Sweet Romance15 min read
My Jade Token and the Poisoned Prince
I woke up with a hand on my throat and a wine breath that smelled like a wolf den. The first face I saw was too handsome to be sane: black hair crowned with feathers, a collar half-open, and eyes like knives. He tightened his grip and hissed my name like a verdict.
"Mariah Pierce, you are dead meat."
"Let go," I said, spiteful and half-asleep. "Who are you, and why are you choking me?"
He sneered, blood at the edge of his lids, the air between us twitching with danger. "You dare touch me."
I kicked him where it mattered. "Weirdo. Pervert. Let go, or I—"
He ducked my kick and inhaled. His wrist was warm, his skin like sunlight on barley. He smelled of wine and iron. "You want to die? I will grant it."
"Go to a hospital," I said. "If you're sick, go get fixed. This is not cosplay."
He laughed, a sound like a blade sliding. "You want to die. I can arrange that."
I bit his arm. "You think I care? You almost choked me. You creep."
He staggered and fell like a toppled statue. I yanked his long hair and inspected his face properly, delighted with how gorgeous he looked even half-unconscious.
"What a good wig," I muttered. "What dynasty are you supposed to be? The prince? The emperor's spare?"
"Mariah Pierce," he whispered through clenched teeth, claws of rage returning to his gaze. "You will die."
"Trust me, you look way too pretty to be dead," I said, and flicked dust off his sleeve like I was checking a suit's thread. I couldn't help it—the world had flipped and I hated being wrong.
The place felt wrong, like a stage set: wooden beams, red lacquer, lanterns. A memory stormed into my head—another life, another body. My breath caught. I blinked and realized I wasn't me anymore. I was a woman named Mariah, and I was supposed to be a minor noble in this kingdom. I also carried a jade token, warm from whoever had held it last.
"Get up," he rasped through clenched teeth. "Do not play games with me."
"Not my idea of fun," I answered, squatting on his chest until his breath came shallow. "You tried to strangle me. You deserve an explanation."
He hissed, but his strength unraveled, and I pushed him until his head hit the floor with a hollow thud. I prodded his jaw. "Is that better? Now we can talk."
"Do not think…" He tried to roar but managed a thin snarl. "You will pay."
"Get real," I said. "Who would believe your pretty face over mine? You're the one squatting on a palace floor with your robes in a mess."
He watched me with eyes that had shifted from fury to something colder, like a winter stone. "You know my name," he said. "Where did you hear it?"
"I didn't," I said, honest and startled. "You just threatened to kill me, so I knocked you out. Consider it self-defense."
His nostrils flared. He hated me with a depth that made me uneasy. "You need to die."
"Fine," I said. "But not today. I'm busy."
I wasn't a warrior. I was a woman from another world, with habits from cheap campus noodles and late-night dramas. Yet when I pushed him, he fell like a marionette cut from strings. He didn't rise. He was heavy and ornate, a prince for certain. He smelled of royal baths and cedar.
"You're not going to get away with this," he said again testily as he sat up enough to glare at me.
"Who would believe you?" I asked. "You're the prince. You're supposed to be heroic. 'Prince saves day' plays better in the opera. Me? I'm the suspicious woman in a room with a passed-out prince."
He closed his eyes for a breath and then opened them like a blade. "You think to trick me? You think to get the crown?"
"No," I said plainly. "I don't want your crown. I don't want anything you have, especially your breath."
He made a choking sound. "You will be punished."
"By whom?" I asked. "Your father? The emperor?"
"Do you think the emperor would not believe me?"
"Maybe he'd believe you if you acted less like you wanted to bite people," I answered. "Newsflash: strangling people is bad PR."
He sat very still and suddenly, with cold eyes, said: "Hide me."
I blinked. "Huh?"
"You heard me. Hide. If someone finds me here with a woman alone, the empire will be full of gossip and my life becomes yours."
"Why would I help you after you tried to kill me?" I asked, honest because who was I to lie? In a palace, an awkward scandal could be a landing rope or a noose.
His face hardened. "Because if I'm exposed alone with you, your family will be used as bait. I would never marry you, but the emperor will force alliances. You will be ruined."
"That's your plan?" I said. "Blackmail me for my future? I think you're bad at politics."
His eyes flickered, something like annoyance and something like trying to gauge a new piece on a chessboard. "Move. Hide me."
