BURIED ALIVE

CHAPTER 5: THE POISONED CUP

The palace had never had a healer like Amara.

She did not work in the big healing house where the old medicine men kept to themselves and charged gold for small bottles. She asked the Oba for a small room near the kitchen garden, where she could grow her own herbs.

Within a week, that small room was full. She planted scent leaf, bitter leaf, ginger, garlic, and the rare white flower that only grew deep in the forest that Kian had shown her. The one that stopped fever in one night.

Word spread fast. A palace maid had a bad cough - Amara gave her boiled scent leaf and honey, and she was better in two days. A guard cut his leg with his own sword - Amara cleaned it with a paste and wrapped it, and it did not swell.

The Oba watched all this. He was impressed.

"You have good hands, like your... like Jalen," he said one day, then stopped himself, realizing what he said.

Amara just smiled softly. "I have always had good hands, my King. I just never had a garden this big."

The King laughed. That was the first time he laughed since the Zara incident.

But not everyone was happy.

Princess Zara was locked in her chambers. It was a beautiful prison. She had her bed, her clothes, her jewelry, her food brought three times a day. But the door was guarded by two of the King's most loyal guards. She was not allowed to go to the garden. She was not allowed to see her maids. She was not allowed to see Jalen.

For a girl who had never been told no, being told no by her own father was worse than any beating.

She sat by her window and watched Amara.

From her window, she could see the small garden. She could see Amara bending down, planting, humming. That same village song Jalen used to hum. The song that had started everything.

She saw Kian there too. Always there. He built Amara a fence for her garden. He carried heavy pots of water for her. He sat outside her healing room in the evening and they talked. Sometimes he made her laugh. Zara had never heard Amara laugh before. In the hall, Amara had been serious and strong. But with Kian, she laughed like a young girl again.

That laugh made Zara's blood boil.

"She is supposed to be dead," Zara whispered to herself, digging her nails into her palm. "She is supposed to be dead under sand. Why is she in MY palace? Why is she in MY garden? Why does my father call her 'my daughter'?"

Jealousy is a strange thing. It was no longer about Jalen. Jalen was locked in the palace cells, awaiting judgment, and Zara did not care about him at all anymore. He was weak. He had confessed. He was useless.

Now it was about Amara. Amara had survived something no one was supposed to survive. Amara had taken her father's love. Amara had taken the attention of the whole palace.

"She took everything," Zara said.

Her old maid, Lola, who was the only one allowed to bring her food, heard her muttering.

"My princess, please eat," Lola begged. "You have not eaten since morning."

Zara looked up at Lola. An idea came to her. A terrible idea, but an idea that made her smile for the first time in days.

"Lola," she said sweetly, the way she used to before all this. "You have served me since I was a child, have you not?"

"Yes, my princess. Ten years."

"And you love me?"

"More than my own life, my princess."

Zara took Lola's hands. "Then help me. That woman, Amara, she is a witch. She did magic to survive. She is trying to bewitch my father to take my place. You saw it. My father now listens to her more than me. If she stays, I will never be free. We must make her sick. Just a little sick, so my father will send her away from the palace. Just so she leaves."

Lola looked scared. "My princess, I cannot. The King will kill me."

"No one will know," Zara whispered. She went to her jewelry box. Inside, hidden under beads, was a small black pouch. It contained a powder made from a poisonous seed that grew far in the east. Her mother, the late Queen, had kept it to kill rats. A tiny pinch made rats die. A little more... Zara had never used it before, but she knew what it did.

"If you put just a tiny bit of this in her tea, she will have a stomach ache for days. She will be too weak to work. My father will think she is not a good healer after all and will send her back to the village. No one will die. I just want her gone."

It was a lie. Zara knew a full spoonful would kill a person. But she only needed Lola to believe it was a small sickness.

Lola's hands were shaking. She did not want to do it. But Zara was her princess. And Zara was crying now, big tears.

"Please, Lola. You are the only one I have left. Everyone has left me. Even my father."

Lola, out of misguided loyalty, took the small pouch.

---

That evening, Amara was tired. She had treated five people that day. Her back hurt from bending in the garden. Kian noticed.

"You need to rest," he said. "You work too hard, as if you have to prove you deserve to be alive."

Amara smiled. "Maybe I do."

"I will make you ginger tea, like you made for me when I had cold," Kian said.

"No, sit. I will make it. You carried water all day for me."

They went into her small healing room. Kian sat on a stool. Amara boiled water and added ginger and honey. It was their evening routine now. Tea and talking before night.

Lola came in with a tray. On the tray were two cups and a small plate of fried bean cakes from the palace kitchen.

"From the kitchen," Lola said quickly, not looking at Amara. "The head cook said the new healer and the hunter work too hard. They need to eat."

"Oh, thank you so much!" Amara said warmly. "Tell the cook I said thank you."

Lola placed the tray down and left quickly. Too quickly.

Kian frowned. He watched Lola leave. Hunters notice things. The way she did not look at Amara. The way her hands shook. The way she left so fast she almost dropped the tray.

Amara picked up one of the cups to drink.

Kian's hand stopped her. "Wait."

Amara looked at him. "What?"

Kian picked up both cups and sniffed them. One smelled normal - ginger and honey. The other... there was something else. A bitter smell underneath, very faint, but there. He knew that smell. In the north, hunters used that seed to kill wolves. It was very bitter.

"Don't drink," he said quietly.

Amara stared. "Why?"

Kian took a small wooden spoon from Amara's herb table and dipped it into the second cup. He took it outside and poured a few drops on the ground near an anthill.

Within seconds, ants that touched it curled up and stopped moving.

Amara covered her mouth. "Kian..."

