“Chynne!” she spat. “The king rejected me. Me! After all I’ve done!” She threw herself onto the bed. “And the queen didn’t have the good graces to take her mewling brat with her when she died. The king has his spare heir, the one I should have given him.”
Chynne? In raven form. The familiar remained silent, cringing in on himself.
Piers woke with a start. His mother murdered Wycke’s.
Piers gasped for air, staring up into three concerned faces: Wycke’s, Aberfrer’s, and Saris’s. For a moment, he recalled seeing the queen lying still on the tower floor. He shook his head to clear the image. “Wha… What happened?”
“You passed out for a few moments,” Wycke said, taking Piers’ hand.
Wycke’s fingers warmed Piers’ cold ones. A dream. Just a dream. Maybe.
“What did you see?” Aberfrer asked, eyebrows nearly meeting in the center of his forehead.
No way to sugarcoat the truth. May Wycke and Saris forgive him. “I… I found myself in the tower room. A lady came in. My mother, I think. She chopped flowers, added other things, and cooked them.” Piers cast a guilty glance at Wycke. “Then she said the queen died.” He tried to pull his hand back. Surely Wycke would hate him.
Wycke held on, lacing their fingers. He closed his eyes and let out a breath while Saris studied Piers, unblinking.
Piers focused on Wycke and felt… Anger, hurt, despair, but none aimed at Piers.
“Go on,” Saris urged, voice gentle but firm.
“The lady got mad about the king rejecting her. I saw a raven she called Chynne, but he didn’t say anything. He cried about your mother.”
“Exactly what substances did she combine?” Aberfrer stared deeply into Piers’ eyes, pinning him into place.
Piers would have paid closer attention if he’d known there’d be a test. “I don’t know. Just stuff.”
“Think harder.” The brows beetling over the sorcerer’s eyes warned of an approaching storm.
As much as he hated to, Piers revisited the vision. “Three white roses, three red, two yellow. No, wait, three yellow. Three daisies, I think, and three big white fluffy flowers.”
“Peonies,” Aberfrer said.
“She put them in a kettle over the fire. Then she added three pieces of dead bard’s tongue.” Yuck.
“How many days dead?” Aberfrer seemed far too interested in the nauseating details.
“Does it matter?” Wycke snapped, shifting close enough to slide an arm around Piers’ shoulders.
Someone had provided Wycke and Piers with nightshirts and some kind of undergarment, so they weren’t naked for this conversation. Piers must’ve been unconscious for more than a mere few minutes. Then again, wish magic. Strong stuff.
“It matters very much. Go on, Piers.” At least Aberfrer left off calling him Pieravor. Piers hated the name. Even more so after seeing his mother’s evil for himself.
“Three days, I think.”
“Ah!” Aberfrer didn’t explain.
“Wait. She also added three drops of innocent blood.” Wow! Piers remembered so much.
“The law of threes,” Aberfrer said, stroking his chin. “Numbers hold magic, as surely as blossoms or blood. What did she do with this potion?”
Blossoms and Blood. Sounded like a horror movie Piers didn’t want to see. “She got all dressed up and took the potion or whatever with her. Then she came back into the vision. I think time must’ve passed because she dressed differently. She said the queen died, but her child lived.” Her child. Wycke. Piers turned to Wycke. “I’m so sorry.” Piers’ mother once attempted to kill his lover.
“You saw all that?” Wycke asked.
Piers nodded. “Think of her spellbook is an instructional video, only, you’re in it.” A video he wouldn’t have chosen to watch. “But she couldn’t see me, and neither could Chynne.”
“Interesting,” Aberfrer mused. “Do I want to know what a video is?”