbora had stepped away from her, staring in a mix of bewilderment and growing consternation. Moon gasped, “I know it was you.”
Russet focused on him, and her expression abruptly went from calmly neutral to wildly furious. “I knew you were lying when you said you didn’t remember.”
Jade surged forward again, slamming into Celadon’s shoulder. “What did you give him?”
Lithe stepped toward Russet, her fists knotted. “Tell us! What did you give him?” Russet just stared at her. Lithe bared her teeth, unexpectedly fierce. “I can make you tell me.”
Moon felt Stone tense, felt something in the room change behind him, as if a predator had hidden nearby and had suddenly revealed itself for the kill. He looked around just as Malachite uncoiled like a snake and stood. He had forgotten she was in the room, or she had made him forget. From the shocked silence of the others, he wasn’t the only one.
The warriors and Arbora shrunk away, leaving a clear path to Russet. Russet’s breath caught in her throat and she pressed herself against the wall. Malachite stepped around Moon and Stone, almost delicately. Her partially extended claws clicked against the smooth wood of the floor, the only sound in the room. She moved deliberately toward Russet until she stood barely a pace away.
It was Russet’s turn to tremble, but she couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t look away. Malachite’s tail made one slow, almost languid lash. Moon’s skin went cold, a chill that cut right through the rising heat in his body, as if Malachite had just done something that had drawn all the warmth out of the room.
Malachite said, softly, “What did you put in the tea?”
Eyes wide with terror, Russet whispered, “The hunters killed a tree-asp and brought it back to the larder. There was venom still in the sacs. The first time I tried I didn’t use enough—” She stopped abruptly as two of the mentors jumped up and shoved their way through the other Arbora and ran out of the bower.
Lithe turned away, dumped her satchel to scrabble through the various packets of herbs. She muttered, “I think we can… There’s an antidote but we have to…”
Moon rolled over and curled into Stone’s lap. He didn’t want to hear anymore. Stone patted him on the back and Moon concentrated on listening to Stone’s heartbeat and the deep growl vibrating through his chest.
He growled himself when Stone lifted him up. He blinked away pain tears to see the two mentors who had run out were back, huddling with Lithe over a multi-colored concoction in a bowl. It steamed a little in the damp air. They were the only ones here; everyone else had left the bower.
Lithe dipped a cup into the liquid and handed it to Stone, who put it into Moon’s hands and helped him lift it to his lips. The scent that rose from it was like rot, like the simple had been cooked in the body of a dead grasseater, but Moon had just enough sense left to force it down anyway. He gagged once but managed to swallow most of it. Once it was in his throat, it felt cool and smooth, as if he was drinking very fine silk. It soothed his abraded throat, and the sensation continued down into his stomach, the relief so intense he sank back into Stone’s lap and folded up like a sleeping fledgling. He heard Stone ask, “Another dose?”