A Touch of Poison

Chapter 10

Getting through the whole night without eating any chi'darro was a hell unlike anything Gwen had ever known.

Gwen found herself shaking for no good reason. Her thoughts kept returning to the plate of lamb that had been brought up for her a few hours after she'd left her father in the dining hall. Figuring to hide it somewhere until she could safely dispose of it later that evening, she'd brought it into her room, dumped the food into an old, empty jewelry box in her closet, then left the empty plate on the stone steps just outside of her bedroom door.

Then, for the next hour, it seemed as though she couldn't think of anything but that cold chunk of lamb meat and serving of roasted potatoes, just sitting there in the bottom of her closet. No matter how she tried to distract herself, she'd find her thoughts wandering to the herb-covered food just waiting for her, less than four short strides from her bed.

Finally, able to stand it no longer, she'd gone to her closet, fetched her jewelry-box, and thrown it out of her bedroom window.

She watched the wooden case fall just shy of the moat, hitting the hard-packed ground heavily enough to break open slightly. Squinting, Gwen thought she could make out one of the potatoes.

Shortly after disposing of it, she'd stared down at the small, broken box longingly for nearly ten minutes before realizing that's what she was doing.

Chiding herself for an idiot, Gwen returned to her bed, took a deep breath... and began thinking about the tiny flecks of blue-green herb still clinging to the surface of the empty plate that lay just outside her door.

It took all of her will to keep herself from even opening her bedroom door to check the plate. Sometimes, she'd tried convincing herself she was just going to take a peek, so she could make sure it had been taken away by the castle staff. Deep down, however, she knew the real reason why she was tempted to open the door. It was those tiny flecks of herb, just sitting there.

And so she'd forced herself to lie there on her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying like mad to think of anything besides how badly she wanted to kick her bedroom door open, pick up her plate and lick it clean.

When she finally heard one of the servants creep upstairs and quietly take her plate away, she'd wept, but only partially from relief.

Though exhausted, it seemed she could sleep no more than five minutes at a time, because every time she dozed off she would have such intense, nausea-inducing nightmares that she'd be jolted awake, her heart racing. Grotesque, misshapen monsters would appear from the shadowy recesses of her mind and chase her, calling her by name, laughing. Some would transform into a wolfish likeness of Anifail, snarling and bristling. Others would simply collapse before her and start smoking and bubbling, crying out in pain. Sometimes they turned into people she'd accidentally hurt during her childhood. Other times, they became enormous, whimpering dogs, looking at her with desperate, pleading brown eyes as they smoldered and burned.

That had been Gwen's first whole night without chi'darro, and it had been hell.

The following morning was even worse.

Bleary-eyed, Gwen staggered out of bed, feeling so weak and dizzy that she began to wonder if she'd caught some sort of cold the day before. She realized she'd lost track of time and had forgotten to wash herself last night, which was when she had originally planned to discretely dispose of the food that had been brought for her. Then again, impulsively tossing her food out the window had eliminated the need for that trip, she supposed.

In addition to feeling terrible, she noticed her neck was swollen slightly, and that she'd developed a strangely patterned rash high up on her arms, near the shoulders.