Poison Priestess by Lana Popovic (classic books for 7th graders txt) 📕

of seconds under my breath, giving him time enough to prepare his part. Then I arch my back against the table and fling out a beckoning hand.

“Would you come to me, le Roi Soleil?” I call out. “Would you come and see your glorious future dancing in my eyes?”

The silence stretches for long enough that I wonder if he will not deign to come, if setting me out as bait has failed. I wait for him with bated breath, the room’s chill air stippling gooseflesh onto my wet skin.

Then I hear the click of the king’s high-heeled shoes on the parquet, and a moment later his face hovers into view above. His skin is so pale and smooth, his lashes swooping against his cheeks like a little boy’s. With all his grace and grandeur, it is so easy to forget that our Sun King is only twenty-four years old.

“What would you have me hear, La Voisin?” he whispers, thoroughly rapt, yet still unafraid. One of his curls slips loose and tickles my cheek, shedding a floating trace of his renowned perfume. Lavender and ambergris, coriander and marjoram, along with subtle hints of some musk I cannot name. “You strange and lovely siren of the damned?”

Just then, Adam’s lanterna magica flares into life high above us, carefully obscured behind the strung-up damask screen that conceals both him and the device. It bathes me in a lurid crimson glow, casting an image of the devil’s visage over my features, superimposing it across my face. It also projects pictures of painted snakes that writhe along my limbs, lent the clever illusion of movement by Adam’s own design.

As the king’s face contorts into a rictus of pure fear, I reach up and clasp his cheeks between my bloodied hands.

This is, by far, the most dangerous of all our stratagems; one does not lay so much as a finger upon the king without his consent. Though I cannot afford to break our gaze by looking, I hear his captains crying out, the clattering racket of their swift approach.

“No!” he calls out sharply, waving them off. “Noailles, Rochefort, stay back! She is not causing me any harm, and I will not have her interrupted!”

The relief that tramples through me is so tremendous it is a wonder that I do not come unraveled. I struggle to compose myself, not speaking until the king’s captains have withdrawn. Then I gently tug the king’s face down closer to my own, and lean into the sight harder than I have ever dared.

Fiery images streak across my mind’s eye like a brace of comets, blazing fragments speeding by so quickly I can barely capture them. I see death and rampant warfare and the murderous gleam of bayonets; an ever-churning cascade of coin, glittering inside a soaring vault; the clever glass and bristling instruments of an observatory swimming in a sea of stars. It is so easy to scry for this king when nothing I have ever felt could match the roaring force of his need.

He feels like some beast’s gaping maw, insatiable in his desire to amass ever more gloire. To cement his legacy, to stamp the likeness of his face upon the kingdom like a blistering brand.

“L’etat, c’est moi” is more than just his motto; “I am the nation” is the creed by which he lives.

But Louis XIV is more than just leaping flames, the all-consuming inferno of his desires. He is also terribly afraid, of dying young and of being forgotten.

“Louis Dieudonné,” I whisper so that only he may hear. “Even the Morningstar himself cowers before your ferocious light. You need not fear an early death, nor any violent end. Instead you will hitch France to the bright star of your soul, and bring her to such heights as she has never known. For three score and ten, your rule will cast a shadow over neighboring lands and even across the seas. History will know your name as the monarch who would not be denied.”

The king hisses through his teeth, a great, ravening grin splitting his face. “Tell me more, sorcière jolie,” he commands, reaching up to grip my wrists. “Whether or not Satan truly feeds your gift, I would hear more of your sweet blasphemy.”

So I speak and speak until I am dizzy and breathless, listing a grand litany of achievements I barely even understand. I push myself harder than I have ever done, feeling desperately powerful and strange. As though his future is an entire ocean I have somehow scooped up between my hands.

Le Roi Soleil demands ever more from me, until I have spoken myself hoarse. The only thing I leave out is the dismal torment of his end, the gangrene that he will succumb to well into his old age, when he has finally exhausted the last dregs of his mighty will.

By then, my vision has begun darkening at the edges, curling inward like a burning scroll. I am so tired I give in almost gratefully, my hands leaving scarlet trails as they slip from His Majesty’s cheeks.

I can hear Adam’s voice calling to me as if from across a great expanse, but I do not even bother to struggle against the onslaught of unconsciousness.

Now that I have done this great work for us, the least Adam can do is close out the ceremony himself.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Mother and the Duchesse

Due to the unsavory nature of our magic, Adam and I are not granted permission to spend the night at Versailles despite my fainting spell. It is just as well; we would not have enjoyed its splendor anyway, utterly spent as we both are.

Instead we celebrate on the ride back home, passing a flagon of the château’s exquisite wine back and forth between us. Though I am beyond exhausted, a triumphant satisfaction drips sweetly through my veins like some slow sap.

“Did you see how he could not get enough of me?” I crow to Adam, tossing back a mouthful before passing the flagon