\nThe emperor\u2019s poison-tester was tall, gaunt, and feared. She swept like a vulture through the emperor\u2019s court, shoulders hunched, smelling faintly of burned oil. Twice each day she tasted the emperor\u2019s food, and the court watched to see that she did not fall dead before them.\n<\/p>\n
\nOfficially she was his Glory\u2019s poison tester. But those who spoke ill of the emperor were wont to fall ill themselves, to sickness that made their bodies twist and writhe. The emperor called it the wrath of the gods, cast upon the disloyal. The entire court agreed.\n<\/p>\n
\nStill, few spoke to her.\n<\/p>\n
\nExcept for Amra, a diplomat from Sunamey, who was jovial to everyone, cordial to her. He sat in the poisoner\u2019s laboratory one evening, watching the sun set above the domed spires of the city and the sand dunes beyond.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe nodded to a copper pot which the emperor\u2019s poisoner set to boil. \u201cWho\u2019s the lucky fellow?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIf I knew, I wouldn\u2019t tell you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nAmra was a stout man of middling years. Sunamey was in the east, but he dressed in the Imperial fashions: a trim beard in a crescent moon around his face, and robes as bright as poppies.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cPerhaps you will give me three guesses,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAmra. The walls have ears.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe poisoner had lank dark hair and a sallow face, as though all the sunlight she saw was through the laboratory window. The laboratory was high in the northmost tower, close to the emperor\u2019s quarters, so that the poisoner could be called upon all times of day or night, whenever the emperor was hungry.\n<\/p>\n
\nAmra said, \u201cCome, Serash, the walls do not care for idle gossip.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNor do I.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nSerash set a lid upon the pot, to let the Madonna berry boil and distill. She didn\u2019t know who it was for. Maybe the emperor would tell her tonight.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou, though, do not mind the walls.\u201d She plucked at Amra\u2019s sleeve, Imperial fashion. \u201cBetter than Sunamey, eh?\u201d He had been at court for years. This harvest season he\u2019d gone back early, to pay his respects to the winner of a bloody revolt, but he was at court again before the grain was stored.\n<\/p>\n
\nAmra laughed and looked aside. \u201cThey say you <\/em>do not mind. That you can slip through stone when the sun is down and visit unsuspecting men in their sleep.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTo breathe death into their faces.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMost likely.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBetter that than crawl into their beds.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSerash stepped away and stirred the Madonna berry. Her tongue flitted out, tasted the spoon. Amra raised his eyebrows.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTell me that is pretense, Serash, and you will swallow charcoal and throw it up when I\u2019m gone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSerash shook her head. \u201cIt\u2019s not. But don\u2019t you try it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhy would you do that?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey say that if you take a little poison, your body learns how to fight it. Then you take a little more, and then a bit more yet. Eventually, you can swallow a vial full of death without flinching.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe stroked his beard, watching her. \u201cAnd can you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMe?\u201d She put the spoon down slowly. \u201cI have so much time to waste, alone. What do you think?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSo there are some poisons,\u201d said Amra, \u201cWhich would spell the death of any man, even the emperor, but would not harm you at all?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHer lips thinned to a line. She did not say no.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhich you would not even feel?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThat\u2019s a very strange question, my friend,\u201d the poisoner said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMy apologies.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cPerhaps you can tell me the gossip instead.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nAnd so he did, while she ground fine powders and crushed dried leaves, and always washed her hands between. In spite of this, filth crept beneath her nails. There was a purple stain across her palm that no amount of scrubbing could erase.\n<\/p>\n \n \nEventually Amra took his leave, and Serash went to her bedchamber. She lit a silver oil lamp and undressed before a tall gilt mirror, commissioned for her by a late lord whose name she didn\u2019t remember. Beneath her black robe, her skin was spiderwebbed with ink. Geometric patterns spiraled up her spinal cord. They curled around her ankles. The ink was said to burn like branding irons if ever she left the palace without the emperor\u2019s permission.\n<\/p>\n \nIt didn\u2019t. But then, the times she left, the emperor had not noticed.\n<\/p>\n \nUpon her pillow was a small white scroll. The poisoner spread it over one bony knee and groped for her lamp.\n<\/p>\n \nThere was a single name written in cipher. The strokes were harried and dark; the young scribe\u2019s hand, since the elder scribe drank tea spiked with arsenic last moon. The emperor had suspected the man of treason.