The banquet glittered like a constellation brought to earth. Chandeliers blazed overhead, a hundred candles dripping light like molten gold. Silk banners rippled with golden embroidery, and a thousand jeweled eyes glittered from the balconies. Perfume and roasted pheasant thickened the air, layered with honeyed wine and sugared fruits. But beneath the feast-laden tables, Myrren caught the rot: mildew creeping through the stone foundations, sour sweat beneath powdered wigs, and the faint tang of panic that no amount of wine could disguise.

She had been seated far down the table, among servants and lesser courtiers, though the summons in her satchel said her skills were required. Perhaps the nobles meant to forget her existence, to tuck her away among shadows until she was useful. For a time, she was grateful for the distance.

Until the scream.

It came sharp, shattering laughter and song. A noblewoman at the high table stiffened. Her jeweled goblet clattered to the floor. Her lips moved soundlessly, eyes bulging, pupils blown wide. Then she convulsed—hands clawing at her throat, silks spilling wine like blood—as she collapsed against the table.

Gasps tore through the hall. Chairs scraped. Dishes clattered. The glittering banquet dissolved into chaos.

Myrren smelled it before anyone else—the bitter almond edge, faint but certain. The scent caught in the back of her throat like a warning flame. She rose without thought, heart hammering, and pressed forward as shouts broke out.

“It’s poison!”

“Who—who did this?”

“Guards, to the tables!”

Servants scattered. Courtiers shrieked. A goblet overturned, spilling red wine across silk like a spreading wound. Myrren ignored the panic, ignored the hands that tried to stop her. She reached the noblewoman’s side. The woman’s pulse was faint, fluttering like a moth’s wings, her lips tinged blue, skin already cooling. A faint blue sheen clung to the goblet’s rim, visible only to one who knew how to look.

“Cyanide,” Myrren whispered, though her voice carried. “Oil of stonefruit. It suffocates the blood while it still looks rich with oxygen. The heart seizes, the breath falters. She was dead the moment the goblet touched her lips.”

A silence fell, horrified and heavy. Then the accusations began.

“Who else could have known?”

“She names poisons too quickly.”

“Perhaps she brewed it herself!”

Lord Aedric’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp as glass. “Yes. The perfumer’s trickster. She makes a spectacle at every turn. Why else would she be placed here, among us, if not to draw suspicion away from herself?”

Laughter followed—cruel, nervous, strained. Myrren forced her voice steady, though her stomach clenched. “If I had poured this, my lord, I would not be the one naming it. The dose was hidden in wine sweetened to mask the bitterness. Whoever did this knew how to make death taste like celebration.”

Gasps shivered through the tables. The nobles glanced at one another, their faces pale beneath rouge, fear blooming in their scents like mold spreading through bread. Some clutched their cups with trembling fingers; others shoved goblets away as though wine itself had betrayed them.

“Silence,” Queen Aelira said at last. Her voice was soft, but it cut through the din like a blade. The hall froze. She did not look at Myrren. She did not look at the body. Her gaze swept the court as if measuring the usefulness of every scream, every sob, every whisper. Then she turned her head away, dismissing them all without judgment.

The lack of defense was worse than accusation. It was permission.

Myrren’s hands trembled where no one could see. Her gift was survival, but survival in this court might require more than naming death.

“Enough.”

Thane’s voice rang out, warm and sharp all at once. He rose from the dais and stepped into the fray, his golden hair catching torchlight, his presence breaking like dawn across the panicked hall. He moved to Myrren’s side, sunlight incarnate placing himself between her and a hall full of daggers.

“She did not pour the goblet,” he said firmly. “She saved us from ignorance. Let no one mistake knowledge for guilt.”

Aedric scoffed, his sneer curling like a blade. “You defend her too quickly, cousin. Are you certain it is wisdom and not—”

“Enough, Aedric.” Lady Seliora’s voice sliced clean, silencing him with a single glance. “Mockery does not suit you. Nor does jealousy.”

A murmur rippled through the hall, hushed but insistent. More than fear now—anger. Myrren caught the scent of it: sharp, metallic, like blood in the air before a storm. A few nobles pressed harder, their whispers darting like blades.

“She defies the Queen by speaking.”

“Poison at her arrival? Coincidence?”

“She threatens us all.”

Captain Holt shifted, his hand now resting openly on the hilt of his sword. His expression was iron, unreadable, but his stance made one thing clear: if anyone lunged at Myrren, they would meet steel before they touched her.

Across the chamber, Lord Corven had not moved. He leaned against a pillar, shadows curling at his feet as if tethered to him. His gaze never left her. Silent, assessing. At his side, Kael Droveth, his physician-alchemist, crouched beside the fallen goblet with unsettling calm. He dipped a finger against the rim, rubbed powder between thumb and forefinger, and smiled faintly. Cataloguing. Collecting. Then, so softly Myrren wondered if she had imagined it, Kael murmured: “Beautiful chemistry.”

Her skin crawled.

The Queen’s silence stretched like ice across the chamber. Nobles shifted, restless, their perfumes souring with sweat. If a lady of high birth could be struck down mid-banquet, then no one was safe. Whispers surged anew.

“Who will be next?”

“Not even the Queen is spared?”

“If poison can strike at our tables, what hope has the city?”

Myrren heard the words and smelled the panic. Wine soured, sweat curdled, powder cloyed thick enough to choke. Poison within the palace, famine beyond its walls—the kingdom trembled like glass on the edge of shattering.

And in the hush that followed, Myrren knew: Thane had just chosen her against them all.