The shattered vase was a screaming announcement of my loss of control. I stood frozen as the door to my room burst open, revealing not a guard or a professor, but a wide-eyed maid with a dustpan.
"My lady! Are you injured?" Her gaze darted from the shards of porcelain to me, standing unharmed but undoubtedly guilty-looking in the center of the room.
The boiling, purified water steamed on the floorboards, smelling faintly of ozone and lilies. A lie formed on my lips, smooth and instant. "A… a sudden draft," I said, forcing a hand to my forehead. "It knocked the vase from the sill. I'm quite alright, just startled. Please, see to it."
It was a flimsy excuse—the window was latched shut—but the maid, trained to accept the oddities of nobility without question, merely bobbed a curtsey and set about cleaning the mess. My heart hammered against my ribs. That had been too close. The power had responded not to my will, but to my heightened emotional state—the focused intent of my practice merging with the simmering anxiety about the tea party. It was a terrifying reminder: this body was an untuned instrument, and the divine power within it was a live wire.
The incident cast a long shadow over the day before the tea party. It ushered in a state of relentless, humming hyper-alertness. Every rustle of a page in the library, every whispered conversation in the hallway, and every glance sent my way felt weighted with potential threat. Paranoia was a luxury I couldn't afford to dismiss; in this nest of vipers, it was simple prudence.
Sitting in the back of a lecture on Imperial Genealogy, I let the droning professor's voice fade into white noise. Instead, I mentally cataloged poisons. My past life as Selene had not been one of toxins and subterfuge; saints dealt in purifications and healing. But in seven years of war, you learn things. You learn what demon-tainted water does to a man's bowels. You learn which cursed plants mimic cholera. You learn to recognize the signs of magical and mundane corruption in a body.
White Veil.
The name Elara had confirmed floated to the top of the list. It was perfect for Seraphina's purposes. Not a killer, but a ruiner. Derived from the roots of the Ghost Bloom, a plant that grew in high, misty valleys—like those on the Vale estate. It was tasteless, odorless, and fast-acting. The symptoms were a brutal pantomime of a divine seizure or a sudden, debilitating madness: violent tremors, locked jaws, slurred speech, and loss of bladder control. It was the perfect tool to destroy a noble lady's reputation forever. A victim of White Veil wasn't a tragic figure; they were grotesque, a source of horror and ridicule. And if, in her "deranged state," she confessed to a hopeless, scandalous love… well, who would doubt it?
The poison's elegance was its cruelty. It wouldn't just frame me; it would make me an active participant in my humiliation, a babbling, convulsing witness against myself.
I needed a counter. Not just Elara's protective charm, but something active. An antidote was impossible to brew secretly and administer to myself in time. But I could prepare my body. From Selene's memory, I recalled a simple, two-herb tonic that strengthened the liver's filtration and slightly accelerated metabolic processes. It wouldn't neutralize White Veil, but it might help my system process it faster, lessening the duration and severity. Combined with the star-iron charm's ward, it could be the difference between being an incapacitated puppet and retaining a sliver of crucial control.
After the lecture, I made my way to the academy's alchemy wing, not to the advanced laboratories, but to the public conservatory and herbarium attached to it. The air was thick with the humid scent of soil and greenery. Students bent over potting benches or sketched specimens. I adopted the vaguely interested air of a dilettante.
My project required Silverleaf and Sunroot. Common enough. Sliverleaf was a digestive aid, and sunroot a mild stimulant. Together, in the right proportions, they were a harmless remedy for fatigue and mild stomach upset. I requested small cuttings and shavings from the apothecary student on duty, citing a project on "regional botanical comparisons for minor ailments."
"Sliverleaf and Sunroot?" The student, who was a gangly boy with ink-stained fingers, repeated the question. "That's an old wives' tonic. Not very exciting for a project."
"I find the wisdom of 'old wives' is often underrated," I said with a polite smile, placing a few copper coins on the counter. "Simplicity has its virtues."
He shrugged, portioned out the materials into small waxed paper packets, and handed them over. The transaction was utterly unremarkable. Back in my room, with the door locked, I used a mortar and pestle to grind the dried silverleaf to a fine powder. The sunroot, a tough tuber, I shaved into translucent curls. I wouldn't brew it yet—the mixture was best fresh—but having the components ready was one less uncertainty.
The physical preparations were straightforward. The mental ones were a labyrinth. I ran through scenarios, each a branching path of disaster. What if Seraphina used a different poison? What if she didn't poison the tea at all but employed a different method? A cursed object? A staged assault? I had to focus on what I knew. The unsigned note. Elara's confirmation. The plan had a specific architecture: poison, humiliation, and confession. I had to trust the intelligence and strike at the architecture's keystone.
As evening painted the Academy walls in long, anxious shadows, my paranoia reached its peak. I needed air, or I would feel the walls close in. I decided on a walk through the less-frequented south cloisters, which bordered the service yards and kitchens. It was a calculated risk—being near the machinery of the Academy's daily life—but the need to move, to feel the cool air on my face, overrode caution.
