Nightshade and Koi
Yuna tasted the poison before she swallowed.
The rice was still warm, steam curling from the lacquered bowl. She'd taken the first bite mechanically, her mind elsewhere—on the arrow that had missed her heart by three inches, on the Chief Eunuch's questions that had lasted until dawn, on the way Kaelen had watched her through it all with those dark, calculating eyes. The bitter alkaloid tang hit her tongue a half-second before her training kicked in.
She spat into her sleeve.
The servant girl who'd brought the tray—Lila, the one from the carriage who'd offered her candied ginger and sympathy—stood frozen in the doorway. Her face had gone the color of old parchment.
"Nightshade," Yuna said. She set down the bowl with deliberate care. "Not hemlock. Interesting choice."
Lila's hands twisted in her apron. "I don't—I didn't—"
"Hemlock would have been subtler. Slower. Nightshade is for amateurs." Yuna stood, and Lila took a step back. "Or for people who want to be caught."
"Please." The word came out strangled. "He said it was just a test. He said you'd know, that you'd—"
"Who said?"
But Lila was already running.
Yuna let her go. She crossed to the window—the new window, installed that morning to replace the one shattered by arrows—and dumped the poisoned rice into the koi pond three stories below. The fish would die. She'd warned them about that, but the Chief Eunuch had smiled his papery smile and said the palace had plenty of fish.
The palace had plenty of everything. Except answers.
She'd spent six hours in the interrogation room after the second arrow. Six hours of the Chief Eunuch's soft questions and Kaelen's silence and guards standing so close she could smell the leather of their armor. They'd taken her needle. Examined it. Asked where she'd learned to palm a weapon like that, why her first instinct had been to arm herself, whether she'd seen the assassin's face.
She'd lied about everything except the last part. No, she hadn't seen the face. Yes, she'd been terrified. Yes, she understood how suspicious it looked.
Kaelen had said nothing. Just watched her with those eyes that saw too much.
Davos had vouched for her. Told them she'd been standing beside him when the first arrow flew, that she couldn't possibly have been involved. The Chief Eunuch had smiled and said of course, of course, but protocol demanded they ask. Just a formality.
The sun was setting now, painting the eastern wing in shades of blood and gold. Yuna braided her hair with careful fingers, weaving in the new needles she'd stolen from the palace seamstress. Thinner than her usual ones. Easier to hide.
She had work to do.
Lila's room was at the end of the servants' corridor, barely large enough for a sleeping mat and a trunk. Yuna picked the lock with a hairpin and let herself in just after midnight.
The girl was awake. Sitting on her mat with her knees drawn up, like she'd been waiting.
"You came," Lila whispered.
"Did you think I wouldn't?"
"I hoped." Lila's voice cracked. "I hoped you'd just report me and be done with it."
Yuna closed the door. The room smelled like cheap incense and fear. "Who ordered you to poison me?"
"I told you. He said it was a test."
"The Chief Eunuch."
Lila nodded. Her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen. "He calls us in sometimes. The new servants. Asks us to do things. Small things at first. Deliver a message. Forget we saw someone in a corridor. Then bigger things."
"Like poisoning concubines."
"He said you'd know. That you were trained, that you'd taste it before you swallowed." Lila's hands were shaking. "He said the ones who don't know just die, and that's fine, the palace has plenty of concubines. But the ones who do know—he wants to identify them. He wants to know who's dangerous."
Yuna's pulse was steady. Her breathing even. But something cold was spreading through her chest. "What happens to the ones who are?"
Lila looked away.
"Tell me."
"I don't know. They disappear. Sometimes they're reassigned. Sometimes they just—" She swallowed. "There was a girl last year. From the Jade Empire. She knew about poisons too. Identified wolfsbane in her tea, spat it out just like you did. The Chief Eunuch smiled and said well done, and two days later she was gone."
"Gone where?"
"The locked room. At the end of the north corridor." Lila's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "That's where they take the dangerous ones."
Yuna filed that away. The locked room. Lady Isra had mentioned it too, in her little speech about the rules. Don't ask questions about the locked room.
Which meant Yuna needed to get inside it.
She pulled the sprig of nightshade from her sleeve—she'd retrieved it from the rice bowl before dumping the rest—and laid it on Lila's pillow. The girl flinched.
"A warning," Yuna said. "Next time the Chief Eunuch asks you to test someone, tell him you already did. Tell him I failed. Tell him I ate the whole bowl and died screaming."
"He'll know I'm lying."
"Then lie better." Yuna moved toward the door, then paused. "Or stop working for him."