A sentry's footsteps clicked in the corridor. I pushed him under a low bed and laughed with a breath I couldn't control. "Fine. But no more strangling, Your Highness."
He hissed, but he hid. I climbed into an armoire and breathed through a crack, watching the door as my world shifted into costumes and whispers. My hands shook because I had memories that weren't mine—arranged marriages, palace dangers, my own name tangled with destiny.
When they came through, a maid barged in and sniffed the air. "My lady? Where have you gone?"
"Here," I whispered through the wardrobe slats, and another woman's voice answered outside: "Search the room carefully. The prince must be here."
"You are trying to get me married?" I mouthed at the muffled people, then slid out like a ghost, opened the armoire, and gave a small wave.
"You're covered in dust and blood," the maid said. "Come clean up."
"Not before I get something to eat," I said. "And you, maid, I'm not a maid."
I stepped into the room and pretended to be a nervous servant. The prince who had tried to murder me glared at me from the floor; his face was a mask of thunder now.
"You lied about me," he spat. "You set me up."
"I? Me? I didn't do anything," I said, and nuzzled my chin like I belonged here. "Maybe the palace cooks had bad mushrooms."
He didn't buy it. I didn't blame him. The whole of the palace leaned like a stage built on secrets. I'd stumbled into someone else's drama and the audience was unforgiving.
"Don't move," he said, and his voice was a command even from the floor. "If you move, the rumor will blow."
"Trust me," I said. "If I move, someone will try to strangle me again."
He stopped. We waited. I listened to the steps thinning.
When the room was clear, I sauntered up and prodded his chin. "You know what you should do? Calm down. Take a nap. Then we'll talk."
He breathed in and out slowly. I thought about the memories that would lead to ruin; a year from now, his ascension might ruin my house. I knew the plot—too many details had drifted into my head. The more I learned, the more scared I grew.
"You do realize," I said softly, "that if your father ascends and runs the kingdom as you plan, my family could be crushed."
He laughed once, soft and ugly. "Then you should be worried."
"That's the thing," I said. "I'm already worrying. So I'm hiding you. But if you're thinking of making me your plaything, you need better hobbies."
He did not like my lack of submission. He did not like my jokes. For that, I enjoyed being infuriating.
"Stand up," he said finally, voice a cliff.
I stood. He stood. We stared, two wounded animals trying to measure advantage. Then I did what I do best: I smiled.
"Fine," I said. "I'll hide you. But only because it's funny."
He watched me like I was a small, dangerous comet. He did not know how wrong his guesses would become.
— — —
Days passed. I learned palace rules the hard way. I learned whose favorites were whose, who whispered in the emperor's ear, and which cooks were poison lovers. I learned the prince's name—Zander Conway—and that he liked to pretend to be a cloud of charm while hiding thorns. He had men at his back who smelled like rope and winter; they watched me like wolves. He also had habits: a warm jade token he slipped into his sleeve, a cold laugh that crept up when he lied, the way he hated sugar yet inhaled the scent of it whenever I was near.
"Why did you try to strangle me?" I asked him one evening as we sat on a balcony looking down at the courtyard fires.
"For reasons," he said. "You'll understand when you pick a side."
"I pick my side," I said. "My side is 'not dead' and 'not married to you.'"
He smirked. "Noted."
There was a day the emperor held a feast, a day filled with strangers who smiled like knives. Zander—my enemy and my hostage—dressed like a carved statue. He looked dangerously alive. The aroma of roasted meats and perfumed nobles swelled, and I felt a pull like a tide.
"How would you like to be my concubine?" a woman near me whispered.
"Excuse me?" I said.
"Just joke," she laughed. "Someone should make his life interesting."
The rumor mill hummed. A poisoned cup somewhere. Zander staggered during the feast, his face going pale, and the whole hall inhaled. I watched as he went from lord of the room to a fallen bird. Guards rushed. Whisper networks sparked like dry straw.
"Someone put weak-stripping powder in his cup," I heard one minister say. "Find the cook, find the servant. Seal the doors."
Zander's face went from red anger to cold rage. "Whoever did this will hang."
He pointed fingers, his eyes stabbing at every table. People sobbed, some for fear, some for rumor. I knew the plot thickened when the emperor panicked. The imperial gaze sank into a fog of suspicion. Names were recorded. Lists were made. Men with long beards scrubbed their fingernails with worry.
"Search the kitchens," Zander ordered when he could stand. "Search the servants. Find the snake and burn it."
