Page 32 of His Emotional Support Snack

The wine erupts into a dancing, hissing wall of violet flame.

The fire burns cold and bright, consuming the toxin in a localized, controlled burst of raw magic. The flames lick across the table, harmless to the stone, yet blindingly fierce.

Zatori snatches his hands back, his chair scraping violently against the floorboards as he recoils from the sudden blaze.

The surrounding nobles fall silent, their conversations dying in their throats. The hall descends into a breathless, terrifying hush, illuminated solely by the eerie purple fire burning among the roasted meats and silver platters.

Zuirvih does not flinch. He watches the flames die down into a smoldering, dark stain on the table. Turning his focus toward his uncle, the Deceiver’s mask is firmly in place.

"My apologies, uncle." Zuirvih’s tone is a freezing, lethal hum that promises imminent slaughter. "It appears your vintage is far more volatile than I anticipated."

The tension in the grand hall pulls taut, a wire stretched to the breaking point, waiting for the first blade to fall.

20

ZUIRVIH

The violet fire dancing across the polished bone table casts a harsh, flickering glow over the stunned faces of the Khuzuth elite. The flames consume the poisoned wine, burning cold and bright, leaving a smoldering, dark scorch mark in their wake.

The silence in the grand hall is a taut, suffocating wire.

I do not wait for the Serpent lords to recover their breath. I place a gloved hand on the small of Esme’s back. The navy blue silk shifts under my touch, her posture rigid, her muscles coiled with the frantic energy of a survivor navigating a minefield. She matches my sudden stride instantly, her chin raised, projecting a freezing, untouchable dignity.

Commander Jarek and the Miou warriors fall in step. They draw a tight, impenetrable ring around us, their hands dropping to the hilts of their curved blades. The synchronized, metallic scrape of shifting armor echoes off the vaulted ceilings.

My right hand rests on the wire-wrapped hilt of my longsword. The cold steel grounds the violent spark of magic itching to vaporize the entire room.

We bypass the lesser nobles. They shrink back into the alcoves, averting their eyes from the storm-charged tension rolling off my shoulders. The Deceiver’s power pulses in my veins, untethered and unblemished. Ten years of calculated weakness, of hiding a rotting core, are over. I project a crushing, lethal vitality that forces the air from the lungs of anyone standing too close.

We breach the iron double doors of the feasting hall, stepping out into the bruised twilight of the courtyard.

The cloying incense of crushed lilies and blood clings to the humid air, failing to mask the underlying stench of Zatori’s cruelty. The crushed stones crunch beneath my boots. The carriage waits near the obsidian gates, the beasts hitched to the front shifting restlessly in the traces.

The shadows near the central fountain warp and elongate.

Lord Zatori steps into our path, leaning on his twisted iron staff. His Serpent guards fan out from the perimeter walls, their hands hovering near their venomed daggers. Jarek’s warriors lock their stances immediately. Weapons slide an inch from their scabbards with a collective, ringing shing.

Zatori’s sickly green eyes sweep over my face. He administered the Marrow-Rot a decade ago. He counted the days, waiting for the necrosis to turn my heart to ash. The steady, vibrant thrum of magic radiating from my chest is a blatant insult to his ten-year scheme.

"A hasty departure, nephew." The elder lord hisses the syllables, his slit pupils contracting in the fading light. "The feast has barely begun."

"I find my appetite vanishes in the presence of cowards." I do not slow my pace, forcing him to step aside or be trampled. "Keep your parlor tricks to yourself, uncle. The next time you attempt to slip a toxin into my vintage, I will not burn the wine. I will burn the hands that poured it."

Zatori’s jaw clenches. He taps his iron staff against the cobblestones, a sharp, ringing sound that halts his advancing guards.

He steps aside, but his gaze slides past me, locking onto Esme.

She stands at my side, unflinching. The velvet collar hides the puncture wounds at her throat, but Zatori is an ancient creature who thrives on identifying hidden weaknesses. He tilts his head, his nostrils flaring slightly. The green magic pulsing beneath his skin reaches out, a vile, searching frequency attempting to probe our defenses.

"Your magic sings with an unfamiliar resonance, Zuirvih." Zatori leans on his staff, a grotesque, knowing smile stretching across his face. "Or rather, the resonance does not originate from you. It comes from your pet."

My grip on the longsword tightens, the leather of my glove creaking.

"I recognize that ancient vibration," Zatori continues, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper designed to carry. "A trace of the Wildspont clinging to her veins. I have encountered such anomalies before. Star-Root. Extinct, they claimed. Yet here she stands, radiating the very essence that cleanses the rot I placed inside you."

The truth hangs in the humid air, laid bare on the cobblestones.

The uncle who poisoned me knows the human at my side is the antidote.