A Touch of Poison (Shadows of the Tenebris Court, #2)

by Clare Sager

The rules for Elfhame were clear: bargains were currency, lies were weapons, and your heart was your greatest weakness.

Did it serve you to keep quiet?” I had no answer. “Or did your silence just serve others and their comfort?”

“Why did you never come to me for help?” He said it softly, barely disturbing the still air, as though he was afraid of the answer. Where did I start with a question like that? “I’m not sure it crossed my mind.” There had never been anyone for me to go to before. I wasn’t sure I even knew how to ask.

Maybe it was that, maybe it was the expression that I knew matched my own, but when I caught his eye, I laughed. It started as a chuckle, but like the rain, it soon became a torrent. And he laughed too. I gave my body to it—a release after almost a month of uncertainty. He doubled over, as though the rain had washed away Business Bastian and the tense man I’d ridden out of the gate with.

Still, knowledge was also power, so I continued feeding it to her in the hopes she wouldn’t ever need to rely on it.

“What do you want to know?” She raised an eyebrow, then turned back to the road. “What do you want to say?” Touché.

you spoke about things you couldn’t possibly know. I was afraid.” I squeezed her hips, tracing circles with my thumbs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” “No. You misunderstand. I wasn’t afraid of you; I was afraid for you.”

It felt like it once had. Like we were away in Albion where I didn’t have to think about the safety of an entire realm, where I wasn’t the Night Queen’s Shadow, the Bastard of Tenebris, the Serpent. I could be what she called me: Bastian.

Not just the most gorgeous person I knew but… perhaps the most broken. And yet… he endured. Shoulders set, he pushed on into every day. My heart ached for him. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to endure. He didn’t have to push. He didn’t have to pretend it was all fine—that he was untouchable.

“Hello, my lovely. I missed you.

oh 🥺

“There’s more to life than power and courts and kings and queens. This was mine, given to me by my parents. When your fathers marched on Innesol, we fled. My mother wouldn’t let me take the box—I had to be practical, she said. We could only take what we could carry. So I hid it and told myself we would be back one day. That was before your father brought his monsters to my home.” Her normally calm face had turned hard, her eyes unblinking. “I know they slaughtered everyone there. It was lucky my parents chose to leave. But I still wanted this little reminder of the home I’d once had—the childhood friends who would listen to this song with me.” I held still, every word a grain of salt in the open wound of my father’s memories and the destruction I’d seen for myself. She hugged the box to herself. “I remember those who have been forgotten by all others. And I remember what your family did, Serpent. The queen might have forced me to heal your wounds the night of the coup, but I would never save your life by choice. That was why I left the scar—I followed her orders so you didn’t die, but I wanted you to remember.” She didn’t shout or hiss—no, this was a quieter kind of fury that paled her lips. “I pity you. The Serpent who can’t understand why I would want something for myself, why I might care for other people. After all, you killed your own father without batting an eyelid.” She scoffed, cold as winter. “How sad you are. A Serpent who doesn’t realise that not every fae is a...

Ariadne owed me a favour, so…” I removed the black gloves. “I’m sure you could’ve used the favour on something more worthwhile.” “I’m sure I couldn’t have.”

I reached out, heart already full as I inhaled the rich scent. For a second—one glorious second—I had that velvety softness against my skin. Then the white petals shrivelled and blackened. The shrub’s leaves curled and withered. The branches dried and snapped under their own weight, and where moments earlier had stood a beautiful plant, now lay a mouldering mound scented sickly sweet with decay. I reached out like I could somehow pull the pieces back together. But there was nothing. And my touch couldn’t fix, only kill. Death. That was my gift.

“I need you to be brave for me, Kat. You can face this. I know you can.” She frowned. “I don’t feel very brave.” “You’re the Wicked Lady.” “She wasn’t brave, just desperate.” I shook my head, not understanding her distinction.

“So you see, she’s an invention of desperation, not a sign of bravery.” I frowned at her until she cocked her head in question. “And yet you faced me down on the road. You spied on me. You let me have you in a number of compromising positions, one time in front of dozens of other people. You rode in that race and kept yourself together when you dangled over the waterfall, inches from death. You shot a fucking Horror in the eye.” Her laugh was dismissive, as if everyone did such things. “I was terrified the whole time.” “We only get to be brave when we’re afraid.”

“Are you… fixing that?” “Trying to,” he muttered. The fragments of vase I’d found in his suite in Riverton Palace. My fence’s off-hand comment about him buying broken things from her. “You’re fixing it all, aren’t you?” Brow low, mouth tight, he turned and glanced over the collection. He wrinkled his nose and sent a shadow to swipe dust off the grandfather clock’s face. “Trying to. But there are more broken things than I can keep up with.”

“Your anger is a beautiful thing, Katherine. You are allowed to have it, and you’re allowed to show it.”

Things outside your control can rob your happiness in an instant. You can’t stop it. But don’t let the things that are in your control do the same.”

Memento mori. Death comes for our lives… but also for our happiness.

Fuck. She saw. She saw everything.

“Katherine,” I said against her ear. I couldn’t stop saying her name—my damnation, my salvation, my everything in between.