But he wasn't satisfied with hunting the kitchens. He wanted the story to have winners. He wanted to nail someone.
"Mariah," he said to me later in a cold stairwell, "you were close to the prince that night. Did you do this?"
"I was at another table," I lied, quick and clean. "Who would poison their own prince at a feast? It would be suicide."
His eyes were boring. "You would do anything to marry into power, wouldn't you?"
"Nope," I said. "I would do anything to keep breathing."
He laughed, and the sound made the lanterns sway.
— — —
After that feast, life changed in small and violent ways. Guards trailed my father's house. Zander's men watched whom I met. The smallest misstep gave a man a reason to be crushed.
Then the river boats arrived. A rival prince—Dustin Gauthier—his inflated ship of pleasures, drunk young lords, and gossip in their wake. I went with my brother, Coleman Simon, to a market of false pleasures to find a trinket he wanted. I had no intention of staying long. The boats, though, turned into spectacle. A black ship collided with Dustin's, flames licked, and arrows rained like angry hornets.
"Ambush!" someone shouted. "Protect the prince!"
Arrows struck, people screamed, and for a moment I thought my stomach would leap out of me. Coleman pulled me like a rag doll. We ran to the shore, and then the world went sideways.
Someone had shot an arrow that nearly nailed me; I flew and landed in the arms of one man and looked up into fierce black eyes. Zander had saved me—or he'd planned it—and his arms were inexplicably steady around me.
"You're ridiculous," I told him, breathless.
He looked down and said in a voice that made my ribs heat, "You're my nuisance. Stay with me."
"Get off me," I said and wriggled anyway.
"Where's your brother?" he demanded.
"Alive," I said tersely. "Thanks to you."
He snorted. "Don't form any false gratitude."
"Who are you to worry about false anything?" I asked. "You tried to kill me earlier."
He tightened his hand around my waist. "I did not try to kill you. I tried to keep you quiet."
"That's almost as bad."
He let me go before the carriage stopped at my home. I jumped down and pushed the door open like a hero entering a comedy of errors. My father, Roberto Newton, had already had a fit.
"You have been with the prince? In the prince's arms?" he demanded.
"Yes, Father," I said cheerfully. "Are you proud?"
He did not laugh.
"You're ruined," he said, throat trembling. "The emperor will take this as an insult. You ruined everything."
"Me? I ruined?" I protested. "I was in danger."
Roberto's eyebrows shook like a storm. He didn't threaten me with feathered cuffs; he threatened me with the old methods: humiliation. He would teach me to be careful. He'd use rules. He'd humiliate me to show he cared.
"Where did you get that jade?" he asked suddenly, soft like thunder.
I touched the jade at my throat. It was the warm token Zander had slipped into my sleeve the first night I'd tossed dust at his face. Somehow, it had returned to me. The token hummed like a promise and like a trap.
"Your Highness," my father said when a court heralded the prince's arrival at our gate, "this is my daughter."
Zander entered like a storm, but he carried no forgiveness. He stood before my father and said, "Your house has behaved in a fashion that forced me."
"Forced?" my father demanded. "Is my daughter the cause of this court turmoil?"
"You know the rumors," Zander said. "You know how the court bends."
"What do you want?" Roberto asked.
"I want honesty," Zander said. "And if that cannot be had, I will have retribution."
My father and I exchanged glances. He bowed and asked me to kneel. "Kneel," he said. "Do not make more enemies."
"You too," I wanted to tell Zander, but I simply followed the ritual.
— — —
A week later, my father announced a plan. He wanted me to seek favor with the thirteenth prince, Xavier Faure, a child puppet the court believed could be shaped into perfect obedience. I had to go to his isolated palace—stone-littered and lonely—and entertain a child who smelled of dust and hesitation.
I went, and I saw how they had abandoned him: a garden of rocks, a small scrawny guard, children who ignored him. He had no warmth except a litter of timid attendants.
"Come play," I told him, and gave him sweets. The little boy's eyes lit with a spark I couldn't imagine being useful for politics. He was human, a real person. I liked him because he laughed—not because his seat fit my future.
"Do you like the prince?" his small guard asked me in a whisper.
"I like people who smile," I said. "Do you?"
He nodded.
When I left, I promised to visit again, not because my father insisted, but because I wanted to.
