The Bone-Eating Poison, a slow-acting toxin that had already begun crystallizing in her mother's marrow, turning her very skeleton brittle and painful. Each movement would have been agony.
The Heart-Shadow Curse, dark magic wrapped around her mother's heart like thorned vines, constricting a little tighter with each beat, was designed to eventually crush the organ from within.
And finally, the Soul-Severing Poison, the most insidious of all, a spiritual toxin that was already beginning to separate her mother's soul from her body, creating hairline fractures in the bond that kept her anchored to life.
"Three different poisons. Three different methods." Shuyin's voice was barely a whisper now, each word laden with anguish. "And a curse woven through it all like a thread through fabric. Whoever did this wanted to make absolutely certain she would die. And they wanted her to suffer every moment until she did."