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash worked through the cipher, speaking each sound aloud.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAmra Turin Werrei.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n \nBut why?\n<\/p>\n \nSerash tossed and turned all night.\n<\/p>\n \nWhy now, when Amra had been a regular at court for years?\n<\/p>\n \nSerash rose before dawn to tiptoe into the emperor\u2019s quarters. The low-ceilinged bedchamber was wide enough to hold a small court, and ornate rugs hung on the wall muffled every sound. The drapes, dyed with purple that came from tens of thousands of tiny sea snails, were drawn back to wash the room in predawn light. A dozen highbloods were assembled, speaking in whispers, waiting for the emperor to rise.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash frisked the emperor\u2019s robe for powders and passed it to two courtiers, who owned many vineyards and a mine of gold and copper. They held the robe for his Glory to step in to; their wives would slip the emperor\u2019s shoes onto his feet. Serash tasted his wine, and a prince of conquered Kallin went to one knee to present it.\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor, sleeping, was a handsome man. The line usually between his eyebrows was absent; his sharp features were peaceful. His sheets twisted around his legs, as though he had been plagued by nightmares.\n<\/p>\n \nAs if on cue, when the first ray of dawn struck his Glory\u2019s face, the emperor stretched, catlike, and opened dark, piercing eyes.\n<\/p>\n \nThe assembled crowd sank to their knees upon an intricate silk rug. Serash, with her head bowed, could spot Amra in the back. Few foreigners were ever granted the privilege of appearing in this room. Maybe his Glory was not pleased with Amra\u2019s sphere of influence, and Amra himself had no idea.\n<\/p>\n \nSurely that was it.\n<\/p>\n \nThe vial of Madonna berry was in her pocket now. Were Amra any other man, she would slip it into his wine when the courtiers broke their fast.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe morning meal was the ideal time to do it. Madonna berry did not work so fast that Amra would fall dead at the table. The pains would hit him in the day, and he would excuse himself. The vomiting would come next, when he had retired to bed. He would thrash and cry out. He would be dead by nightfall.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd yet Serash delayed.\n<\/p>\n \nMadonna berry was new to the Empire, a gift from a prince in the scrublands in the north. Perhaps it did not work as fast as promised. That was what she could say.\n<\/p>\n \nAmra found his way to her laboratory in the middle of the day. She had wine in a cabinet, and water, and mint tea. She could offer some so easily.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat brings you here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCome, Serash, we both know you enjoy my company.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSerash was extracting liquid from the corpses of little red frogs. They smelled sweet, like sugar, and also like acid. The frogs, unheard-of in the Empire, were a gift from the people who built pyramids in jungles filled with a thousand horrors. One bite of a frog would induce fever, chills, and vomiting. The body would cramp up, the muscles would seize, and the heart would stop beating in an hour.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow fares the emperor in Sunamey?\u201d Serash asked. \u201cOr, what is the word\u2014king?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTyrant, more like,\u201d Amra said.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash threw him a quick look. He seemed as carefree as always, elbows propped on her table, eyeing her red frogs. Perhaps, she thought, that was why the emperor wanted him dead: perhaps his Glory did not like the new ruler in Sunamey. Nothing to do with Amra, who had been in the Empire when the rebellion occurred.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHe does very well,\u201d said Amra. \u201cIn fact, the men are happier, every one. There is an oath they swear in every village square that says so.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSunamey took that from the Empire, Serash did not say. Instead, she cleared her throat, and spoke carefully. \u201cSince you like him so well,\u201d she said, \u201cI suppose you would be happy to return there. That they would welcome you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey will,\u201d said Amra, \u201cquite soon.\u201d He turned one of her vials over in his hands, then smiled and deliberately set it down. He straightened his cuffs. \u201cBut there is something I must do first.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhich is?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMy daughters were wedded to highbloods of the old regime,\u201d Amra said, leaning back. \u201cThe new king allowed them to live, and for this I am very grateful.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey cannot come here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI do not think so, no.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAmra.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe looked at her. Serash\u2019s heart was pounding in her throat. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSerash, why do you do what you do?\u201d Amra asked, suddenly. \u201cThey say you like the taste of death, that you crave the moment when a man\u2019s eyes turn to glass. But I think that there is more.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe touched her hand, the end of a tattoo on her left wrist. It wasn\u2019t the tattoo that chained her. The emperor knew where her brothers lived.