The Mayaware's reign must end.
In a world of demonic beings with a hunger for human flesh and thirst for blood, Hesi Renen knows it well. When her siblings are taken to the harvesting farms, she must do everything she can to get them out, even if it...
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Hesi craned her neck to see hundreds of Mayaware bearing down on her. They sat on terraced benches aiming to reach the sky. Not enough sunlight reached her in the auditorium's center. Give the audience a spear each, and she would bolt out of this room before a minute was up.
Before she came into this space, one would find her in Kharta's basement first, holding up a tome. "Do I have to read this?" she asked the steward's back, hoping it would grow eyes and a mouth and talk to her instead. The real face was a bland assortment of grunts and hums for the last hour and a half. "By the way, I told Yobekh about the poison."
Something clattered on the table. "What?"
"Got your attention, didn't I?" She grinned. "That's a lesson for thinking you can ignore me."
Kharta ran a hand down his face. His sigh was so spent it dragged on forever. He beckoned her closer. "You have to remember how to tell a toxin by its characteristics when mixed with something else, and that book can tell you more."
She reached his table as he stepped away to retrieve a few bottles from his expansive shelves. When he came back, he laid four bottles before her. "The senses you need to use are your sight, smell, and taste," he said. "Some toxins are undetectable by either, so you will need to use your hands."
And a week of nothing but poisons passed. Hesi would visit the basement with the night as her protector. She learned to guzzle maatsek tea before heading out of the bridal palace. She even offered the others some in case they have to go somewhere without being detected. Then, she would spend the rest of the night prodding at liquids and powders in small ceramic jars until her nose itched or her head pounded.
"These compounds are known toxins to the Mayaware so they avoid it like a plague," Kharta explained when she dared to ask. "They won't die from these, but they won't have a good time with them either."
"What about the one here?" She pointed to the earring cast in gold and silver hanging from her lobe. Sometimes she forgot she possessed something that would hurt a Mayaware.
He shrugged. "That's a mixture I made from ingredients they didn't know were harmful to them," he said. "Spent my whole life on it too. Use it wisely."
And she couldn't find the right timing for it. The High King didn't show up near her, and the Prince wasn't always drinking wine whenever they met. She thought of dropping by the royal palace unannounced and massacring everyone she came across, but she needed gallons of the poison, and Kharta only gave her a teaspoon.
She leaned into his space and told him to prove he wasn't telling her mule crap about the next trial. The look Kharta gave her was as flat as his table. "The test will be about your skill in protecting the Mayaware," he said. "You are more than welcome to pass the books to the other brides who can read."
"Or I can just teach them using your samples here." She tapped a shaped nail against the side of the nearest jar.
He couldn't have shaken his head faster. had never shaken his head that fast. Something like concern flashed in his eyes and took over his face. Or maybe it was a trick of the light. The steward, worrying about her? Ha, a miracle. "Some are fatal to humans as they are harmful to the Mayaware. I can't trust you to not mix them up," he said. "And I didn't want to investigate a murder this late in the season. Just the council meetings will be torture."
