Court of Venom by Kristin Burchell

Author:Kristin Burchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ooligan Press
Published: 2022-02-03T00:38:11+00:00

Chapter Seven

The next night I light the lamp in my window again, even though I find it hard to concentrate. I must do anything I can to earn more silver. My thoughts are muddied by Khalen and the disdain in his voice. His own past haunts him, he’d said so himself, so why would he judge me? Why do I care?

Five women visit, one after the other. Two ask for something to hide the shadows beneath their eyes, so I exchange some of the cream I use on Solena’s face for three silver rings. A young woman who is married to a much older man asks for a sleeping draught, but she only has a thin gold chain to trade. I suspect she will give it to her husband so that he will not wake when she slips from her chamber to dance with the young tambor player. Another trades a brooch for a pot of the rouge that I paint on Solena’s lips.

The last woman asks for Stardust. When I hesitate, she pleads. “I’ll only wear it for the Festival of the Full Moon. That’s all. Please?” When I still don’t answer she presses five silvers into my hand. I give her a bag filled with just enough to brush over her eyelids for one night.

I have eighty-six silvers now. It’s not nearly enough.

I should work more after she leaves, create more Stardust, but my exhaustion and fear will bleed into potions and bring heartache and bitterness. Instead I fall into bed.

My dreams won’t let me rest. In them, Mother casts herself from the Wall, her voice filling the sky. The sand below turns to green and gray ocean waves that churn hungrily. She disappears beneath the surface, though I can still hear her singing. Silver coins, enough to pay the Witch, hover in midair, just out of reach. I clamber onto the Wall and reach for them when the Wall suddenly vanishes, and I fall toward the water. Just before I reach the surface, the water turns into sand and the King rises from the waves, reaching for me, ready to devour me…the laughter of the Witch rings in my ears, turning into screams that shatter the air.

I sit upright, the cries echoing from the room adjacent to mine. Najma. I fly out of bed and rush to the door, not bothering with a wrap. Her guard stands beside the open door, his eyes wide with fear. “I did nothing,” he stammers. “She woke this way…”

She is quivering and pale in her bed. I shoulder past him to her side. “Wait outside,” I tell him.

Kneeling beside her, I smooth her hair from her face. “What was it, Little Crocodile?” I ask.

“Mama,” she says, her face crumpling. I know that in her dreams she’s relived the moment she found her mother, three years before, on a warm and humid night like this one.

It had been soon after my own mother had jumped from the Wall—perhaps the Queen was haunted by her song as well.

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