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI do what I do out of love for the emperor,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAh. Of course.\u201d Amra stood. \u201cI am not so lucky as you, to serve a man so good and pure.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe emperor is more than a man,\u201d Serash said softly.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYes. Yes, indeed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe strode toward the door.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash watched him disappear. She stood in silence for a long time after.\n<\/p>\n \nThen she set aside her frogs and entered her sleeping chamber. She opened a chest at the foot of her bed, filled with lavish robes and jewels, gifts from nobles hoping to buy her mercy. At the bottom were fine bottles, capped with gold and copper, that once held perfume. She\u2019d since filled them with something else entirely.\n<\/p>\n \nFor the emperor\u2019s poisoner crafted more than draughts to induce suffering. She knew which part of poisons slowed the heart and stilled the lungs. She\u2019d thought through how to pull those parts away, lessen their effects, distill them from the parts that made the body shrivel. She spent a lot of time alone.\n<\/p>\n \nShe hadn\u2019t tried the bottle which she drew out now, as long as her pinky finger, the liquid viscous and murky. But she thought it would work.\n<\/p>\n \nIf she disappeared, the emperor knew where her brothers lived.\n<\/p>\n \nBut if she were to die, there was no vengeance to be taken.\n<\/p>\n \nShe had always assumed, in the back of her mind, that Amra would be the one to oversee her burial. To place a black shroud over the shape of a body and inter it in the ground. To sneak her living body, heartbeat slowed and breathing damped, to somewhere safe, so that she could wake and escape.\n<\/p>\n \nShe could do it for him. All the time he\u2019d spent upon her, what had it been for?\n<\/p>\n \nA bell chimed in the laboratory, once and then again. It signalled the emperor\u2019s summons.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash pocketed the sleeping draught and rushed to the sound. Beside the window was an array of bells, silver and copper, tin and gold, one for each room the emperor might call her to. A little silver one still vibrated. Serash tapped it once in answer and hurried from the room.\n<\/p>\n \n \n\u201cYour Glory.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor was seated on a low sofa in an alcove of his bedchamber, two highbloods beside him. His robes were sewn with thread-of-gold, and mercury glittered on his high cheekbones. His Glory hunched over a game of chess, the pieces carved out of opal and onyx, and he did not look over as Serash went to one knee. One of his guards, a man as large as a bear, pointed her to a water pitcher and a glass goblet.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash ran her finger down the insides of the goblet, but the glass was clean. She filled it from the pitcher and tasted it, then bowed her head and presented it to the emperor.\n<\/p>\n \nShe suspected that he did this because of all his subjects, he feared her most. He needed a poisoner to ensure his rule, but how to deter her from poisoning him?\n<\/p>\n \nHe promised that her tattoos would burn past all sensation if he should die before her. Her brothers, and their wives and children, would burn too. The lord who owned the land they tilled had standing orders to that regard.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLeave us,\u201d the emperor said, and the two highbloods bowed. Serash was backing away, too, when his Glory added, \u201cSiph.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe stopped. He drained the goblet and hurled it at her.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash did not duck. The goblet flew over her shoulder and shattered against the wall. She flinched and his Glory was on his feet, pushing her bodily against the wall, glass crunching under his slippers. The emperor did not look strong, but he was, especially when it took all Serash\u2019s willpower not to resist.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI gave you a name last night,\u201d the emperor snarled. \u201cWhy is he still walking?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHis hand curled around her throat and Serash gasped, \u201cHe will be dead by morning. Emperor.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHis Glory\u2019s lip curled. The furrow between his brows deepened. \u201cTonight, Siph.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTonight.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe let her go, and she sank to the floor. The broken glass cut her knee as she bent to kiss his robe. Her hands were shaking. She made sure that he saw.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter she crawled from the room, Serash dusted the glass shards off her robe. This was not the emperor angry. This was any given day.\n<\/p>\n \nSome said that truly, the emperor was a cool, collected man, and his tantrums were engineered to inspire fear. Serash disagreed. His Glory had always been this way, and not since his father died of a cobra bite had anyone corrected him.\n<\/p>\n \n \nSerash searched for Amra, to deliver the sleeping drought, let someone see his drugged body, and carry it away. She didn\u2019t know where to start, since he always came to her. She was called back to taste the emperor\u2019s pine nuts\u2014the glass had been swept up\u2014and then again for tea, so her search never went far.\n<\/p>\n \nAmra was absent from the evening feast, however. Perhaps her warnings had rung true, and he was far from here.