The Duchess ripped the king’s taster’s chain off her neck in front of the whole court and called her a poisoner. She had no idea the taster had already named the poison, or that on crowning day any servant can make a duchess hold the salt that turns black for liars.
“Take the chain off her. A taster who lets a king die doesn’t wear his silver.”
Duchess Isolde Varre said it at the foot of the empty throne, with the whole court of Caldmere watching. King Aldric had been in his tomb one day.
She ripped the chain off herself. The links snapped against my neck.
“I tasted his cup,” I said. “It was clean.”
“Then swear on the king’s salt.” She smiled. “Oh, wait. You can’t.”
Everyone knew the rule. Royal salt turns black in a liar’s palm. And only the highborn may touch it.
“Exile at dawn,” Isolde told Prince Edmund. “Before your crowning. Unless you’d like a poisoner pouring your cup?”
Edmund looked at me for a long time. “Is there anything you want to say, Tamsin?”
There was. The one word his father breathed into my ear while his lips went blue.
“Not here,” I said.
Here’s what the court forgot. Reeds have tasted for Caldmere kings for three hundred years. Our tongues can name any poison.
After the king fell, I licked the honey spoon on his tray. Nightbell. It grows in one place in this kingdom: the Duchess’s glasshouse.
There’s a price. Every poison leaves a black scar on a Reed’s tongue. My grandmother died of her third.
I already had one.
And Reeds keep the salt, so we know its oldest law. On crowning day, any subject may call the salt on anyone in the hall.
Isolde had never read that far.
Edmund found me in the scullery at midnight.
“My father said something to you. Tell me.”
“He said ‘spoon.'”
His jaw went tight. “My aunt fed him honey every night. With her own spoon.”
“Tomorrow she pours your crowning cup,” I said. “Tradition says honey.”
“You’re asking me to accuse my mother’s sister on a servant’s word.”
“I’m asking you not to drink.”
He left without promising anything.
Isolde came before dawn with wine and a paper.
“Sign that you mixed the wrong herbs by mistake. You’ll leave with fifty gold crowns instead of a rope.”
I sipped the wine. Fire bloomed on my tongue.
“Nightbell,” I said. “Same as the spoon.”
Her smile held. Her eyes didn’t.
“You’ll be dead before anyone believes you.”
“Then I’d better be quick.”
She knocked the cup to the floor and turned to her guards. “She confessed. Hang her after the crowning.”
In the dishwater, I looked at my tongue. Two black scars.
One more would stop my heart.
They brought me to the crowning in chains, so the court could watch the poisoner hang after.
Isolde poured the cup herself. She stirred in honey with a gold spoon and handed it up to Edmund.
He lifted it. He looked at me.
“I call the salt,” I said.
The hall went dead silent.
“She’s condemned!” Isolde snapped.
“Not hanged yet,” said old Chamberlain Pell. “Still a subject. On crowning day, it’s law.” He lifted the salt bowl. “On whom, girl?”
“Duchess Isolde Varre.”
“Absurd. I won’t—”
“Then there’s no crowning, my lady,” Pell said. “Not until you hold it.”
Her whole plan sat in that cup. She needed him crowned. She needed him to drink.
She cupped the salt. “I never poisoned King Aldric.”
The white went gray in the center. Then black, creeping to her fingertips.
Gasps rolled across the hall.
“A trick! Her family keeps the salt!”
“Then drink the cup,” I said. “If it’s clean.”
She stared at it.
“Let the taster taste it!” she cried. “That’s her job!”
“I’ve tasted your nightbell twice, Duchess. I don’t need a third.”
Edmund set the cup on the step in front of her. “Drink it, Aunt.”
“Edmund, I raised you. Please. My son knew nothing—”
“Your son keeps his name,” he said. “You keep nothing.”
By noon it was done. The Varre lands went to the crown. The glasshouse burned. Isolde was sent north to the salt mines, to dig the salt she’d been too proud to let me touch.
Edmund was crowned with the poisoned cup poured out on the stones.
Then he came down the steps holding my mended chain.
“Will you taste for me, Tamsin Reed?”
“Not that cup.”
The court laughed, nervous at first, then real.
He didn’t put the chain on me. He put the salt bowl in my hands.
“Keeper of the Salt,” he said. “Swear it.”
“I’ll keep it true.”
The salt stayed white as snow in my palm, and every lord who had laughed at me bowed.
For three hundred years, my family kept the king’s salt. Today, it kept me.
