Faun paused in her stirring. “Some people believe their power is diminished if they acknowledge anyone else.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“I believe one’s power is enhanced by it.” She blinked away, then back at me. “A queen can say whatever she likes at a prior monarch’s funeral. But we do have a saying here in Sylvanwild.”
My eyebrows rose as I waited.
“Kairen vor thynar.” When she spoke in Faerish, her voice was lower, guttural. “‘Look for her among her friends.’”
Kairen vor thynar.Among her friends. The phrase felt almost knowable, but not. “What does it mean?”
“That’s for you to figure out.” She lifted the stirrer and tapped it on the edge of the pot. “Time to break your fast.”
I gripped the edges of my stool. “Are you certain that’s safe?”
“You’ll live. Is that what you’d consider safe?”
She poured the brew into a cup, and I closed my eyes. I needed to remember why I chose this.
Highmark. The tapestry in my chamber appeared behind my eyelids. A weaving road ran between Sylvanwild and Highmark, crossing from forest to plains. The Queen’s Road, Dorian had once called it. If the festival began in two weeks, then we would leave in a week—that was how long it would take our entourage to travel from citadel to citadel.
This was one step along the road. A necessary protection.
Her stool scraped across the floor, and I opened my eyes to find her looming over me, steam curling between us. She crouched, extended a cup to me with both hands. “The mycelial knot.”
Heat seeped into my palms as I took it. “Have you tasted this before?”
“I was five when my mother made me drink. No, I didn’t cry.”
“But—”
“You’re fae, and it’s just roots. Will you call out to the wildmother and want to die the first time it tugs on your vagus nerve?” She leaned closer. “Depends on whether you believe you’re destined for the underworld or the Gossamer Drifts.”
“The Gossamer…?”
“Where good fae go when they die.” She tapped the bottom of the cup. “Quit stalling.”
I stared into the black hole of liquid. “Can’t it be mixed with honey mead?”
“The efficacy will be diluted. This is much better.”
“Better for who?” But I’d already made my choice. One breath out, and I upturned the whole lot into my mouth. It tasted like licking a stone—cold, mineral, heavy. I forced my throat muscles towork; the brew slid down my esophagus, clinging the whole way like netting unrolled over my insides.
“Is it supposed to feel… alive?”
She rose. “That’s your second instinct.”
“My what?”
“The mycelial knot.” She turned back to her table, unrolled a leather skin to reveal a number of small phials tucked into pouches. “Better if I show you.” She lifted a rose-colored phial. “Ah, sunblush. The death of a hundred queens.”
I straightened. “Sunblush?”
“Highmark’s signature poison. Pretty color.” She set the phial aside, pulled out two cups, and poured from a skin of water into both of them. Then she stood between me and the cups, blocking my view. Water hissed, and faint smoke rose beyond her shoulder. “Liora prefers old-fashioned poison like this—no magical signature.”
A magical signature. “Like…”
“In an autopsy,” she said, “you can always tell which type of magic did the killing.” She turned to me and extended one of the cups. “Drink.”