Back home, however, the rumor mills were grinding and someone in the castle had ugly business planned. It culminated in a public spectacle—an execution of a man who had sold poison, who had been called in by the palace like a pet for a festival: Draven Schmidt, a venom master who had brought snakes and curses into Zander's life. I had watched him cackle in the garden where snakes curled like ribbons.
The man Draven had been a monster with a crooked grin; he loved causing trouble and he sold it to the highest bidder. I had seen him in dark alcoves blowing on a black flute that called snakes like servants. I had seen him hand a little green larva to the prince's enemies, and I had seen the way those larva twitched like liars.
One evening, Zander had the man seized. He tied him with a rope and dragged him to the largest square, where men from the provinces gathered to watch. The punishment was a game of theater and mercy. The prince had arranged it.
"Bring him out!" Zander said, and his men shoved Draven into the square, face bruised and hands bound. "This man sold venom, sought to make my veins a garden for his creatures. He will be judged."
"You will see justice," I told myself, and I followed the crowd like a moth to flame. Little did I understand that watching this would change me.
The square was packed. A thousand necks craned. Mothers clutched children. Merchants put down their wares. People pulled out phones—well, in our old world they'd have recorded, but here they raised smelling cords and they whispered.
"Look, look!" an old woman cried. "He was the one with the green bug!"
The crowd's mood rippled like water. Some laughed, some hissed, all of them were eager.
"Draven Schmidt!" Zander shouted. "You conspired with outside forces to poison a prince! Tell us, where did you get your buyers? Who offered coin to have the throne bleed?"
Draven smiled in a way that made my stomach cold. "You will break me," he said, and spat blood. "I fed what needed feeding."
Zander walked around him in a circle. "You sold snakes to the nobles, to pay for your debts. You placed a poison into the feast. You deserve more than punishment: you need an example."
There were a hundred ways to punish a traitor, and Zander chose staging. He wanted the crowd to be the jury, the gavel, and the jailer.
"Let him have the trial," a court official said. "Bring witnesses."
"No," Zander snapped. "Witnesses? He has the testimony of the snake. He has his instruments."
Draven's grin hardened. "Do it quick," he said. "I will not be your plaything for long."
The prince raised his hand and the square strained for silence. The guards ripped Draven's bindings to show blood-bruised flesh. Zander's voice rang across the cobblestones.
"You sold poison to rip families apart. You attempted to turn the prince into a puppet. You whispered at nobles with honeyed tongues. How many homes did you ruin?"
"Many," Draven admitted with a laugh that was half prayer and half rot.
"Then you know the weight of your deed," Zander said.
"And still you will give a show?" Draven asked. "You want fame like those before you. You are cruel."
The crowd leaned forward. They wanted the man to confess, to beg, to crumble. Zander had prepared a performance; a public unmasking.
"Look," Zander said and pointed to a mounted screen where, suddenly, images flashed—messages he'd forced from a traitor's pocket, letters, and a recording of wine being laced. The crowd gasped. "This man wrote about 'blood-price' and 'a new throat'. He took coin and traded lives."
Draven's face went white for a moment, then purple with rage. "Lies!" he shrieked. "Burn the liar! Burn him!"
The crowd was a pendulum swinging from curiosity to fury. Someone took out a cord and screamed. "To the gallows!"
"Wait!" I called, because my heart had no wish to watch a man being devoured for the story. "What will you gain? More sorrow for your sons?"
They ignored me. A group of Zander's men seized Draven and dragged him to a platform. Zander stepped up, his robe dark as a storm, his face arranged like a king's.
"Do you beg mercy?" he asked.
Draven spat. "I do not beg. I barter. I stay that I am not alone."
A hundred people started to chant. The air filled with the hiss of shame. I saw people push forward, their hands raised like-making pictures with glass. The scene was obscene and irresistible.
Then the change came. Draven snapped. He shrieked for falsity, he screamed names, he pleaded, then he tried to strike. Guards pinned him. The crowd shrank away like fire.
He went through god phases: arrogant, indignant, defiant. He tried to plea, "I gave coin for my children," and then he thrashed, "You would have had your throats cut if I hadn't!" The circle of the crowd became a theater where every gasp was a punishment.
They took his tools of trade—black flutes, jars, ribbons—and smashed them in front of the stair. The jar of the green larva they opened and the insect crawled out like a terrible jewel. People recoiled. Mothers hid faces.
"How does it feel?" someone yelled. "To see your own poison crawling?"
"Tell us the names," Zander shouted, voice icily calm. "The names of those who bought your poison."
