The chapel fell silent once Ravić and I entered.
Every gaze turned to us, as they stood, their heads bowed as we passed. The Crown Prince, in his black military uniform, decorated with the insignia of two crossed swords, gleaming like iron against his chest.
While I held onto his arm in my long black gown, my lace sleeves hidden beneath my red ceremonial cloak. His family crest, stitched in gold threads, burned bright against the fabric down my back.
This was the first of the Trials. Supposedly the easier. I just had to identify which glasses of blood were poisonous.
I've been trying more kinds of blood than I could count, that was supposed to be safe enough during my pregnancy. Only I didn't know that it had all been tainted for months, contaminated under my nose. If I could survive that, then I could survive this.
Ravić had told me, sometime between our last round of fucking, that the trick to detect the poison didn't come from the taste. But through the scent.
