How to Poison Your Husband [COMPLETE! Cozy Romantasy With A Dash Of Murder]

Step 12a: Don't let anyone stand in your way...

Nothing made sense.

His memories were a blur. His bedroom—which had formerly been quite boring, albeit with unnecessary quantities of gold-lacquered furniture—was now inexplicably covered in vines.

The last thing he remembered was watching Ivelle and Lillian being escorted to prison. The two of them had been in trouble because—and here was where his memories got hazy—Ivelle had murdered his father and Prince Harvald, and tried to kill him. Exactly how she had tried to kill him was unclear, but he had a vague memory of her lunging across the table in the Great Hall shouting epithets and wielding a paring knife.

Which was odd, since it seemed very unlike his other memories of her. The ones where they were kissing or she was forcing him to do push-ups and he was decompensating because he was deconditioned and had noodles for muscles, but she was encouraging him to keep going anyway, because that was just who she was.

She was only playing you. A voice filtered through his consciousness, a familiar voice—his mother's. She convinced you that she had your best interests at heart so she could slaughter our family and destroy you. She has no one's interests at heart but her own. And neither does Prince Jasper of Castrena.

Prince Jasper of Castrena? Eirifold squeezed his eyes tight shut. Prince Jasper of Castrena was dead. Eirifold knew he was dead. He had killed the prince himself, when the prince was defenseless and vulnerable.

You only thought you killed the prince, the queen crooned into his mind. Jasper faked his own death just to torment you. He tricked all of us and escaped. He's been plotting the downfall of Castrena from afar, him and Ivelle and Lillian.

It couldn't be true. Could it? Eirifold blinked, dizzy and confused. A memory swam to the front of his mind. Ivelle, Lillian, and a young man who vaguely resembled the Jasper of his childhood, sitting in Lillian's bedroom, plotting his murder.

Where had that memory come from?

Why did it feel so flimsy, yet so real?

More images assailed him. Ivelle and Prince Jasper together in a bar, drinking mead and laughing as they pored over a list titled Ideas for conquering the kingdom. Jasper twirling Ivelle as they danced under the stars. Jasper and Ivelle, alone in a bedroom, locked in a passionate embrace.

A raw ache throbbed in Eirifold's chest.

Jasper holds Ivelle's affections. He and Ivelle are lovers, and they've been plotting behind your back to bring you down. Both of them need to be punished.

"I don't understand." He had been so certain Jasper had been his friend. But all the memories he could see now showed Jasper and Ivelle together, laughing at him.

They were trying to rebel against the crown. They must be punished.

Another memory floated to the surface of Eirifold's mind. Ivelle and Jasper, smirking as they stabbed someone with a dagger. A child who looked awfully like—

"No!" Eirifold gasped. "No—no—no!"

Oh yes, the queen said. Your dear little brother is dead. Don't you want to take vengeance on his murderers?

The words reverberated through Eirifold's skull like the tolling of a bell. They seemed to sink into his consciousness, leaving fury in their wake.

He grabbed the sword from the edge of the bed, strode toward Jasper.

And paused.

~*~

"I don't understand how he's still resisting," the queen snarled. "No one resists the effects of my memory wipe!"