He sighed, sounding irritated, and strode past me, not sparing a single word until he stood over the rim of the bath. He dipped a wooden cup into the water, raised it to his nose, and inhaled. A beat later he recoiled, lips twisting, his face contorting as though he’d drawn in the very stench of death.
“You were going to bathe in this?” His tone dripped with disbelief.
Heat rose in my cheeks. “I was about to,” I admitted. “Alcmene stopped me.”
He nodded. “She bought you a throne’s worth of time. This water’s been touched. Tainted.”
“Yes, I know that. But with what?” I asked, the words breaking out on a breath.
Lysa’s screams broke into gasps before cutting off altogether. Her body sagged sideways, limp, and her blistered hand landed on the tiles with a dull thud. My stomach dropped, and my fingers tightened on my robe, nervous sweat forming on the nape of my neck.
Theron didn’t move. He only cast her a passing glance, then looked back at me as though her fainting were an afterthought. “With the thing that’s trying to cook her from the inside out,” he said evenly. “Agriusdilitirio. Old boar poison. It only wakes with heat. Once it’s drawn in by skin contact, it festers … feeds.”
“Gods,” Alcmene swore softly. “We were trying to cool her—”
“Lavender and comfrey would be like throwing wine on a pyre.” Theron cut a hand through the air. “You fed it.”
“Someone tried to poison me,” I whispered unevenly. My gaze flicked to the bath, to the faint shimmer on the surface, and my stomach churned. “I almost—” The rest of the thought got caught in the back of my throat.
I pressed my fingers hard into my palms. I couldn’t stop staring at the water.
“Hold her,” Theron ordered, and I tore my gaze away from the tub so I could press my hands to Lysa’s shoulders.
“She won’t like this part,” he murmured. “Neither will you.”
“What—?”
He slipped the ring from his finger and pressed it to the blistered ruin of Lysa’s hand. Light burst through the metal, veins of blue-white spidering across her flesh. At the same instant, the sigils in his palms ignited, pulsing in rhythm with the glow, as if some hidden current flowed through him and into her. His lips moved, shaping words I didn’t know. The sounds were rough-edged, each syllable vibrating through the floor and climbing into my bones until my teeth ached.
Her body bucked beneath my hands, her legs kicking. I kept trying to hold her down, pressing my weight to her shoulders harder, but she thrashed with a strength born of terror.
“Help me!” I gasped, and Alcmene was there in an instant, throwing her weight across Lysa’s legs, straining to pin her to the tiles.
Still, Lysa fought, wild and desperate, her back arching so violently I thought she’d break.
“A little longer,” Theron growled, and I forced myself to hold her tighter even though it felt like I might crush her.
The light swelled brighter, spilling through his palms until it flooded the chamber, silver-white and blinding. Lysa’s shrieks cracked into hoarse sobs, then faltered as the radiance sank deeper into her skin.
Before my eyes, the angry red blisters began to blanch. The scorched flesh softened, shifting from raw crimson to a mottled pink. The swell of her hand slackened, the heat lifting from her skin as though drawn out into the glow itself.
Lysa’s thrashing eased, her body sagging beneath my hands. Her lashes fluttered once, then stilled, her chest rising and falling in soft, even breaths. The angry glow on her skin dulled to a faint pink, nothing more than the memory of pain.
Theron lifted the ring from her hand at last. The light faded with it, retreating into his palm until only darkness remained.
I stared, my throat dry, every thought scattered by what I had just witnessed. My lips parted before I could stop them. “You … you healed her.”
He glanced at me, his expression tipping toward insolence. “Of course I healed her. I’m not some village crone with a scrap of willow bark and a hymn to Demeter.”
A scoff slipped out before I could stop it. Gods, even now, after watching himdo the impossible, he managed to grate against every nerve. I folded my arms tight across my chest, as if I could barricade myself against the smugness in his smile … and against the treacherous flicker of awe still twisting in my belly.
He slid the ring on his finger with an elegant flick. “Try to keep up, Your Majesty.”
A tic in my jaw jumped. “Try being humble for once.”
“I would,” he said, stretching like he was bored of the drama, “but I’ve found it makes things unbearably dull. Besides—why lie?”
My scowl only deepened, and his grin stretched wider as though my anger fed him.
