“Here. You'd best rinse your mouth as well,” Tuva said and offered me back the flask.
Even as her words registered, so did the poison that had seeped into me through the King's blood. My eyes went wide as my legs buckled.
My last words were, “Oh, fuck.”
Chapter Eleven
“You fucking save him!”
The roar brought me back to consciousness. I blinked my eyes open, but my limbs were too heavy to move and my mouth too dry to speak. I managed to turn my head toward the sound of Cyn's voice and found him standing beside my bed, his fists bunched in Grenreth's tunic.
The mage paled as he stared up at his king. “I believe he will recover, Your Majesty. You were wise to bring me a sample of your poisoned blood. I'm sure I correctly identified the poison, and we were very lucky it wasn't as rare as the last. I had the proper antidote.”
“Yes, they were relying on the arrow to distract us,” the King growled. “But Ru ingested the poison. Are you sure the antidote will work?”
“It worked,” I croaked.
Instantly, Cyn released Grenreth and spun toward me. “Ru!”
“You see?” Grenreth waved at me as he lifted his chin. “.”
“Thank you, Grenreth!” Cyn cried even as he launched onto the bed beside me and helped me sit up. “Thank you.” He pulled me onto his lap and hugged me.
“It is, as always, my pleasure to serve, Your Majesty.” Under his breath, he added, “Even when you are violent with distress.”
Cyn's arms tightened around me until I groaned. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Are you all right, Ru?”
“I'll just leave you to your . . . paramour,” Grenreth said as he left the room.
“I'm fine,” I said. “But I'd be better if you stopped squeezing me so hard.”
“Fuck!” The King opened his arms and spread his legs, settling me between them. “I'm sorry. Is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you?”
“I could use some water.”
“Oh. Uh.” His stare shot around the room. “One moment.” He carefully slid out from behind me and settled me against the pillows, which he fluffed before sliding between my back and the headboard. Then he rushed to the door, opened it, and shouted, “Water! And food!”
As the King slammed the door and hurried back to me, I realized we weren't in the room I'd slept in the night before.
“Where are we?” I looked around at the sumptuous furnishings, carved from precious exotic woods and gilded.
There was velvet everywhere—covering the windows, hanging from the bedposts, and cushioning the chairs. A mural of dragons in flight adorned the ceiling, and dark wood paneling covered the walls. The space was larger than the top floor of the building I lived in. So large that the furniture had to serve as walls, dividing the room into sections. There was a dining section with a table for eight, a sitting section before a grand fireplace (the mantle decorated with carvings of bears), a sleeping section, and another sitting section. Then there were doors, two besides the one the King had opened to shout his demands. I assumed they led to more rooms like this one. Because when you're the King, one grand room wasn't enough.
“My bedroom,” Cyn said as he climbed onto the bed beside me.
“We shouldn't be here.Ishouldn't be here.”
“You should if I wish it.”
I grimaced at him. “You know what I mean. It isn't safe. Shit!” I sat up. “We proved our theory. The Luvin is innocent.” I flopped back against the pillows. “So was that assassin my people killed.”
“Yes, probably,” Cyn said gently. “Unfortunately, there is no saving him.”
“Yeah, I sealed his fate when I alerted my clan.”
“Indeed.” He took my hand as he shook his head. “I've never seen anything like it. They located and killed him in seconds. I would have missed it if I had blinked.”
“You don't fuck with a Raltven in the Forgotten.”
