Aria looked down at the cup.
Steam curled up from it, sweet with honey and warm against her palms. It smelled of chamomile and something green and faint beneath, a bitter thread that only a healer would notice.
Slumberroot.
Her stomach turned to ice. A healer’s trick, her own, which Selene had watched her use a dozen times. A little slumberroot in a cup of tea would loosen a man’s limbs to water and hold him still while she set a broken bone. He felt nothing. He could not move. But his mind stayed bright and clear to the last.
She raised her eyes. Selene was watching her over the rim of her own cup, which she had not touched. Her face was soft with sympathy. Her eyes were perfectly still.
Aria understood that there was no way out. If she refused, Selene would know that she knew, and L
