The Poison Prince

THE steward bowed down low, his eyes averted from the grand thrones before him as he spoke, a nervous shake to his already timid voice. “Your majesties, the Duke of Port Avonhelm sends his sincerest apologies, but he and his family will not be able to attend the Queen’s Banquet this year. He has been taken quite sick.”
“Another? That makes three nobles and their families who are ‘quite sick’.” Queen Devanna spoke with suspicion that made the steward quake where he stood. He took a small, but noticeable step back and cautiously lifted his gaze towards the unimpressed queen.
A loud scoff came from the throne to the far right of the Kings and all attention in the room turned to the young man who was slouched unceremoniously across the crimson velvet. “Maybe something is catching,” he suggested before collapsing into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“Prince Taiden, you ought to hold yourself better in the presence of others.” A tall, armoured man with raven hair stepped beside the prince and whispered down to him as discreetly as possible, but all subtly was lost on the heir to Lyris.
“Hold myself better?” Prince Taiden suddenly sat up straight, his brown eyes examining the room as though he was looking for someone in particular, “but, Captain Julius, everyone in the room already believes me to be quite mad!” He erupted into another fit of laughter that echoed around the expensively decorated throne room. It was so richly decorated that the reds and golds almost bled together in the afternoon sun and the light frequently reflected into the eyes of the gathered audience, causing some to flinch away in sudden pain.
“That is enough! Captain, please escort the prince back to his chambers. It is obvious he is not well himself this afternoon. Have a healer come and tend to him.” Queen Devanna cast a cold eye over her step-son and then turned back to hear more about the preparations for the Queen’s Banquet.
Taiden moved from his throne at the guidance of the Captain and only when the heavy doors of the throne room had closed again behind them did he step away and smooth down the formalwear he was expected to wear during public audiences. It had crumpled up and twisted as he slouched and writhed on the throne, the silk and damask no longer in agreement with each other.

“I hope upsetting the Duke of Port Avonhelm was worth it. Along with the Lord of Misthaven and the Countess of Gildstrum.” Captain Julius spoke darkly, his eyes forever on the lookout for trouble. His duty was to protect the heir to the throne and though he would gladly die for Taiden, he feared the prince would induce a heart attack before anyone tried to assassinate him.
“I have upset no one, Julius. The nobles are just rather ill, and shall be until a time of my choosing.” Taiden shrugged casually, unfastening the ties that held the royal red robe to his shoulders, draping it over his forearm as it fell. “The time will come soon enough, and I’m sure they’ll be thankful for the break from the public in the meantime.”
“They’ll be waiting for the Queen to grow suspicious. She already is.”
Taiden ran his fingers through his unusually kempt sandalwood hair and sighed in pleasure as he messed up the curls he had inherited from his mother; the terribly missed Queen Ilia. “Let her grow suspicious. What will she do? Admit to the rumours of the people? Confess that her step-son is lost to his grief and poisoning nobles? It’s as insane as it sounds,” he smirked almost wickedly.
“As are you, your highness.”
Taiden leapt in front of the Captain and grabbed him by his biceps, steering the burly man down a narrow passage that did not lead at all to the tower that housed the Prince’s fine chambers. “I know! Isn’t it wonderful?”

Julius studied the crown prince with a worried gaze. He had been Taiden’s royal guard since the day the prince was born. He had watched from afar as the little boy took his first steps in the castle gardens and infuriated servants with some of his childish pranks, only to wrap them back around his little finger mere hours later with a painting or a poem. Julius had also been the one to respond first to Taiden’s desolate screams the day Queen Ilia had passed. The venom of the snake had been fast acting, too fast for anyone to stop. Julius had held Taiden as the young prince babbled about how the snake was a witch. It had been a crone with black eyes and a face like a skeleton. In his arms, the young prince’s mind had broken. Taiden hadn’t been the same since. For four years he had watched with blank eyes as the kingdom moved on, his dreams haunted by an imaginary witch he accused of stealing his mother from him. Then after Devanna came something in him grew darker and more hysterical. The lessons he had to prepare him for ruling were marred with his desires to learn forbidden things about alchemy and magicks; things not fit for a king. Then, the nobles he was last seen in the presence of would fall mysteriously sick and retire to their homes. Rumours spread when the prince turned seventeen about poisons and madness. Julius had been beside himself, but then Taiden revealed to him the truth of it all, or what he thought was the truth. Julius still didn’t know what was truly happening in the Prince’s mind, or if the delusions of his childhood had permanently taken a hold of him. He just knew that he could not turn his back on the boy he had vowed to protect.

“Aha! Here we are!” Taiden moved a tapestry to one side so carelessly that it almost fell down completely. He had hidden nooks and recesses all over the castle. No one paid any attention to a mad little boy running around, or a delusional young man, it seemed. It had granted him a freedom he doubted many princes before him had. “You know I do believe that my step-mother intends to keep the throne for herself.”
“She would be quite within her right with the way you have been acting lately, your highness. People are genuinely starting to wonder if you are indeed a poisoning madman.” Julius fixed the prince with a narrow glare.
Taiden laughed, shoving his arm into a narrow gap behind the tapestry and pulling out a tiny green bottle. He examined the clear contents and slipped his secret find carefully into a pocket just as hidden as the nook he retrieved it from. “And would they rather have a madman as their king, or a queen who kills so many simply for trying to survive?” he queried his captain, letting the tapestry settle back into place.
“Right now I believe the people are asking themselves the same question.”
“Come, we best get to my chambers before the audience with Devanna is over.” Taiden walked with long strides, a proud stance and for a moment there wasn’t a hint of folly about him. “She’s destroying Lyris and my father lets her get away with it.”
“Your father is unwell, your highness.”
“My father should never have married her.” A darkness washed over Taiden’s features as they turned up the winding staircase to the high tower he called home. “She has only made his grief worse. She has turned my mother’s banquet into her own, and punishes the people of Lyris just because they do not idolise her.”
“Your highness-“ Julius stopped when he noticed Taiden staring out of the window that overlooked the gallows. It was a morbid view at any time of the day, but right then the bodies of the dead were being taken away. He noticed how tightly the prince gripped the stony window ledge, and how his jaw clenched as he stared at the gloomy sight.
“How many lives did she demand today?” Taiden asked coldly, the words bitter on his tongue.
Julius hesitated for a brief moment, casting his gaze down before confessing the truth. “Eight, your highness. All from the surrounding villages.”
“Did any of them truly deserve it?”
“It is not my place-“
“Did any of them truly deserve it, Julius?”
“I-no, your highness.”
Taiden turned away from the window and continued up the stairs, each step he took more determined than the last. “Devanna cannot be allowed to continue ruling like this. She must be stopped.” Julius remained where he was, staring up at the heated prince as he reached the top of the tower and the locked door there. Taiden pulled the green bottle from his pocket and fixed his fiery gaze upon it. “Forget the healer she demanded, send for the seer. I have to know who I should pay a visit to next.”