\n<\/p>\n \nThe vast hall was lit with braziers and filled with burning incense. Highbloods gathered at low tables, upon thick rugs and silk cushions; the tablecloths and tapestries were a clash of a thousand patterns. Musicians played zither and flute, and anjrita dancers spun about the room. Serash lingered in the shadows behind the emperor\u2019s throne, coming forward to taste delicate flowers, fresh water, spiced wine; pita and sauces; grapes, though she didn\u2019t know how those could be poisoned.\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor glowed before his kingdom. He truly was handsome. The dark-eyed girl on his right and the lord on his left smiled at his jokes, frowned when he mentioned that traitors abounded.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey are everywhere. Mark my words. Even you, sweet Ashi, may turn on me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nIn response the girl, Ashenza, stroked his cheek, and he brushed her off. Her dark eyes were wide in the torchlight.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash had checked Lady Ashenza\u2019s clothing for weapons, powders, or vials. Nothing, as always, although that would not save her from suspicion. Serash wondered idly how Ashenza would die.\n<\/p>\n \nServants came with plates of steaming meat soaked in red tal sauce. Serash swooped in and scooped a mouthful from the emperor\u2019s plate. Always his own plate; his Glory feared someone would dust the ceramic with poison.\n<\/p>\n \nThe meat was hot and spicy, sugary and bile-sweet. It burned down Serash\u2019s throat.\n<\/p>\n \nThere was another reason the emperor called on Serash, not merely whichever servant happened to be nearby \u2014 not only did this protect his Glory from her, but it gave her good reason to make sure there was no poison. Just in case she was not loyal.\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor watched her, but Ashenza leaned forward to spear a piece of meat.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash\u2019s throat was burning. A funny scent filled her nose, rather like the dried skin of the little red frogs.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash leapt toward Ashenza, knocking the meat from her hand \u2014 lucky thing the emperor was paranoid and hadn\u2019t tried to eat. Someone shouted \u2014 the emperor? \u2014 but Serash was stumbling away from the throne, sticking two fingers down her throat, praying her stomach would convulse enough to bring it up.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAttack on the emperor!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe poison-tester is dead\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBar the doors!\u201d the emperor roared, somewhere far away. \u201cNo one leaves this room!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nServants were rushing toward her. A woman flipped her over, and someone else was holding Serash\u2019s hair as she spewed red meat onto the fine carpets.\n<\/p>\n \nHer vision blurred, and she didn\u2019t realize she was falling until her wrists hit the ground. Someone tugged her shoulder, and someone else gripped her beneath the armpits and began hauling her away. Her slippers skidded on the rugs until one of the burly guards \u2014 she could make out the black of his vest \u2014 lifted her feet, and the emperor must have made an exception for her, for she was taken from the great hall into a side corridor, one ceiling bleeding into another, harried voices fading. Serash closed her eyes. Her mind was spinning.\n<\/p>\n \nThe frogs\u2014those frogs\u2014were from a distant land, a gift made to the emperor\u2019s own hands, and from his to hers. No one else had even seen them.\n<\/p>\n \nNo one except Amra.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe apprentice in the medica forced charcoal down her throat, and milk, and she threw that up too. They brought her to her room, lit incense in the windows and placed oranges at the foot of her bed, then left her to rest. There had been little poison in her system to begin with. One bite, diluted in the food. Just enough to kill a man.\n<\/p>\n \nWhat the whole plate would have done, she could not say.\n<\/p>\n \nShe was weak but conscious when the emperor arrived.\n<\/p>\n \nHe shooed the nurses with a brisk motion, and Serash imagined those long-fingered hands wrapping around her throat. A fitting punishment; this would not have happened if she had killed Amra in the morning.\n<\/p>\n \nAmra.<\/em> She did not know what to think.\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor paced to her bed. His crown was missing, and his hair fell in dark coils about his narrow face.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI have eaten nothing but bread and water, Siph.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYour Glory,\u201d Serash croaked. She tried to rise, so as to bow, but he pushed her down.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDo you know who did this?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSerash could not meet his eyes, so she stared at the crease between his brows. Truly was it Amra, who knew that she, Serash, tasted the emperor\u2019s meals? His only hope in getting to the emperor was to find a poison slow-acting enough that it would hit Serash and the emperor both too late to do anything about it. The frog was a foolish choice indeed. Anyone other than Serash would have merely fallen dead.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTell me,\u201d the emperor said.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash opened her mouth and choked back a fit of coughing. Her throat was tight and painful. \u201cWhen you catch him, your Glory, I will make him suffer.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt was Amra al-Turin Werrein, was it not?