"I can't. He—" Lila's voice broke. "He has my brother. In the palace prisons. He said if I don't do what he asks, they'll execute him for treason."
Of course he did. The Chief Eunuch collected leverage the way other men collected coins.
Yuna should have left then. Should have walked away and let Lila drown in whatever web she'd gotten herself tangled in. That was the smart play. The safe play.
Instead she heard herself say, "What's your brother's name?"
"Tam. Tam Vey." Hope flickered across Lila's face, desperate and fragile. "Do you—can you—"
"I can't promise anything." Yuna opened the door. "But I'll see what I can find out."
She left before Lila could thank her. Before she could change her mind.
The concubine hierarchy revealed itself in layers, like peeling back skin to find more skin underneath.
Lady Isra summoned her the next morning. Not a request—a summons, delivered by a stone-faced servant who made it clear that refusing wasn't an option. Yuna followed her through the eastern wing's labyrinth of corridors, past rooms where women sat in circles doing embroidery or playing instruments or simply waiting. Always waiting.
Forty concubines in the eastern wing. Yuna had counted them. Forty women competing for the attention of a prince who barely seemed to notice they existed.
Lady Isra's chambers were three times the size of Yuna's, with silk screens and imported carpets and a view of the palace gardens. The woman herself was older than Yuna had expected—maybe forty, with silver threading through her black hair and lines around her eyes that spoke of years spent smiling when she didn't want to.
"Sit," Lady Isra said. Not an invitation.
Yuna sat.
"Tea?"
"No, thank you."
Lady Isra poured herself a cup anyway, her movements precise and practiced. "You've been here three days. Long enough to learn the rules."
"I'm still learning."
"Then let me help." Lady Isra's smile didn't reach her eyes. "There are forty women in this wing. Five of us have shared the prince's bed. The rest are decorative. Do you understand the difference?"
"I think so."
"I doubt it." Lady Isra sipped her tea. "The decorative ones are here because their families needed to curry favor or pay off debts. They'll spend their lives in these rooms, growing old and bitter, and then they'll be quietly retired to a country estate where no one has to look at them anymore. The five of us—we have power. Limited, conditional, but real."
Yuna kept her face neutral. "And you're telling me this because?"
"Because you need to decide which category you want to belong to." Lady Isra set down her cup. "The prince hasn't called for a new concubine in two years. But he asked about you this morning."
Yuna's heart kicked against her ribs. She didn't let it show. "Asked what?"
"Whether you'd settled in. Whether you seemed comfortable." Lady Isra's eyes were sharp. "Whether you'd caused any trouble."
"And what did you tell him?"
"The truth. That you've been quiet. Polite. Unremarkable." She paused. "But we both know that's a lie, don't we?"
The room felt smaller suddenly. Yuna's fingers found the needle woven into her braid, hidden beneath the silk. "I don't know what you mean."
"The assassination attempt. You were there. You had a weapon." Lady Isra leaned forward. "The Chief Eunuch thinks you're dangerous. Prince Kaelen thinks you're interesting. And I think you're going to get yourself killed if you're not careful."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's advice." Lady Isra stood, smoothing her robes. "There are rules here. Don't pursue the prince without permission from one of the five. Don't steal another woman's servant. Don't form alliances that might threaten the existing power structure. And don't—under any circumstances—ask questions about the locked room at the end of the north corridor."
There it was again. The locked room.
Yuna stood too. "What's in the locked room?"
Lady Isra's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes. Fear, maybe. Or respect. "You're either very brave or very stupid."
"Can't I be both?"
"Not for long." Lady Isra moved toward the door, then paused. "One more thing. The prince walks in the gardens every afternoon at the Hour of the Goat. Alone, usually. Sometimes with Ambassador Kael. If you wanted to arrange a chance encounter, that would be the time."
Yuna's pulse quickened. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because the last three girls who caught the prince's attention all ended up in that locked room." Lady Isra's voice was soft. Almost kind. "And I'm curious to see if you'll be the fourth."
Yuna spent three days memorizing Kaelen's routines.
He walked the gardens at the Hour of the Goat, just like Lady Isra had said. Always the same path—through the cherry grove, past the koi pond, around the meditation pavilion. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with Davos. Never with guards, which was either arrogant or stupid or both.
On the fourth day, she made her move.
She timed it perfectly. Waited until he'd passed the cherry grove, then stepped out from behind a flowering plum tree with a book in her hands and a carefully calculated expression of surprise.
