Chapter 3 Shadows in the Halls

The halls of the Draemyr estate were quiet and made of stone. The torches hissed, and their flames pulled long, shaky tongues of light that shook across tapestries and the carved faces of shields from the past. Every time Aria stepped, it sounded small and careful, like a metronome in the palace's sleep. Her limbs shook from the toxin's lingering echo, but her mind kept her going, sharp as a knife and somehow colder because of the sadness inside it.

Betrayal was stitched into her bones when she woke up. The memory of his mouth on Lysandra's flickered like an exposed, raw place, even in this room, which was gilded by the kindness of another world. The pain didn't go away; instead, it transformed into a heat that helped her concentrate. She had experienced the shape of poison, tasted it, and felt its lie lurking in her blood. She would trace that lie back to its originator tonight.

Under her hand, the library door sighed. The smell of leather, dust, and ink that remembered previous hands was released by old books. The aisles were silvered by moonlight, and dust particles floated as languidly as snow. With eyes scanning spines as though titles might reveal secrets, Aria slipped down the narrow pass between stacks. Her fingers lingered before settling on the thick herbal concoction she had poured over the previous evening. Since discovering how the estate fueled her weakness, she had had very little sleep, so it had become a form of surrender.

She put the book on the table and ran her finger along the headings, learning the language of toxins like someone learning the rhythm of a heart. She mouthed the words "gradual debilitation," which tasted like cold iron syndromes disguised as natural decline, venoms hiding under honeyed tonics, and agents that left no scars but took away life. Her heart rate went up. The list matched her symptoms in a cruel way that seemed almost smart.

She was drawn away from the page by a quiet, purposeful sound. Not servant slippers, but footsteps meant for halls. Her breath was shallow as she froze. A low, steady insistence that blood remembers what bones sometimes forget made the wolf inside her, the animal that had always been more patient than the rest of her, flicker awake.

Between the stacks, someone moved like a shadow. As the figure entered the moonlight, Aria mirrored him and vanished into a shadowy nook. He was broad-shouldered, taller than the stories had allowed her to think, and had a practiced, menacing smile. Dorian. Gamma's successor. She would have cataloged him in a different life: a charming predator with cold-delivering eyes that promise warmth.

His eyes swept over her veiled face. "Princess Aria," he said, amusingly using the name. "Out so late? They said you should be sleeping.

Her throat constricted. She allowed the weary, frail girl to play across her features for a heartbeat—just like an actor's mask. Her voice was low as she replied, "I had trouble sleeping." "The mind is kept from wandering by books."

Dorian's grin widened. "Books," he repeated. And maybe cures? For people who are... ill? He took a step forward, his cheekbone etched by the torchlight. The cruelty in his eyes made the skin behind her teeth prickle up close.

She allowed her rage to subside and become neat. She smiled slightly, patiently, and remarked, "Books are sometimes the best medicine."

Then he laughed coldly. "If only everything could be fixed by medicine." A few things As though posing a puzzle, he tapped his temple. "...are infectious." They were light words, but they fell like a knife.

The fabric was bunched at Aria's wrists by her fingers. She swallowed back her anger, relishing the power. Whether on purpose or by rumor, Dorian knew enough to gloat that he had been given a version of the truth. On her terms, his position in the court's hunger would become clear. She let him enjoy the illusion for the time being.

The library appeared smaller, somehow more intimate, when he left, feigning not to be alone. Leaning close, she opened the compendium to a page she had bookmarked. The poison was recognizable by its metallic tang, bitter root, and herb disguised as tonic due to its subtle sweetness. No servant could read the shorthand she scrawled in the margin. Her hands moved with the same flick that had tied sutures and mixed compounds, the steadyness of a surgeon she had once possessed. She could taste each formula that went into a plan.

patience. The difficult part was that. Pretending was part of her plan. She would accept the tender hand and the hushed prayers, and remain the delicate thing in public. While she baited the ones who had spread the cold, she would allow the Alpha and Luna to drape warmth over her shoulders. She had taught herself the art of subtle reversals and small gestures.

Unexpectedly, a breeze lifted. When Aria looked up, the window she had remembered to close yawned open, and the floor was slashed by a moon-knife of light. There was a single flower on the bedside table, its petals the color of old wine and its edges blackened as though they had been touched by iron.

Wolfsbane.

The name skimmed through her mind. In small doses, it is not always lethal, but over months, it frequently caused dizziness and the body to fold inward. However, the message was clear: You are being observed. Like a question or a threat, someone had left it close to her bed.

Her stomach tightened and then relaxed. Using two fingers, she picked up the bloom and breathed in the sharp, acrid scent. Her wolf gave a low, approving growl; danger had teeth, and she liked it when it appeared. With a faint scent of iron and bitter herb, Aria crushed a petal. She gave herself permission to smile sharply.

As she turned the bloom in her hand, she told herself to let them believe that she was barely alive. Let them feel sorry for me. Give them the impression that nothing is left. Their confidence would erode the more they chewed on that fiction. And she would cut it out when their poison showed its hand and arrogance skewered them.

She worked under the moonlight back in her chamber. Small vials resembled surgical instruments. She combined antidotes in tiny quantities, administered dosages, and tested reactions based on what she knew from the compendium. Her hands trembled not with weakness but with exhaustion. She adjusted, coughed, tasted diluted samples, and her brain was heating up like a furnace. The mind was unbeatable, even though the body might be weak.

The hour was chimed by a distant clock outside. With secret passageways, the mansion slept. Aria cloaked herself in the patient's gown, the mask she would wear in public, and made plans in whispers and ink: a fabricated complaint to the healer, a question sown in the hallway, a note slipped to a guard. She would observe how and who moved. She would wait and bait.

She identified with the wolf because they were both wounded, silent, and hungry in the spot where grief had smoldering something new. She would pay tribute to that hunger with accuracy rather than with vengeance that burned the void. Instead of lunging, she would track and wait until the quarry was confidently blinded.

Her parents would find their daughter meek and pale in the morning. They would fuss over her and give her wine that had a subtle iron flavor. She had mapped their house three times in one night, but they wouldn't know it. They wouldn't be aware that she had discovered the flavor of poison. They wouldn't be aware that she had met Dorian in the library and had stored him away for later use. She would be their vulnerable child for the time being.

Beneath that apparent serenity, however, the Alpha's daughter was developing into something else: a mind capable of outthinking, a compass that would not be deceived, and a storm that would come when she wanted it to.

She would have the snare set when the first web fragment moved.