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSerash closed her eyes. She nodded yes.\n<\/p>\n \nStupid ploy, Amra. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor looked out the window, to the east. \u201cI will send his head to our Sunameyan friend in a basket.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cImagine,\u201d Serash said softly, \u201chow the king in Sunamey will writhe, waiting for news of his unfortunate assassin. The waiting will grate on him, worse in its way than knowing that his plot failed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHer words in her throat were dry. She was pleading for a friend already dead to her.\n<\/p>\n \nHad all the times Amra visited merely been to win her affection, so that she would hesitate if she were told to kill him?\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow will he die?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor shrugged. \u201cI do not truly care.\u201d He ran his fingers through his hair. \u201cWhy does everyone always try to kill me?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSerash held her breath.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAn ordinary man can trust his wife and sons and daughters,\u201d the emperor went on. \u201cHis entire village comes to help in times of famine. Why is it that I can trust no one?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou can trust me, your Glory,\u201d Serash said. \u201cI would die before you willingly.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe made a gesture as though brushing off dust. \u201cEnough.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor turned to go.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow did you know it would be him?\u201d Serash asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe king of Sunamey is copying my footsteps,\u201d the emperor said, turning back. \u201cIt is what I would do, if I were in his shoes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nSerash knew the secret passageways, but Amra had never learned. They caught him in a servants\u2019 corridor, dressed in ill-fitting burlap.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBetter that the king in Sunamey stays up at night,\u201d Serash whispered to the emperor, at the side of his bed, when a runner brought word of Amra\u2019s capture. She was on her feet, though shakily. Well enough to taste the emperor\u2019s honey wine. \u201cClawing his hair and beating his servants, consumed with fear that the greatest emperor this side of the crystal sea has figured out his plot. Better that than if he knew his doom for certain.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe didn\u2019t know why she was saying so. What did she care where Amra\u2019s head was sent, after he tried to murder her?\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor was not listening, for Lady Ashenza lay beside him, stroking the fine hairs on his chest.\n<\/p>\n \nThe runner asked, \u201cShall we bring the traitor up, your Glory?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMight as well bring the court.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHis Glory meant it for a joke, but in truth the court was trickling in, lining the halls, their whispers carrying like spirits. It was midnight. Amra\u2019s escape had not lasted twelve hours.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen the guards dragged Amra in, he looked the worse for wear. The passage from the servants\u2019 corridor had bloodied his nose, and his left eye was swelling fast. There was flour rubbed into his salt-and-pepper hair, and nicks on his chin from clumsy shaving.\n<\/p>\n \nHe was not a trained assassin. He was a diplomat, pressed into a plot by a faraway king.\n<\/p>\n \nAmra did not meet her eyes. Serash could not look away as the guards dropped him like a sack before the emperor, and when Amra knelt to kiss where the emperor\u2019s robe would be, the emperor kicked him sharply in the mouth.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYour Glory, please!\u201d Blood ran crimson down his chin. He seemed to be melting to a puddle on the floor. \u201cHe \u2014 the tyrant in the east\u2014 he would kill my daughters\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe emperor chuckled coldly. \u201cYou ask for mercy now?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe court tittered, creeping in the door, and the sound echoed down the hall.\n<\/p>\n \nTo her surprise, the emperor beckoned Serash forward. There were two vials in her pocket, still, one or the other meant for her friend.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDoes your Glory wish him to scream?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo. Let no word of this reach Sunamey.\u201d The emperor\u2019s voice rose slowly, addressing the highbloods gathered down the hall. \u201cWe will let their so-called king wait. Perhaps I will invite him here, to congratulate him on a plot well\u2026 executed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nAmra shuddered on the ground.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash swept forward. Which vial to reach for? She did not know if the emperor would want Amra\u2019s head preserved, to give to the Sunameyan king, if its absence would be noted. She did not know if Amra\u2019s sentence was deserved.\n<\/p>\n \nShe bent over him, like a massive, skeletal bird of prey, but her fingers fumbled. Her fist closed on nothing and Amra leapt for her like a cobra. His soft hands grasped her shoulders and his blood smeared on her cheek, his lips against her ear: \u201dI thought you showed the frog on purpose\u2014\u201d<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThen the guards jerked him off, and Serash squawked, stumbling back. She knew what he meant: she ground the frogs after speaking of poison that she could withstand, and he thought she was telling him that the frogs would not harm her. That was why he stole one and used it in place of a better poison. Or at least that was what he said.