The real Arinel was late for work. Scullery maids must be ready at dawn to prepare breakfast for the Lord and his family. However, Arinel was exhausted after catering for last night's feast, so Gretella allowed her poor Lady to sleep in and sent Haselle in her place.

After scolding her nurse (who was also her grandmother) for spoiling her, Arinel sprinted to the underground kitchen. She was one step away from the door when a mysterious hand reached from the shadows and dragged her down another hallway.

"Wait—where—"

The being in the bedraggled black cloak pushed open a slab of nondescript wall, slipped past the gap inside, yanked Arinel in then shut the secret door.

Arinel spun around in solid darkness, prepared for a fight for survival.

"Who are you? What do you wa—?" A rough, sweaty hand clamped over her mouth.

"Shh! 'tis me, milady. 'Tis Meya."

Arinel's shock morphed into confusion. Meya freed her mouth. The space lit up, revealing gray stone walls flanking a narrow passageway. Meya stood before her, holding a candle on a metal stand.

"What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be with Coris?" Arinel hissed.

"He's gone back to sleep," said Meya as she rummaged in her pocket. Under her raggedy black cloak, she wore a beautiful red silk dress embroidered with the same thick silver yarn braided into her hair. She handed Arinel a scrap of torn parchment and a pencil.

"Listen, I dun have much time. I need you to write me a letter. Now."

"What?" Arinel made no move to take them, so Meya pushed them into her hands.

"Think I know what them bandits are looking for. Gotta warn Coris."

"Warn him? But aren't you working for Gillian?" Arinel argued. Meya rolled her eyes at the ceiling with a growl of exasperation.

"I'll answer your questions later. Write down what I say, quick!" Steering Lady Crosset by the shoulders, Meya spun Arinel to face the wall. She dictated, raising her candle so its light fell upon the parchment, "From Arinel. Me and me folk—"

"I and my men—" Arinel corrected as she wrote, sliding the parchment to avoid the groove between bricks, writing as neatly as she could on the craggy surface.

"Whatever!" Meya hissed in annoyance but complied, "I and my men forced to steal dowry. Bandits disguised as guards. Dun put up fight or hide dowry. We and bandits poisoned each other and need antidote in one month."

Arinel scribbled quickly while correcting Meya's childish sentences and peasantlike vocabulary. Meya might not care, but if she wanted to keep her cover, she'd better send a message Coris would believe was written by an educated noblewoman.

"Very well. Done." Arinel flourished the last letter and inked the last dot. Meya swept the note from under her fingers like a gust of wind.

"Didnae know nobles write so fast." She noted in her flat, dry voice. She stuffed the note into her generous cleavage, then bolted into the dark, tossing Arinel a harried word of gratitude,

"Now, get out of here quick. Thanks!"

By the time Arinel spun around, Meya had vanished, her soft footsteps echoing further and further up the tower, headed towards the Great Hall.

⏳

Three hours had passed since Arinel's puzzling run-in with her nemesis. The disgraced Lady had since returned to join Haselle in the kitchen, assisted with breakfast preparations, and sent it off hot and steaming to the dining hall for the Lord and his guests.

The servants and guards would dine after the Lord's table had been cleared. After every subject in all parts of the castle had been served their share, the scullery maids would rest and wait to sup on whatever was left.

The head scullery maid banged her ladle on the enormous metal pot she was stirring. Arinel perked up, snatched her bowl, then scurried to line up with the other girls. Two days ago, she was too proud to leave her seat. How could she beg for food? Like those poor, famished beggars and lepers? Queuing with their bowls before the charity tent, waiting for free servings of gruel?

By dinner that same day, she was too hungry for pride.

Being Lady Crosset, she'd always woken up to food brought to her bed on days she was unwell or sitting ready on the table the moment she set foot into the Hall, at the precise same time daily. Now, her mealtimes were delayed by hours. Her stomach growled, burned and writhed when it didn't receive sustenance at the time it was accustomed to.

So, this was what it was like to be hungry. The peasants had been through this during the Famine, Meya and her family included. So did the other maids. How many of them had lost relatives then?

Arinel was only ten in the year of the Crosset Famine. Father was Marquess Crosset, powerful and wealthy enough for Baron Hadrian to choose Arinel for Coris in favor of Lady Agnesia of Graye.

The Crossets often departed on pilgrimages to their other fiefs and frigid Icemeet, whence they hailed, during which Father would trust Bailiff Johnsy to run the manor, and Johnsy would sell the storehouse grain at low prices to faraway towns, lining his pockets with gold.

On Arinel's tenth spring, Meya Hild disguised herself as a boy to work in the Lord's fields, using a Lattis collar to dim her eyes and pass unnoticed as her little brother Marcus.