Draven's face collapsed like old leather. The mask came off and the fury cracked. He named names: merchants, nobles, a hand here and a whisper there. People gasped. Some turned white. Others smirked and looked down.
"Is that all?" a merchant whispered to another. "We knew him for a snake."
"You will be hanged," the elder said.
Draven fell apart like a thief at dawn. He flailed, then begged, then cowered. "No! No! I didn't mean—please—" He crawled like a dog. He tried to beg the crowd.
The faces of the onlookers changed as they watched a man go from pride to crumpled agony. A woman in the balcony started to weep in relief. A youth recorded everything with a little glass box.
"Beg," someone yelled. "Beg for your life."
Draven's voice went thin. "Please… I was paid… I had illness…"
The crowd began to clap at his shame. It sounded like a church. People hooted. A guard stomped an iron boot on his shoulder. He shrieked as though a fire touched him. He tried to plead, "I can show you…"
They made him kneel in the center and they brought in a long, black rod. The people in the square shouted, some in enjoyment, some in relief. Zander watched like a man looking at a mirror.
"Do you deny it?" Zander asked. "Do you deny you tried to poison the prince?"
The man sobbed. "I don't deny I sold. I don't deny I did. I only sought coin. I—"
"Then accept your shame," Zander said. "And let the kingdom see."
They stripped Draven's outer robe, leaving him shivering, exposed. A hundred eyes saw the man as he was—not a monster, but a man who made choices. The first laugh of derision rose, then a chorus. People raised their fists and chided him.
He moved through the stages the texts say an accused moves through: pride, shock, denial, fear, collapse, pleading. The crowd met each shift with a sound: sneer, gasp, whoops. Someone started to record with brass and glass.
"Beg," a woman in the front cried, and his voice trembled, "I beg you. Don't kill me. I have children."
"Make them talk," snarled someone, and Draven's eyes bulged. He begged and wheedled and attempted to bargain. "There were buyers—names—"
The crowd's chorus shifted: first in fury, then in skeptical acceptance, then in applause. They wanted closure. They wanted revenge neat and public.
"It is over," Zander said at last. "You will be taken and held until the law decides. Let this be a warning."
Draven's denial curdled into a murmur. He had lost the stage. He had no more audience. He fell to his knees and wept, "No, please. Do not let my children starve. I didn't…"
They bound his wrists, faces wet from crowd weeping and from design.
"What did you see?" I asked a woman next to me quietly.
"Power," she breathed. "A prince who took the crowd and made them watch the end of a snake."
We all watched as Draven's fall became public property. His collapse satisfied a need in everyone to believe evil could end in spectacle. In the square, the man who had the audacity to make poison into commerce became an offering. His cries washed across us like rain, and the crowd whooped again.
I left the square feeling strange: not victorious, not hurt, but hollow. We had watched a human being unmade in front of us.
— — —
After the spectacle, Zander's face changed. He looked almost immaculate, but the weight bled into him like a new scar. He didn't smile at me much, but now his gaze seemed to hold something like calculation. He kept the warm jade token near his chest.
"Do not forget," he told me once, leaning very close. "You and I have nights we owe each other."
"I don't owe anything," I said. "You tried to strangle me."
"That's hardly owed," he said. "But you saved me from a bad slander."
"Accidental heroics then," I said. "I'll polish my halo."
He smiled—only slightly—an expression that said: I will remember this.
And I did. I remembered the jade token that warmed in the pocket. I remembered the green larva in the broken jar and the eyes that watched Draven break. I remembered the way the crowd cheered at carnage.
I had an odd thought then: I was a small woman in a huge machine. I couldn't fix the world. I couldn't make it fair. I could, however, learn to survive it. So I learned.
I learned how to talk to the thirteenth prince without being used as leverage. I learned to pretend to like later schemes of Zander's so that he would take me less seriously. I learned to hide the jade token in my sleeve. I learned not to trust smiles when they came with crowns.
"What's your name?" Zander asked me once, very low.
"Mariah," I said.
"Mariah," he repeated. "We will meet again."
We did and we didn't. He would use menace and protection like a coin, flipping it between his fingers. I would respond by being impossibly annoying, because it seemed to unsettle him.
The palace kept spinning. People schemed. Draven was carted away. The feathered prince plotted. My father fretted. I kept the jade warm against my skin and whispered to myself that whatever came, I would not be swallowed without giving a piece back.
The End
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