Kian's face was stone. He picked up the plate of bean cakes and sniffed them too. They were fine. Only one cup was poisoned. The one closer to Amara's side of the table.

"Someone tried to kill you," Kian said. His voice was low and dangerous. "Again."

Amara's whole body started shaking. Not with fear, but with a cold realization. She knew who.

"Zara," she whispered.

At that same moment, Lola was back in Zara's chambers, crying.

"My princess, I did it. I put it in the cup closest to her. She will drink it."

Zara hugged her. "Good Lola. Good. Now you go. Say nothing. When she gets sick tomorrow, they will send her away and I will be free. You saved me."

Lola nodded and left, feeling sick to her stomach.

But Amara did not get sick.

Instead, Amara and Kian did something Zara did not expect.

Amara took the poisoned cup, walked with Kian straight to the King's private chamber, and knocked.

The Oba was with his council when Amara entered, holding the cup with both hands like it was evidence.

"My King, forgive me for interrupting," Amara said. "But someone tried to poison me tonight. In your palace."

The council gasped.

The Oba stood up. "What? Who?"

Kian stepped forward. "My King, this cup was brought to Amara's room by Princess Zara's maid, Lola. It has wolf-seed poison in it. I tested it on ants outside. They died instantly. If Amara had drunk it, she would have died before morning."

The Oba's face went from shock to a rage no one had ever seen. Even when he judged murderers, he was calm. Now his hands were shaking.

"Bring me Zara. And bring me Lola. NOW."

Two minutes later, Zara was dragged in, still in her fine dress, still acting like a princess.

"Father, what is this? Why am I being dragged like a criminal?"

The Oba did not answer her. He picked up the poisoned cup and held it out to her.

"Drink it," he said.

Zara froze. "What?"

"Drink it. If you say this woman is lying and this is just normal tea, then drink it. Drink the tea your maid made for her."

Zara's face lost all color. She stepped back.

"I... I don't drink ginger tea..."

"DRINK IT!" the Oba roared. The whole council jumped.

Zara started crying. Real crying this time, not fake. "Father, please..."

Lola was brought in, shaking. She fell to her knees immediately.

"My King! My King, forgive me! The Princess told me! She told me it was just to make her sick! She said it would only give her a stomach ache! She gave me the powder! I didn't know it would kill! Please forgive me!"

Zara looked at Lola with betrayal. "You stupid girl! You said you would never tell!"

The Oba closed his eyes. He looked ten years older.

He had one daughter. One last child from his beloved late Queen. He had spoiled her. He had never disciplined her. And now that spoiling had turned into attempted murder. Twice.

"Zara," he said, his voice now very quiet and very tired. "You tried to bury a woman alive by using a weak man. And when the gods saved her, you tried to poison her in my own palace, under my own roof, with my own tea. You have shamed this throne. You have shamed your mother's memory."

"Father, I did it because I love you! I did not want you to love her more than me!"

"You did it because you love only yourself," the Oba said.

He turned to his head guard. "Take Princess Zara to the temple of the White Hill. She will stay there for one year. She will not be a princess there. She will be a student. She will sweep floors, fetch water, learn humility and kindness from the priestesses. No maids. No gold. No fine dresses. She will learn what it means to be a common person. If after one year the head priestess says she has changed, she may return. If not, she will stay longer."

Zara screamed. "No! Father! You cannot! I am a princess! I cannot live with commoners and sweep floors!"

"You wanted Amara to be buried because she was a commoner," the Oba said. "Now you will live as one. Perhaps then you will understand the value of a life you tried to throw away twice."

As guards took Zara away, she looked at Amara one last time. But this time, there was no smug smile. There was fear. And for the first time, a tiny bit of shame.

When she was gone, the Oba turned to Amara.

"My daughter, I am sorry. I brought you into my palace to give you justice and safety, and I almost let you be killed again in my own house."

Amara knelt. "My King, you gave me justice. You believed me. That is more than many would do."

The Oba nodded. "From today, you will have two guards outside your garden at all times. And..." he looked at Kian, "...this hunter, if he wishes, will be head of palace security. Any man who can smell poison in tea and protect a woman twice is a man I want protecting my kingdom."

Kian looked at Amara. Amara looked at Kian. Both smiled a little.

That night, after the palace was quiet again, Amara and Kian sat in the garden. The poisoned cup had been thrown away. They were drinking fresh tea, made by Amara herself this time.

"Kian," Amara said softly. "When you found me in that grave, did you think I would ever be sitting in a palace garden as a palace healer?"

Kian chuckled. "When I found you, I thought you were a forest spirit. You were covered in so much sand you were white all over."

Amara laughed. A real, loud laugh that made the guards smile.

"And now?" she asked.

Kian looked at her. The firelight from the small lamp made her face glow. She was no longer thin and scared. She was strong, respected, alive.

"Now I think," Kian said slowly, because hunters choose words carefully, "that the grave was not the end of your story. It was the middle. And I am glad I get to be in the second half of it."

Amara felt her cheeks get hot. She looked down at her tea.

"Kian..."

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For pulling me out. Twice now. Once from the ground, once from poison."

Kian reached out and, for the first time, took her hand. His hand was big and rough, hers was small and soft.

"I will keep pulling you out," he said. "As many times as I need to. If you will let me."

Amara did not let go.

In the temple on the White Hill, Princess Zara cried herself to sleep on a hard mat for the first time in her life. In the palace cells, Jalen prayed for forgiveness he knew he did not deserve.

But in the small healing garden, two people sat holding hands, with two cups of safe, warm tea between them.

Amara had been buried alive.

But she was alive now. More alive than ever.

And for the first time since that night in the forest, she was not afraid of the dark.