“It will be fine, Nanaea. I promise you.” Steadying my heart, I sank down onto my haunches, waiting until the corridor was clear to exit.

“You’re gonna need more than blessings, Kammani.” Iltani pulled the dagger from her thigh and wrapped it tightly around my own. “If you have to use it, plunge upward, under the ribs until it pierces the heart.”

“How in Selu’s name do you know that?” I frowned at her.

She grinned, dimples slashed on her cheeks. She looked more dangerous than she ever had.

“The Koru. You missed the lesson on stabbing a man to death, but I didn’t.”

No one was around. I took the back staircase and arrived at a long hallway that was once strung with beautiful handwoven tapestries under Lugal Marus’s watch. It was now painted in garish colors with murals of the gods feasting and dancing.

The strap holding the dagger against my thigh chafed. My hands shook holding the bowl of poisoned treats. Would this work? What if I hadn’t used enough? What if Iltani had poured too much and he could taste it from the first bite and every single kitchen worker was killed for it?

Do no harm.

A final turn brought me to Uruku’s chamber, the door with the lion’s head and three blooms bringing back a floodgate of emotions. My grief as I’d learned that my abum had been murdered on the road to the Palace, by Uruku’s men, who knew my father would’ve figured out that Gudanna was poisoning Lugal Marus long before I did.

The ache of desperation I’d felt when I knew I was losing Lugal Marus.

The shock at seeing the streak of blue on my tunic when I’d discovered the monkshood flower crushed underneath a stool. The fear from the flash of Nasu’s sicklesword against Dagan’s throat when he’d sneaked into the Palace the night after we’d first kissed.

All of it had happened right here at this door.

And now it was flanked by a guardsman and a swarm of servers bearing their trays of delicacies.

“Where are they?”

The soft, lullaby-sounding question was followed by a crash, a meaty slap, and a high-pitched scream. A serving girl was flung from the door with a cry.

“He wants the dish!” the girl barked to a serving boy. The boy just stared at her.

“Go find out what’s taking so long!” she yelled, wiping blood from her nose, and the boy immediately took off.

I looked down at the bowl in my hands. I had to get it to Uruku before he or Sippar returned with a replacement!

Taking two steps forward, keeping my head down, I willed my hands not to shake. My heart to still. The dates and almonds glistened in the honey, but underneath, poison that could end his life lay in wait.

If it works. If a taster doesn’t eat it first.

The thought stilled me. He could have a taster! I melted into the shadows, my nerves crackling under my skin.