A Poison Smile by StarSpray

Chapter 1

The gardens of Lady Tanith were filled with bright and colorful flowers; they blossomed in beds and grew in thick tangles on trellises, and twined around the marble columns, all red and blue and pink and soft white amid a sea of leafy green. She sat among them, smiling gently beneath her veils as she snipped away at dead leaves and wilted blossoms, listening to the birds sing sweetly in the vines. What few in the court knew was that those bright and beautiful flowers that she took inside to adorn her rooms in fragrant bunches in crystal vases had other uses, and Lady Tanith knew them all, good and ill.

She took the rose hips and brewed sweet-smelling teas, and dried the lavender to tuck in sachets beneath pillows; she made creams to keep skin smooth and youthful, and potions rumored to spark undying love. Everyone in the court knew and loved old Lady Tanith, with her sweet smile and dark eyes and soft, wrinkled hands that smelled of roses.

But other things she took and dried and brewed and stored away in a dark cabinet in glass vials, where—mostly—they were left to gather dust. But when there was need—when a troublesome cousin or uncle arose as an obstacle to her Khamûl's path to the throne, she made her way to the cabinet. It only took a few drops in a goblet of wine, or in a cup of pale golden tea, served with steady hands and sweet words.

So it was that when the Dark Lord came from the West with his gifts and Rings and promises and cat-golden eyes, it was Khamûl sitting upon the throne, and Tanith just beside him, with a vial in her pocket and pride glittering in her dark eyes.