Lannahi sent him a sweet smile. “Then it was not youthistime?”
Baddur answered her with a grim look. “No.”
Lannahi shifted her gaze to Ashared. He was tense like the others, but there was also anger smoldering in his eyes.
“Captain,” Lannahi said calmly but without a smile. “Only mere hours before, you said that the Palace Guard would provide me with protection, so please explain to me how you view this situation. Is the poison the result of your oversight or did you lie before?”
It was hard to tell which accusation stung him more. “It’s an oversight,” he said with a strange mixture of reluctance and confusion. “I will make sure that this won’t happen again.”
He is also new to this, Lannahi suddenly realized.
Ashared was an independent swordsman. A lone wolf. Being a guard captain must have been to him as novel as being a queen was to Lannahi. He was angry because he had failed to predict this situation.
Or because someone hadn’t obeyed him.
“Captain,” she said. “Bring me the cook.”
Ashared clenched his jaw, but to Lannahi he seemed more confused than angry. He had to betray one of his people again.
“Soldier,” Baddur addressed him with a warning note in his voice.
Ashared stood up, bowed stiffly, and prepared to leave the room.
“Erril,” Lannahi said to her guard standing by the door. “Accompany the captain.”
The tension in Ashared’s shoulders deepened, but he didn’t protest, and after a moment both men left the chamber.
“You may serve the others,” she told the waiters. “Chancellor and General must be very hungry by now.”
When the older fae cast her grim glances, she feigned surprise. “You aren’t concerned that poison has been added to your portions too, are you?”
After Lannahi ordered one waiter to move the poisoned soup to the other end of the table, silence fell in the dining room. Neither Varrdan nor Baddur reached for their spoons.
The enchantress was tempted to comment on it but stopped herself. They already resented her. Whipping up those feelings would do her no good.
Lannahi was accustomed kitchen workers being thin-boned flowerspeakers, and the sight of the man that Ashared and Erril had brought back with them took her by surprise. The palace cook had a red beard, hard look, and muscles that no guardsman would be ashamed of.
“This is Eshshar,” said Ashared whose face became again the mask of indifference. “He admitted to poisoning the soup.”
When the cook straightened up proudly, Lannahi smiled and gestured at a chair before which the bowl of poisoned soup was placed. “Come, Eshshar. Sit with us.”
The man sent her a disdainful look. He did not move.
Lannahi sighed. “I’ll give you a choice. Either you sit down and eat the portion of soup you prepared for me, or you will watch Lizaar do it.”
This time, a shadow of doubt ran across the cook’s face, and Lannahi relaxed a bit. Like Gannar, the man was loyal to the previous queen, and that made him easy to manipulate. The outcome of this round was foredoomed.
“What is going on here?” Lizaar asked as she crossed the threshold of the dining room. In brown pants and a long jacket, she looked like an elegant accountant who had come to negotiate the terms of a contract.
“You came at a good moment,” Lannahi said lightly. “The soup has already cooled down a bit, but I suppose that cooks from the South know how to season their meals so that they retain their flavor even when the meal’s gone cold. Is that correct, Eshshar?”
The man clenched his fists, sending Lannahi a hateful look.
Lannahi ignored it and turned to Lizaar who stopped beside Ashared.
“He tried to poison me,” she informed her calmly. “Eshshar pleaded guilty but refuses to bear the punishment. What would you advise me? Should I force him to eat the poisoned soup? Or will you take his punishment on yourself?”
Lizaar paled and looked at Eshshar. The man responded with a defiant look, but now when it occurred to him that he’d miscalculated, there was also guilt in it.
