Survival, in any world, obeys a fundamental law: energy must be acquired, and waste must be removed.
My current system was failing on both counts. The "energy" entering my body was poison. The "waste" piling up was my own life force. The crude charcoal paste had stemmed the bleeding, so to speak, but the wound was still fatal. I needed to identify the vector and secure a clean supply chain.
The pitcher was the obvious answer. I dragged myself from the bed, my legs trembling like a newborn fawn's, and crawled to the table. The spilled water had dried. I picked up the pitcher, my small hands barely able to grip it. It was simple, unglazed clay. No hidden compartments. But the poison wasn't in the vessel itself; it was in the source.
Who brought the water? The same servant who brought the tasteless, thinning gruel? The physician himself? The guard?
I set the pitcher down, my mind—Liam's mind—constructing a network diagram. Node A: Kitchen/Wells. Node B: Servant. Node C: Physician/Guard (Potential Interceptors). Node D: My Room. Where is the contamination point?
The gruel came on a tray. The water was separate. If both were poisoned, the point was likely A or B. If only the water, the point was likely C. I needed data.
The next "meal" arrived at what I guessed was noon. A different servant, a girl with downcast eyes and threadbare clothes, placed a tray on the table without a word. A bowl of greyish broth, a hunk of black bread. And a new, full pitcher of water.
She turned to leave.
"Wait," I rasped.
She froze, shoulders tense, but didn't look at me. Servants weren't supposed to be spoken to by the likes of me.
"The bread," I said, forcing a weak, childish whine into my voice. "It's… it's always so hard. My stomach hurts. Is there… is there any honey? Just a little?"
It was a test. A harmless, pitiful request from a dying boy.
She glanced at the door, then back at me, her eyes wide with fear. Not fear of me. Fear of being caught here, engaging. "I… I cannot, Your Highness. It is not allowed."
"By who?" I whispered, letting a tear trail down my cheek. A performance worthy of an Oscar.
Her lips tightened. She shook her head once, violently, and scurried out, the lock turning behind her.
Interesting. Not "there is none." But "it is not allowed." By whom? The physician? The steward? My esteemed siblings?
I ignored the broth. The bread, I inspected. It was the same as before. Possibly contaminated, possibly not. I broke off a tiny piece, placed it under the thin straw of my mattress. I would need a test subject. A rat, perhaps.
The water was the priority. I needed to see if it was poisoned independently of the food.
I had no litmus paper, no mass spectrometer. But I had the memory of a high school chemistry class and a desperate will to live.
The chamber pot was my lab equipment.
Grimacing, I used the clay cup to pour a small amount of water from the new pitcher into it. Then, I took a tarnished copper buckle from my discarded tunic. Arsenic, if it was arsenic, could react with copper.
I dropped the buckle in.
And watched.
Nothing. No immediate discoloration, no fizzing. Not conclusive. It could be a different poison, or too diluted.
Frustration clawed at me. I needed to know. I looked at the fireplace, at the ash and soot. Another crude idea formed. Ash could be alkaline. Some toxins changed…
A sound cut through my thoughts.
Scratching.
Faint, from a corner near the damp outer wall. I stilled, listening.
Scritch-scritch… pause… scritch.
I crawled toward the sound. There, in the shadow where the mortar had crumbled, was a small hole. And poking a twitching, pink nose out of it, was a rat.
Perfect.
"My little lab assistant," I murmured.
Moving slowly, I broke a larger piece of the bread, dipped a corner in the new pitcher's water, and placed it near the hole. Then I retreated to my bed, pretending to sleep.
One hour. The rat emerged, a sleek, grey creature with intelligent, beady eyes. It sniffed the bread, grabbed it, and vanished into the wall.
Now, the waiting game.
I spent the time sorting through Prince Kieran's memories. They were a patchwork of fear, loneliness, and confusing flashes of royal life. His mother, a minor consort of no great beauty or political standing, had died when he was five. "A wasting sickness," they said. Another coincidence? He was then passed between indifferent nannies and tutors who declared him "magically inert"—the greatest shame in an empire built on elemental affinities and mana cultivation. He was shuffled here, to these deserted winter quarters, to be forgotten.
Until someone decided forgetting wasn't enough.
The scratchings in the wall changed. They became frantic, erratic.
Then, silence.
A heavy, definitive silence.
My heart turned to stone. I crawled back to the hole. The piece of bread, half-eaten, was just outside. Next to it lay the rat, on its side, tiny legs stiff.
The water in the new pitcher was definitely poisoned. Independently of the food. So the contamination point was after the kitchen. It was deliberate, targeted, and ongoing.
Node C. The physician or the guard.
The cold rage from the previous night returned, sharp and clean. This was not a broad-based political cleanup. This was an active assassination. Someone was checking the box next to "Seventh Prince" with chilling efficiency.
I disposed of the evidence, pushing the small corpse through the hole with a stick. I felt a pang of remorse for the creature. It had died for my data. I would not waste it.
Law One: Identify the Threat Vector. Check.
Now, Law Two: Secure Your Base.
I couldn't stop the poisoned water from coming. But I could create an alternative supply. My eyes went to the high, narrow window. It was barred, but outside, I could hear the distant drip of melting snow from the roof.
Condensation. Distillation.
The fire was my tool. I filled the clean clay cup from the poisoned pitcher and placed it carefully in the hearth near the flames. Then, I took the metal tray from my meal, cleaned it as best I could with my sleeve, and angled it above the cup. As the water in the cup heated, steam rose, hit the cold metal of the tray, and condensed into droplets. Painstakingly, slowly, the droplets rolled down and dripped off the tray's edge into the empty chamber pot.
It took all afternoon to get a few mouthfuls of clean, distilled water. It tasted of nothing. It was the most delicious thing I'd ever consumed.
As I drank my hard-won prize, the voice in the depths whispered again, not with a word, but with a sensation. A direction. A faint, magnetic pull toward the northern wall of my chamber. Toward the deepest, oldest part of the palace.
…below…
I ignored it. One crisis at a time.
When the servant girl came to collect the evening tray, she paused, seeing the untouched broth and bread. Her eyes flicked to me, curled in the bed.
"Prince… you must eat," she whispered, so low I barely heard it.
It was the first hint of compassion I'd encountered. A potential asset. But also a potential risk. I couldn't trust it. Not yet.
"I'm not hungry," I moaned, turning away.
She hesitated, then gathered the tray. As she picked up the water pitcher, now a quarter full, she spoke again, her voice a breath. "The old ice cellar… beneath the north kitchens… it is forgotten. The ice is gone, but the spring there… it is… clean."
Then she was gone, the lock turning.
I lay in the gathering dark, my mind racing. Was it a trap? A genuine kindness? The pull from the Star-Eater memory resonated with her words. …below…
Two data points converging.
A clean water source. And a whisper from the abyss.
Survival required water. But understanding what I was required answers. The two paths might just lead to the same dark door.
Tomorrow, I would have to leave this room. And to do that, I would have to be stronger. Or appear even weaker than they could possibly imagine.
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