My once beloved queen is at the window, her pale heart-shaped face reflected in the glass. Her posture is perfect, as always, her diminutive figure austere. Poised. From this distance I cannot see her eyes, but I envision the pain swimming in the black pools of her irises. She gives no outward sign of the poison that is at this very moment eating away at her. I wonder if she knows that she is dying.

“Night blooming mushroom,” the imperial doctor told me as he drew the black bulb out of his bag and placed it in my hand. “Very poisonous.” It crouched on my open palm like a deadly spider, ready to pounce and deliver its venom. “The intended victim should drink tea distilled with its essence every six hours, and within 72 hours he will suffer irreparable heart damage and fall into a coma.”

“Can she—I mean, he awaken from the coma?”

“No, the effect is terminal. Once the poison reaches the heart, he will surely die.”

“Good.”

A fitting end for a traitorous wife. For one who gave her heart away so freely.