“I may not ever deserve your forgiveness, but I need you to know that I am sorry, and I swear I’ll never do anything like that to you again. I swear on everything that I am.” I placed a hand over my heart, shadows pooling around me as I pressed my other hand to the floor at her feet. “I swear it on my magic.” The stone floor answered, old, old power lifting its head from a long slumber, and I could feel the land, the Great Yew outside, the very soul of Elfhame listening. Kat’s gaze raked over me, passing from one eye to the other, to the hand over my heart, to my knees digging into the polished floor and the hand placed between her feet. “Do you accept my vow?” Slowly, she nodded. “I do. That and your apology.”

Her gaze skimmed away as she gave a private little smile, and I wondered how that must feel. To love and be loved. To not be torn apart by your feelings but made whole by them.

Killing. Torturing. Manipulating others. I’d done those things because I had to. The realm was more important than a stain on my soul. The lives of hundreds of thousands of fae were more important than my father’s. I’d weighed those things against each other and made my decisions accordingly. One fae was not more important than all fae. So when they’d called me Serpent, I’d gladly stepped into that role. The snake who had helped create the world, then tried to destroy it. The betrayer. It had pushed back my father’s death, made it something ordained by fate. It had made me a villain not to be crossed so my queen could be her people’s heroine. If I had to destroy in order for others to live, so be it. I wore the name Serpent as a badge of honour. A necessary darkness in the light. But oathbreaker? Not that. Never that. I’d held on to a single ideal, kept every bargain and contract to the letter. I rarely even tried to twist them to my advantage. It was like inside, deep beneath everything else, part of me believed I could be honourable in this one area and that would go some way towards counterbalancing all my wrongs.

“How can I want such contradictory things?” I huffed, letting myself sink into her space, mouth only a few inches from hers. “Isn’t that what life is?”

“You can do this, ember.” I jolted at his use of that name here and now. “Your fire isn’t just for me.” His teeth bared in a vicious smile. “I look forward to seeing it destroy them all.”

“It doesn’t matter. You matter. You matter more to me than I do. And I surrender this last thing to you.”

“I want you, body, heart, and soul. I want to worship you as you deserve to be worshipped. Adore you as you deserve to be adored. Love you as you deserve to be loved.”

“At your feet, all rules kneel. I’m no hero, Katherine, but, please, let me be your villain.”

“I want you, Bastian,” I whispered. “Give me everything.”

“You’re going to finish me before I even begin.”

“Don’t close your eyes, Katherine,” he murmured. “Keep them on me. This is real. We are real. I swear it on all that I am.” Yes. I knew it. Felt it. Believed it.

“You have eased me in beautifully, love. But now I’m ready for my bastard.” He sucked in a breath, gaze skipping to my lips, dick twitching against me. “Say that again. Call me your bastard.” Like in the training yard, but now I understood. He’d been called bastard like it was the worst thing—the marker of a man who’d never known the one who sired him and who’d killed one of the only fathers he had known. Not a name he deserved, but one he’d been given anyway, and if the way I said it reframed it for him… “You’re my bastard, Bastian. My beautiful fucking bastard. Mine. And now I want you to show me everything that means.”

“Thank you,” I managed to mutter as he wrapped towels around us both. “There’s no need to thank me.” His face had gone soft, less cutting than usual, but his eyebrows scrunched together as he carried me back into our room. “But there is.” I blinked up at him, eyelids so heavy I could drift off at any moment. “You showed me. I asked and you did. And it was perfect, Bastian.” I barely managed to lift my head and skim a kiss over his jaw. “You are perfect.” I more felt than heard the sound he made as he lifted his chin. Proud. Happy.

“Sleep, my dear flame, and know how much I love you.”

“You’re speaking like my mind is a structure. But this isn’t a broken bone in danger of crumbling apart. These are only my thoughts.” “Considering how strong your thoughts are, I didn’t expect to hear you calling them ‘only’ anything.” His brow tightened, and a knot tied in my stomach at his disapproval. “Your mind is a structure. Just because it isn’t a physical one doesn’t make it any less real. Your mind can be injured or sick, the same as your body. You’ve been getting headaches since this was done, haven’t you?” Bile licked the back of my throat. I swallowed it down and nodded in silence. “Your mind is who you are. If it collapses, you will lose yourself. Your fear and courage. Your humour and kindness. Your loyalty and determination. Everything you love, and everything you hate. They are ‘only’ thoughts, and yet…” And yet those things were me. Even the fear. Especially the fear. Wasn’t that the thing that had made me all the more determined to keep Ella safe from unCavendish? Wasn’t that what had driven me to ride at night as the Wicked Lady? And weren’t those the nights I’d felt most free? I rubbed my chest. Maybe I did know Katherine Ferrers far better than I thought. “I understand.” In truth, I’d never understood anything about myself so well until that moment.

“Katherine,” he murmured against my skin, “I love you. Beyond all reason. Beyond all control. Beyond everything. I love you.”

“I heard what happened… that you’re no longer married.” “I prefer ‘happily widowed.’”

“I’m so proud of you.” That was the thing that broke me, and I sobbed into my friend’s chest as he told me over and over. “I’m proud of you.”

Every touch between us was our choice. Everything that happened now was for us to decide.

“Like they say, the couple who slays together stays together.” “I’m sure that isn’t a saying,” Asher muttered, gaze skimming over the dead guests. “It is now.” Sepher smirked.

“We have some friends to save.” He turned to me and raised his eyebrows, backing away. “I’d suggest you examine your priorities, Marwood. Choose the ones who’d choose you. Fuck everyone else.”

“I’m not dying today and neither are you.”

“You look beautiful, Lady of Dusk. A star in your court.”

The king’s smile widened, showing his sharp teeth.