The cloisters were deserted, the silence broken only by the distant clang of pots from the main kitchens. I walked briskly, my boots whispering on the flagstones, my mind rehearsing the motions of the switch I would have to make. Bend, distract, switch, rise. It had to be fluid and natural. A single flicker of golden light, the faintest hum of controlled power to nudge a cup an inch…
Ahead, where the cloister turned sharply towards the herb gardens, a door to the scullery yard stood slightly ajar. I slowed my steps instinctively, my senses prickling. Voices filtered out—hushed, tense.
"…not what was agreed!" A man's voice, low and strained.
"The agreement is what I say it is." The reply was filled with a sweet yet poisonous tone that I recognized all too well. Seraphina.
"The amount… it's too risky. If I'm caught with that on me—"
"You will face more serious consequences if you don't, Gil." My cousin's patience with your debts has expired. A small packet delivered at the right moment. That's all. Your slate is now clear. More than clean."
My blood turned to ice. I pressed myself against the cold stone wall, just out of sight of the doorway. Gil. The servant with the jade ring. I dared a sliver of a glance.
In the dim light of the yard, illuminated by a single lantern hung by a kitchen door, stood Seraphina. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, the hood thrown back. Her face was a mask of cold composure. Before her, wringing his hands, was a young man in the dove-grey livery of the Royal Household. On his left hand, even in the gloom, a band of pale jade caught the lamplight.
"The… the china?" he stammered.
"The gold-rimmed set. The Prince's cup. You know the one. This is the third serving round, which occurs after the pastries have been passed. You will have the powder. You will make the switch. You will then drop the empty packet into the fire under the rosewater boiler. Is that simple enough for you to remember, or shall I write it down?" Her voice was a silken lash.
"And the Lady Thorne? You're sure she'll…"
"She will be precisely where I place her," Seraphina said, a smile playing on her lips. "Eager, grateful, and utterly unsuspecting. Now go. You have your instructions. We do not speak again until after."
The servant, Gil, nodded jerkily, his face pale, and scurried back into the depths of the kitchens. Seraphina did not move immediately. She stood in the lantern light, her expression shifting from icy command to something more complex—a glimmer of excitement, of triumph, but beneath it, a faint, unnerving blankness. Her eyes, for a moment, seemed to reflect the lantern flame not as a warm light, but as two distant, cold points.
Then she turned, pulling up her hood, and melted into the shadows of the garden path, disappearing.
I remained frozen against the wall, the cold stone seeping through my dress. The conversation had been a perfect, horrifying confirmation. Every detail from the note, from Elara's warning, was true. The method, the actor, the timing. The gold-rimmed china. The third serving round.
But seeing it and hearing the casual cruelty in Seraphina's voice made the transactional destruction of a life feel real in a way that planning could not. This was no longer a theoretical battle. This was a scheduled execution.
And I had just received the final blueprint.
My initial shock hardened into a razor-sharp focus. The paranoia vanished, burned away by the cold fire of certainty. I knew the play. I knew my lines. Now, I had to rewrite the ending.
I slipped back to my room, my mind racing faster than my feet. Gil was the weak point. A terrified man, coerced into evil. Could he be turned? Too risky. He was in too deep. Exposing him now would only make Seraphina alter her plans, and I'd lose my advantage of foreknowledge.
No. I would use his role exactly as intended but redirect its outcome.
The plan crystallized, dangerous and clear. I would not avoid the poisoned cup. I would ensure it was delivered—just not to me. Seraphina's entire scheme relied on controlling the variables: the cup, the recipient, and the timing. My counter-strike would be to hijack just one of those variables. The recipient.
Back in the sanctuary of my room, I took out the star-iron charm and the packets of herbs. I brewed the simple tonic, drinking the bitter, earthy tea in one determined swallow. A subtle warmth spread through my core. I then threaded a fine, nearly invisible silver chain through the charm and fastened it around my neck, tucking it beneath my chemise where it lay cool against my breastbone.
I looked at myself in the mirror. Rosalind's violet eyes stared back, but the gaze within them was Selene's—the gaze of someone who had faced down the end of the world and found, in the ashes, a reason to fight again.
"Tomorrow," I whispered to the reflection, "the Rose Pavilion will see a wilted flower. But it won't be the one they expect."
The final piece of preparation was not herbal or metallic but purely mental. I sat on the edge of my bed as dusk turned to full night, and I practiced stillness. I slowed my breath. I envisioned the scene: the laughter, the clink of porcelain, and the scent of roses and betrayal. I saw Seraphina's smiling face. I saw the jade ring on Gil's trembling hand. I saw the path of the cup.
And in my mind's eye, I saw my hand, steady and sure, changing its destination.
Early on the morning of the tea party, a knock came at my door. It was a royal page, his expression formal. He delivered a small, velvet-lined box. Inside, resting on a bed of white silk, was a single, perfect blush-pink rose, its stem carefully stripped of thorns. A small card nestled beside it, bearing the Crown Prince's personal crest. The message was brief: "To the Rose of Thorne, whose true bloom I anticipate seeing today. Wear the present as a sign of our… understanding. —C." It was a command, a symbol of ownership, and a threat all in one. He was marking his territory before the hunt even began.