(Marcus's POV)
The poison bottle slipped from my hands and broke on the stone floor.
I stared at the broken glass, my heart beating so fast I thought it might burst. This wasn't meant to happen. I had been making the king's poison for six months, and my hands had never shaken before.
But something was very wrong today.
"My lord?" A servant knocked on my bedroom door. "The king is asking for his morning tea."
"Coming!" I called out, trying to keep my voice steady. I grabbed a cloth and quickly cleaned up the broken glass. The poison had been a special mix of sleepwort and mindweed that made the king tired and confused. Without it, he might start thinking clearly again.
And if King Aldric started thinking clearly, he might figure out what I had been doing to him.
I pulled out my backup bottle of poison and mixed three drops into the king's favorite chamomile tea. Just enough to keep him weak, but not enough to kill him. Not yet.
As I walked through the castle halls toward the king's rooms, I tried to calm my nerves. Everything was going according to plan. The king trusted me completely. Marina was ready to steal Lyra's magic. In just a few more months, I would be the true ruler of Astoria.
So why did I feel like something terrible was about to happen?
I knocked on the king's door and entered his private sitting room. King Aldric was standing by the window, and for the first time in months, he looked fully alert.
"Marcus," he said without turning around. "We need to talk."
My blood turned to ice. Those four words sounded like a death sentence.
"Of course, Your Majesty." I set the poisoned tea on his table, trying to act normal. "You seem much better today. Perhaps you'd like to drink your tea while it's still warm?"
The king turned to face me, and I almost dropped the teacup. His eyes were clear and sharp, nothing like the confused, cloudy look he'd had for months. Somehow, the poison wasn't working anymore.
"I won't be drinking that tea, Marcus." The king's voice was cold as winter. "Just like I haven't been drinking any of the tea you've brought me for the past three days."
The world seemed to tilt sideways. "I don't understand, Your Majesty."
"Don't lie to me." King Aldric walked to his desk and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with clear liquid. "This is what you've been putting in my drinks. Sleepwort and mindweed, mixed with just enough silver dust to make me forget things."
I opened my mouth to deny it, but no words came out. How could he possibly know about the silver dust? That was my secret ingredient, something I had learned about from banned magic books.
"Nothing to say?" The king sat down in his chair, but kept his eyes locked on mine. "For six months, you've been slowly killing me. Making me weak and confused so you could rule in my place. Did you really think I would never figure it out?"
My mind raced, trying to find a way out of this nightmare. "Your Majesty, there must be some mistake. I would never—"
"The mistake was trusting you with my daughter's life." The king's voice became deadly quiet. "Tell me, Marcus. What were you going to do to Lyra once I was gone?"
That question hit me like a physical blow. Because the truth was, I had been planning to kill Lyra too. After Marina stole her magic, there would be no need to keep the real princess living.
"I don't know what you mean," I lied.
King Aldric stood up and walked over to me. For a man who had been sick for months, he moved with amazing strength. "Let me tell you what I think happened. You made a deal with someone. Someone who taught you about rare drugs and blood magic. Someone who promised you power if you helped them destroy my family."
He was right about everything except one point. I hadn't made a deal with just anyone. I had made a deal with Witch Morwyn, the most dangerous dark sorceress in the country. But if I told him that, he would have me killed on the spot.
"Your Majesty, I think your sickness has made you paranoid. Perhaps you should rest—"
The king grabbed my wrist with an iron grip. "Don't. Lie. To. Me." His eyes began to glow with a faint golden light, and I realized with fear that he was using magic to read my thoughts.
I tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. Images from my memory started flashing through my mind. My secret talks with Morwyn. The plans to steal Lyra's dragon magic. Marina practicing the blood rite that would transfer power from one person to another.
"No," I whispered, pushing against his mental invasion. "You can't—"
"I can and I will." The king's magic dug deeper into my mind, pulling out secrets I had hidden for years. "Show me everything, Marcus. Show me how you planned to kill my daughter."
The mental probe felt like knives cutting through my head. I fell to my knees, unable to resist as the king saw every detail of our plot. He saw Marina's anger. He saw Morwyn's evil smile. He saw the knife we had prepared to cut out Lyra's heart after the magic transfer.
When he finally let go of my mind, I fell on the floor, gasping for air.
"Guards!" the king shouted.
Heavy footsteps ran down the hallway toward us. In a few seconds, I would be caught and thrown into the dungeon. Everything I had worked for would be destroyed.
But as the footsteps got closer, something impossible happened.
The king suddenly stumbled backward, gripping his chest. His face went pale, and he started gasping for air just like I had been doing moments before.
"What—" he wheezed, looking at me with confusion. "What's happening to me?"
I stared at him in shock. The drug shouldn't be affecting him now. He said he hadn't been drinking the tea for three days. So why was he suddenly getting sick?
Then I realized the horrible truth.
"You did drink the tea," I whispered. "Just not the tea I brought you today."
The king's eyes widened with understanding and fear. "The water. You poisoned the water source."
I hadn't just been putting poison in his tea. For the past month, I had been adding tiny amounts to the castle's main water well. Everyone in the castle had been drinking poisoned water, but the results were so gradual that no one noticed.
Until now.
The king fell to his knees, just as the guards burst through the door. But instead of arresting me, they rushed to help their poisoned master.
"Get the healers!" one guard yelled. "The king is dying!"
As chaos erupted around us, I realized that my plan had worked better than I had ever thought. The king might have figured out my secret, but it was too late. The drug was already in his system, and this time there would be no antidote.
But as I watched him fight to breathe, something caught my eye that made my blood freeze.
Standing in the doorway, watching everything with those cold, knowing eyes, was Princess Lyra.
And she was happy.
Not the sweet, innocent smile I had known all her life. This was the smile of someone who had been expecting this to happen. Someone who had been waiting for this exact moment.
"Hello, Uncle Marcus," she said softly, stepping into the room as her father fell. "I think it's time we had a real conversation about your plans for my kingdom."
The way she said 'my kingdom' instead of 'our kingdom' sent chills down my spine.
Because in that moment, I understood that Princess Lyra knew everything.
And somehow, she had been playing a game even more dangerous than mine.