Destined for a King Read Online Free PDF Page B

time. You know what happens if a fever is allowed to continue too long. Old Brand nearly boiled his brains last winter.”
    “Yes, I recall. I was there.” Old Brand hadn’t been right in the head to begin with, though. Or so Calista told herself. At his age, it was only natural his mind weakened. Surely someone as strong and vital as Torch wouldn’t allow himself to be felled by a fever.
    It’s not the fever, so much as the bolt that caused it.
Hers, and it was only fitting she be the one to cure him of the ill.
    “But it’s not the same thing, is it?” she asked. “The fever doesn’t have the same cause.”
    “With a wound, it’s even worse.” Her mother’s black eyes glittered with concern. “It’s a sign of infection. Have you checked to make certain there are no streaks of blood beneath the skin?”
    She nodded. “The dressings have all been clean. Not an off smell about them.”
    Her mother pressed her lips into a line. “I don’t like this.”
    “Could the men have put something on their bolts?” Sometimes they dipped their quarrels in a slops bucket to ensure fatality one way or another. A clean shot to a vital spot was a far pleasanter demise.
    Mother looked around them carefully. Not a soul in sight, except for Torch’s men on the walls and a lone figure poised at the edge of the gardens. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, grave of expression. Watching. Kestrel.
    From far off echoed the clank of swords meeting shields and the thump of hammers.
    “This remains between us,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “I do not wish you to take the blame should things go ill.”
    “They will blame me no matter what. I shot that bolt.”
    “Yes.” She dropped her tone to a whisper. “But if they learn what was on that bolt, they could make your punishment worse.”
    Great beyond. If Torch did not recover, they’d kill her father. They’d most likely demand her head as well. What could possibly be worse? “What was on that bolt?”
    “Kingsbane.”
    Calista’s heart slammed into her ribs. “Where did you come by such?”
    She hardly dared voice the rest of her thought. Why was Torch still alive? Kingsbane killed within minutes of ingestion. Torch might well ask her to make Tamsin taste anything she gave him if he knew they kept such a thing in their stores.
    Mother reached into the blackbriar and cut a stem laden with darkening haws, the movement so practiced and precise she did it without gloves. A clean scent cut through the air, briefly masking the heavier odor of damp earth. “I made it.”
    “
You
made it? Why?” It wasn’t as if they might rid themselves of an infestation of rats, and should something so toxic fall into the wrong hands…If someone wished to wipe out the entire castle and quickly, a few drops at the main meal of the day would suffice.
    As if they always discussed deadly poison while gathering the necessary antidote, Mother continued to harvest the fruit of the blackbriar. “Your father wished to see if it would be as effective on arrow tips as it is in a man’s dinner. He thought of it as a secret weapon—something we can use, as easily as the keep was taken.”
    Calista placed a hand at her throat, but even that gesture was insufficient to calm her racing heart. “Clearly, it isn’t.”
    Her mother’s eyes darted to one side. Kestrel hovered, closer now, at the edge of the first plantings, well out of earshot for as quietly as they conversed, but still a presence, a reminder, a threat. “And you may be thankful for that. Poison works the same as any cure. It depends on dosage and the manner of ingestion.”
    “Did Papa suspect we might come under attack?” she asked faintly. “He must have.”
    “Attack is an ever-present danger when our lands are not well situated.” As much a truth, that statement, for Torch as it was for the Thornes. Even with the gates repaired, Magnus would have an easy go of retaking the keep.
    “Mother.” She put a hand on her