"Your Highness." She bowed. Not too deep. Not too shallow. "Forgive me. I didn't realize—"
"You're a terrible liar," Kaelen said.
Yuna's stomach dropped. But she kept her face smooth, her voice steady. "I'm sorry?"
"You've been watching me for three days. Following my schedule. Calculating the exact moment to stage this little accident." He moved closer, and she caught the scent of sandalwood and steel. "Did Lady Isra tell you when I walk? Or did you figure it out yourself?"
Her mind raced. Deny it? Play innocent? But his eyes said he already knew, and lying would only make it worse.
"Both," she said.
Something that might have been amusement crossed his face. "At least you're honest about your dishonesty."
"I find it saves time."
"Does it?" He glanced at the book in her hands. "What are you reading?"
She'd chosen it carefully. A treatise on military strategy from the Third Dynasty. Dry enough to be believable, interesting enough to be a conversation starter. "Research."
"For what?"
"Understanding how men think."
"And what have you learned?"
"That most of them don't."
This time he definitely smiled. It transformed his face, made him look younger. Almost human. "Ambassador Kael said you were clever."
"Ambassador Kael talks about me?"
"Constantly. It's becoming tiresome." Kaelen started walking, and Yuna fell into step beside him. "He thinks you're hiding something."
"Everyone's hiding something."
"True. But most people aren't as good at it as you are." He stopped at the koi pond, watching the fish circle. "The Chief Eunuch wants me to send you away. He says you're dangerous."
Yuna's throat tightened. "And what do you think?"
"I think he's right." Kaelen turned to face her. "But I also think dangerous people are more interesting than safe ones. And I'm very, very bored."
Before Yuna could respond, Davos's voice cut through the garden. "Kaelen. We need to talk."
He was striding toward them, his face tight with something that looked like anger. Or fear. Behind him, two guards were dragging a man in chains—bloodied, beaten, barely conscious.
"Now?" Kaelen's voice had gone cold.
"Now." Davos reached them, breathing hard. "We caught another one. Jade Empire scout. He was trying to get into the palace through the eastern wall."
The prisoner raised his head, and Yuna's blood turned to ice.
She knew that face.
Tam Vey. Lila's brother.
"Execute him," Kaelen said.
"Wait." The word was out before Yuna could stop it.
Both men turned to look at her. Davos's eyes were wide, warning. Kaelen's were narrow, calculating.
"Why?" Kaelen asked.
Because Lila was being blackmailed. Because the Chief Eunuch was using Tam as leverage. Because if Tam died, Lila would have no reason to keep lying for the Chief Eunuch, and that might be useful.
But she couldn't say any of that.
"Because executing prisoners without interrogation is wasteful," she said instead. "He might have information."
"We've interrogated him," Davos said. His voice was tight. "He won't talk."
"Then interrogate him better."
Kaelen studied her. The moment stretched, thin and dangerous. "You seem very invested in the life of a Jade Empire spy."
"I'm invested in not wasting resources."
"Resources." Kaelen's smile was sharp. "Is that what we're calling human lives now?"
"Isn't it what you call them?"
The guards shifted. Davos made a small sound that might have been a laugh or a warning. Kaelen's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes.
"Take him to the holding cells," he said finally. "We'll decide what to do with him tomorrow."
The guards dragged Tam away. He didn't look at Yuna. Didn't acknowledge her. But his hands were shaking, and there was blood on his teeth.
Davos waited until they were out of earshot, then turned on Yuna. "What the hell was that?"
"I was—"
"You were interfering. In matters that don't concern you." His voice was low, furious. "Do you have any idea how suspicious that looked?"
"I was trying to help."
"Help who? Him? Yourself?" Davos stepped closer. "Or are you working with them?"
The accusation hit like a slap. "You think I'm a spy?"
"I think you're hiding something. I think you've been hiding something since the moment you arrived. And I think—" He stopped. Took a breath. "I think you're going to get yourself killed."
"That seems to be the consensus."
"This isn't a joke, Yuna." He was close enough now that she could see the gold flecks in his eyes, the scar on his jaw. "The Chief Eunuch is watching you. Kaelen is watching you. And now you've just drawn attention to a Jade Empire prisoner for no apparent reason. So either you're the worst spy in history, or—"
"Or what?"
"Or you're exactly what you claim to be, and you're just catastrophically bad at staying out of trouble."
Yuna wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or tell him the truth—that she was here to kill his prince, that every smile and bow and carefully staged accident was part of a plan that was falling apart faster than she could hold it together.
Instead she said, "The prisoner. Tam Vey. His sister works in the palace."
