I watch them and focus on controlling my breathing, suddenly glad for the leather corset that doesn’t show anyone how hard my nipples are. How can Kaelen move so smoothly into his act? Unless … unless it wasallan act, and I’m just a fool.
No. No, his body, still hard behind me, tells me it wasn’tallan act. But a physiological response to a pathetically willing woman is far different from an emotional response.
Wait. Emotional response? I close my eyes and contemplate banging my head against the saddle horn a few times until I knock some sense back into myself.
While all this is racing through my mind, Drysk raises an eyebrow and shoots a sardonic look at her poisoner. “Yeah. Grigos isn’t my type.”
We’re now all stopped in the middle of the road, facing one another.
Grigos leans forward in his saddle and fixes me with a malevolent stare. “She’s not old enough to be a poisoner. Don’t insult my craft by pretending your flash piece is anything but that.”
The insult infuriates me despite being true.
Partially true.
I’m certainly not a “flash piece,” although a secret part of me is intrigued that anybody could see that in me. But it’s true that I’m definitely not a poisoner.
However, Elianna gave me a brief lesson. And better than that, a book.
A book I read many times before this whole charade was even a glimmer in a sorcerer’s eye.
Everything I know, I learned from books, scrolls, and codices. The printed word has never let me down, never hurt me, never abandoned me. I’ve visited foreign lands, sailed the five seas, battled monsters, fought with snow leopards by my side, and soared through the skies on giant raptors. I’ve known world-bending loves and tragic disappointments.
And I’ve learned things. So many, many things.
Books have given me the world. They’re the basis for the little self-esteem I can still claim. And now they’re going to help me trounce this pissant of a poisoner. The most important lesson inAn Encyclopedic Guide to Poisons of Altarra, author anonymous, is faithfully stored, word for word, in my mind.
The expert poisoner must learn one vital lesson before anything else: the importance of antidotes.
I yawn and study my fingernails. “Try me,” I say in a bored voice.
A superior smile spreads across Grigos’s sallow face. “What would you use to cause incapacitating emesis in a large force with few or no deaths?”
“Emesis?” Chitai asks. “What in the Burning River is emesis?”
“Vomiting,” I tell her. And then, to Grigos: “Powdered Grue Fungi from the northern slopes of the Spires. Is that all you’ve got? You must be very … basic.”
When he sputters, I roll my eyes and glance at Drysk. “If you ever need arealpoisoner, look me up.”
“Tasteless liquid you can add to wine that causes death in minutes,” Grigos snarls.
I sigh and fiddle with my braid, trying to project an air of superiority worthy of a palace courtier. “Pressed juice of the Sharnon elderberry, picked when still green. Please. Even apprentices know these things.”
Kaelen’s chuckle shouldn’t warm me the way it does, but it feels like praise, and I’ve had precious little of that in my life.
Grigos’s face is turning red. “What dose of pickled apricot worm can cause two days of paralysis in the victim?”
This time, I laugh in his face. Well, across the road separating us, but symbolically in his face. “That’s a false question. There is no dose that would cause paralysis. Rather, the apricot pits can be ground to make a deadly poison. The worm itself can work as an antidote.”
He bares yellow teeth in an ugly smile. “Ah-ha!”
I hold up my hand. “If you’ll let me continue? The worm can work as an antidote, but only if fresh and alive when ingested. Never pickled.”
This time, Drysk laughs. “Enough, Grigos. She trounced you, and she looked good doing it. Let’s get moving before our client, Lord Pompous in there, wakes up from his third nap of the day.”
The poisoner glares at me with so much naked hatred, I know I’ve made an enemy for life. But I find that with actual Zhagarn and Fell after us, I don’t much care about this nasty little man.
“We need to move on as well,” Chitai says. “How are the roads?”