Crosset law forbade women to walk over wheat, fearing their blood would taint the rice, leading to disease and famine. Meya's crime was punishable by death. Farmer Hild pleaded for her life, saying she may have inherited the Song of May Day. Father relented, sentencing her to the scourge and the Liar's Bridle instead.

Arinel witnessed the sentence meted out, the bright red blood trickling through Meya's lips and dripping down her dress. Meya clung to the stake as she endured the whip's fury. The bridle's bit scratched her tongue when she gritted her teeth against the pain. Her green eyes flaring with hatred glowered unblinking at Father. The girl didn't shed a tear nor let out a whimper.

Summer arrived at Crosset's door wet and stormy, and the Crossets fled for cooler weather in the north again. By the time they returned in autumn, swarms of locusts had blanketed the manor. It was a terrible year for crops.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

What was left of the storehouse grain couldn't sustain the manor through winter. A famine befell in no time. Neighboring manors were as tight on food as they were and couldn't send relief.

Blamed for the famine as the only Greeneye in Crosset, Meya fled for her life into the woods. As Father's yeomen hunted her, Bailiff Johnsy hatched a treacherous plot. He invited Lord Coris to Crosset to help track down the elusive girl. Using Coris' hubris against him, he lured the young prodigy into the woods and ordered the peasants to kidnap him, hoping to demand Baron Hadrian send food to Crosset as ransom.

Under mysterious circumstances, Coris escaped into neighboring Manor Truncale and then back to Hadrian. News of the famine reached King Alden. Furious, he demoted Father to the lowest rank of Lord, hung Bailiff Johnsy, then added Crosset to Baron Hadrian's demesne.

With the arrival of spring, every free and able hand must plow and till the fields to feed hungry mouths, so the law was amended to allow women into the fields. However, few women remained after things returned to normalcy. Most were not cut out for grueling farm work, and mothers must mind the house and the children.

Would you care to heed the voices of the living whether they still want to die in the rotten name of Crosset?

Shame burned like acid on her face at Meya's scathing remark, so she slapped the girl to silence her before her fragile mask of aloof dignity shattered to smithereens. Countless lives under her family's responsibility starved to death because of their lack of oversight, not Meya's Greeneye curse.

Arinel winced as she levered each trembling spoonful of the lumpy soup to her mouth. Her fingers were sore and blistered from hard work. They seared when she held the spoon.

The gruel tasted and smelt awful—leftover vegetables and meat shavings thrown in with oatmeal, boiled in whey and seasoned with the tiniest whiff of salt. The bread was taken from loaves burnt hard as rocks that were unfit for the Lord's table. She watched the other maids and learned she must let it soak in the gruel before taking a bite, lest she pull out her teeth with it. Yet, the other maids fell on it without fuss.

After the head maid had left, the young maids scrambled to the pot, jostling each other for seconds and thirds.

"I'll get you some more." Haselle whispered then joined the war on food before Arinel could stop her. Sighing, Arinel swallowed her disgust and focused on downing the rest of her gruel.

Something moved in the corner of her eye. She glanced at the door, then her blood froze. One of the bandits. The hulking, stupid-looking one—Trunt, stood in the dim, torch-lit underground hallway, decked out in a Hadrian Red uniform. He gestured for Arinel to come outside.

Arinel glanced at the other maids. They were gathered around the pot, arguing over who'd get the ladle first. She picked her way out of the cluttered kitchen.

Trunt grabbed her arm, pulled her to the same hallway from earlier, then ushered her into the same secret passageway. Arinel knew enough to feign utter surprise when the wall tilted open.

Trunt was in such a hurry he didn't bother closing the wall properly. He thrust a cloth pouch into her hand.

"Put that in today's dinner."

"What is it?"

"Sleepin' draught, obviously."

Trunt snapped. Arinel thought fast. Meya and Gillian had planned to use their maids' station in the kitchens to put the castle's occupants to sleep by spiking their food if necessary, but Meya had warned Coris about the heist. Perhaps she'd changed tracks and was finding a way to thwart Gillian. Maybe Arinel should try the same.

"We haven't started preparing tonight's meal yet."

Arinel tensed as Trunt's raucous laughter rang in the dark.

"Yer think us so stupid, girl?" His snarl jolted Arinel out of her skin, " 'Course ya gotta have some stew or soup boiled overnight. Put it in something everyone will eat. Got it? Now git!"

Having sprayed Arinel with his rotten spit, Trunt shoved Arinel back out with such force she pitched headfirst toward the floor. As she found her feet, Trunt's whispery threat chased after her,

"And dun ya think of throwin' it away neither. I'll be watchin' 'ere. Put it in righ' away before them Hadrian maids get back."

Sighing, Arinel strode back to the scullery. Curiosity beckoned, and she opened the pouch for a peek.