Davos went very still. "How do you know that?"
"Because she tried to poison me yesterday."
"She—" He stared at her. "And you didn't report it?"
"I'm reporting it now."
"To me. Not to the Chief Eunuch. Not to Kaelen." His voice had gone quiet. Dangerous. "Why?"
Because I don't trust them. Because you're the only person in this palace who's looked at me like I'm human instead of a puzzle to solve or a threat to eliminate.
Because three days ago you shook your head when the Chief Eunuch asked for my weapon, and I still don't know why.
"Because," Yuna said carefully, "I think the Chief Eunuch is using Tam to control Lila. And I think if we can prove that, we might be able to find out what else he's hiding."
Davos studied her for a long moment. Then he laughed—a short, bitter sound. "You're insane."
"Probably."
"The Chief Eunuch has been running this palace for twenty years. He has eyes everywhere. Leverage on everyone. And you want to investigate him?"
"I want to survive him." Yuna met his eyes. "Don't you?"
the dynamic tilted in his expression. A crack in the armor. "What makes you think I'm not on his side?"
"Because if you were, I'd already be in that locked room everyone keeps warning me about."
The words hung between them. Davos's face hardened. "You need to stop asking about that room."
"Why? What's in it?"
"Nothing good." He turned away. "Go back to your chambers, Yuna. Stay there. Don't talk to anyone. Don't interfere with anything. And for the love of all the gods, stop trying to save people you don't know."
He walked away before she could respond.
Yuna stood alone in the garden, watching the koi circle their pond. The sun was setting, painting everything in shades of amber and rust. In three days, she'd been poisoned, interrogated, warned by the head concubine, and accused of espionage by the one person she'd thought might be an ally.
And she still hadn't gotten any closer to Kaelen.
She was turning to leave when she heard it—a sound like metal scraping stone, coming from somewhere beyond the garden wall. She moved toward it, careful to stay in the shadows.
The sound came again. Closer now.
Yuna's hand found the needle in her braid. She pulled it free, held it ready.
A section of the wall swung open—a hidden door, so well concealed she'd walked past it a dozen times without noticing. A figure stepped through, cloaked and hooded.
The Chief Eunuch.
He wasn't alone. Behind him, two guards were carrying something wrapped in silk. Something person-shaped.
Yuna pressed herself against a tree, barely breathing.
They passed within ten feet of her. Close enough that she could hear the Chief Eunuch's soft voice: "Take her to the north corridor. The usual room."
The guards nodded and disappeared into the palace.
The Chief Eunuch stood for a moment, looking up at the darkening sky. Then he smiled—that papery, terrible smile—and followed them inside.
Yuna waited until she was sure they were gone. Then she moved to the hidden door, examining it. No lock. Just a pressure plate disguised as decorative stonework.
She pressed it.
The door swung open, revealing a narrow passage that led down into darkness. Stone steps, worn smooth by centuries of feet. The smell of damp earth and something else. Something sweet and rotten.
Yuna knew she should walk away. Go back to her chambers like Davos had told her. Stay out of trouble.
Instead she stepped into the passage.
The door swung shut behind her with a sound like a tomb sealing.
She descended the steps, one hand on the wall, the other gripping her needle. The darkness was absolute. The air grew colder with each step.
After what felt like hours but was probably minutes, she reached the bottom. A corridor stretched ahead, lit by guttering torches. Doors lined both sides—heavy wood reinforced with iron.
Prison cells.
Yuna moved forward, checking each door. Most were empty. Some held prisoners—men and women in chains, their faces hollow with despair. None of them looked at her. None of them made a sound.
At the end of the corridor was a larger door. Newer than the others. And from behind it came a sound that made Yuna's blood freeze.
Screaming.
A woman's voice, raw and broken, begging for something to stop.
Yuna's hand was on the door handle before she could think. She pulled—
Locked.
The screaming cut off abruptly. Silence rushed in to fill the space.
Then footsteps. Coming from inside the room.
Yuna backed away from the door, her pulse hammering. She needed to leave. Now. Before whoever was inside came out and found her.
She turned—
And came face to face with Kaelen.
He was standing at the entrance to the corridor, blocking her escape. His expression was unreadable.
"I wondered," he said softly, "how long it would take you to find this place."
Yuna's mind raced. Lie? Run? Fight?
Before she could decide, the door behind her opened.
The Chief Eunuch stepped out, his robes pristine despite the blood on his hands. He looked at Yuna. Then at Kaelen.
Then he smiled.
"Your Highness," he said. "It seems we have another candidate for the program."