\n<\/p>\n \nIt was a lie. It was a lie. She could read nothing in his eyes.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash was hesitating too long. Amra thrashed in the guards\u2019 hands. They wrangled him to his knees, forced his head back, opened his jaw like an animal.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash\u2019s legs moved without her willing it. She was looking down on her oldest friend, who lied to her from beginning to end.\n<\/p>\n \nThe vials had jostled in her pocket, and she did not know which was which. Her fist closed on one at random. She drew out a deep purple liquid, which slipped from one end to the other as she turned it in the torchlight.\n<\/p>\n \nSlow death, then, fate had chosen for him.\n<\/p>\n \nShe uncapped it but her fingers slipped. Was it weakness from Amra\u2019s poison? Amra\u2019s eyes rolled toward the vial of Madonna.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash came forward. The guards holding him went stiff. The court leaned in as one, and Lady Ashenza gasped. Serash could feel the emperor watching.\n<\/p>\n \nShe pushed the vial into her pocket and took out the viscous grey one. In a breath she forced the stopper and emptied the draught of sleep down his throat.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash jerked herself back. Amra shuddered, and writhed, and then was still.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThey did not keep the traitor\u2019s head.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tall guards carried the corpse past the assembled court, and the poison tester trailed behind like a carrion bird. No one would know where the traitor was buried, so that no dissenters to the emperor\u2019s glorious rule could sanctify the grave.\n<\/p>\n \nThe gravediggers worked by the light of a crescent moon when a tall, thin figure appeared hours before dawn. The stranger shooed the gravediggers away. They went. Those who traded in the emperor\u2019s secrets did not ask questions, lest they fall ill.\n<\/p>\n \nThey came back to find the grave filled in. They did not dig it back up in search of the body.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe instinct to kill the gravediggers was hard to quell. Who could they tell? An offering of wine was all she needed to silence them. They would go to bed happy and their wives wouldn\u2019t mourn til morning.\n<\/p>\n \nBut Serash hadn\u2019t killed without orders in a long time. She resisted.\n<\/p>\n \nThe whitewashed houses looked different at night, when one was walking alone. Rats skittered through the alley. Fish guts rotted by the roadside, as the cobbles shifted to wood, a port stretching out to sea.\n<\/p>\n \nHauling a body like this was really beneath her. She hadn\u2019t done this since she was an apprentice.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash reached the end of the pier, and a rowboat splashed out to meet her. A grinning, toothless man held out a pockmarked hand. He had withered since last she saw him. His name had once included many holdings, until the emperor became convinced that the man plotted against him.\n<\/p>\n \nSerash had let her poison slip, that time. Now she and the boatman were friends, of a kind.\n<\/p>\n \nShe hefted Amra\u2019s breathing body toward the rowboat. The man said, \u201cYou promised\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThis will grant you two more months.\u201d Serash passed him a vial the size of an egg. \u201cWhen he wakes, he\u2019ll write to me. I\u2019ll know it\u2019s him by what he says. Then you\u2019ll get your antidote in full.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe boatman scowled, but he helped her set the body in.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThrow him over the sides, and you\u2019ll die.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhen have I<\/em> returned ill on a promise?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nOn the bottom of the rowboat, Amra\u2019s eyes fluttered. Serash wondered if he had known that she would save him. If he had only used her.\n<\/p>\n \nIf it even mattered.\n<\/p>\n \nThe little craft dipped and rose, retreating with the tide.\n<\/p>\n \nShe stood on the end of the dock until the rowboat disappeared into the night.\n<\/p>\n Amber Velez graduated from MIT with a bachelor\u2019s in creative writing and mechanical engineering. Her work has appeared in the MIT Technology Review, Broken Pencil Magazine, and Drunk Monkeys Magazine, among others. She worked in a chemistry lab for a summer, but never poisoned anyone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The emperor\u2019s poison-tester was tall, gaunt, and feared. She swept like a vulture through the emperor\u2019s court, shoulders hunched, smelling faintly of burned oil. Twice each day she tasted the emperor\u2019s food, and the court watched to see that she did not fall dead before them. Officially she was his Glory\u2019s poison tester. But those …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107984,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20142],"tags":[20143],"class_list":["post-140401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-54-winter-2025","tag-the-colored-lens-54-winter-2025","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107984"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140405,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140401\/revisions\/140405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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