Inside the bag was a pile of brown powder with a distinctive odor—aconite, one of the deadliest poisons in Latakia. Death wasn't immediate but certain. A drawn-out, torturous death.

The bandits had never meant to put everyone to sleep.

Was there a political motive behind this? If lords of other manors were poisoned to death in Hadrian, there was no question of what would follow. A war on all fronts for Hadrian, at worst. And who was to guarantee Arinel and her men would live to see the day that happened? Gillian clearly wasn't planning to leave witnesses.

How in the three lands could she warn Meya? How could she stop this massacre?

"What're yer waitin' for? Move!"

Arinal tied the pouch with trembling fingers and roused her numb legs to life, dragging her feet as slowly as she dared towards the scullery.

The other maids had noticed her absence. They stared, puzzled, as Arinel moved as if she was being turned to stone towards the far wall of the kitchen, where three pots wide as her arms outstretched and tall as her chest held simmering meat stew. Shuddering, Arinel closed her eyes and tipped a third of the powder into each.

Once she had shaken the last dregs into the third vat, she turned to the door where Trunt stood, arms crossed, watching. After a curt nod, he lumbered back to his post. Arinel sank faintly to the grimy floor.

"What is it, milady?"

"What did he want?"

"What did he make you put in there?"

The maids heaved her up and deposited her on a chair. Arinel took deep breaths, hoping to regain control.

"Remember the plan? We might have to put everyone in the castle to sleep while we search." The maids nodded. Arinel held up the empty pouch.

"This is supposed to be the sleeping draught, but it isn't. It's aconite."

Silence fell for a beat, then the girls panicked,

"By Freda!"

"They're going to kill the whole castle!"

"What shall we do?"

"Does Meya Hild know?"

"Is there an antidote?" Haselle asked, hopeful. Arinel heaved a tortured sigh as she shook her head. Haselle's unmasked cheek paled.

The room seemed ridden of hope for a moment, then a shaft of light lit up the gloom. Arinel perked up.

"Is there anything served before the stew?"

"No, my lady," said Haselle, "Every dish is carried out at the same time. First, we'll bring out the wine so the guests could drink and talk. Then, we carry out sugar sculpts to open the feast, then the food."

"Only the wine?"

Haselle nodded. Arinel closed her eyes and wrung her brain for a minute, then sprang to her feet, eyes wide and ablaze.

"Gather all the valerian and lavender you can find!" She barked to the maids, who scrambled towards the cupboards and out the door, then turned to her trusted servant, whispering now,

"Agnes, you come with me."

Arinel climbed the stairs to the buttery, Haselle—or rather, Agnes—hot on her heels. Lined with three shelves that snaked along the four walls and numerous cupboards, the room was a food library. The air was stuffy, bursting with mingled aromas of jams, butter, cheese, wine, beer, cakes and jellies.

The buttery maid and the older scullery maids were preparing meals for the peasants' tent in the courtyard, leaving the newest Crosset maids to watch the soups and stews. They had a few hours to brew the true sleeping draught and save the guests from the aconite-laced food.

They would go with the original plan. Arinel would put the guests to sleep with the only course served before the food, the drinks.

"What are we looking for, Ari?" Agnes asked, her one intact eye scanning the shelves. Arinel swept to the nearest shelf and pushed jars aside,

"Henbane. Magnolia. Passion Flower. Laudanum. Any sedating herbs you can find. Coris's ill, they're bound to keep some."

They kept more than some. The girls found jars filled to the brim with powdered magnolia bark, essence of henbane and laudanum in no time. Just how much pain was Coris in? Arinel couldn't believe she was worried about the boy she despised.

Still, they needed another ingredient, one potent as laudanum, to spike as many drinks as possible.

Gritting her teeth against the crushing pressure, Arinel blinked sweat from her eye as she rummaged. After about half an hour, she found a promising candidate.

Dried roots with limbs resembling a human body, laid out in a stack of wooden crates wedged between a shelf and the wall.

Arinel lifted a root from the pile and smiled for the first time since leaving Crosset on this ill-fated journey. Mandrake. A few roots of this enigmatic plant would be enough to fill her arsenal.

Arinel didn't have time for celebration—her work was far from over. She must prepare her array of sedatives for ingestion and decide which refreshment each would be best suited for. Potent herbs must not be mixed with alcohol. Freshness and harvesting season must be factored in for dosage. Arinel prayed her calculations would land the sweet spot between ineffective and fatal.

Arinel's mother was a peasant maid who worked in the alchemist's lab before and even after Lord Crosset took her mistress. Yet, few outside Crosset Castle would believe Arinel also cherished a burning desire to follow in her mother's footsteps. Because those footsteps had ended with her mother's fiery demise.