The way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother - Chapter 38

Cassis saw Roxana close the door behind her.

Her image never left his mind, even after he heard her footsteps fade away after a muffled conversation she seemed to be having with a child.

Alone, he lowered his head. The gears in his brain began to move quickly.

Roxana had just appeared before him and spat blood, like a hospital invalid. His stomach grumbled and the food next to him was delicious, but he had lost his appetite.

It’s nothing, Roxana had said.  You shouldn’t be concerned.

                She made it seem like an everyday occurrence. Could spitting blood really be the norm? The thought made bile rise in his throat.

The bloodstain on her white sleeve had spread like burning a hole through parchment. Even after she coughed up blood, red pinpricks had emerged from the corners of her mouth while she was speaking. Her inclination to smile, even under duress, made his heart flip painfully.

She did not even consider being pitied. She had thought he would be disgusted by some malady eating her inside out.

Cassis closed his eyes. Watching Roxana was the same as watching a woman be domestically abused without being aware that she was being treated unfairly. It was horrific.

Was poison killing her? He had smelled the faint smell of belladonna about her. Yes, it was definitely a floral scent. Perhaps water hemlock and oleander as well.

He had thought she was wearing a perfume before. His mother preferred tangerines and Sylvia experimented with several concoctions, until Cassis’s eyes began to burn just being near his sister.

He felt sick. He had been drawn to Roxana’s scent while the poisonous side effects were eating her alive.

There were only two ways for Roxana to have gotten sick. She had either inherited this sickness genetically or she was being poisoned. Could one of her confidantes be poisoning their own mistress? Was it one of her siblings? One of her mothers? Or Lant Agriche?

Cassis didn’t know, only that Roxana was used to coughing blood. It was abysmal to believe that she had suffered like this since she was a child.

Today, the floral scent was stronger than before. He could practically smell flowers blooming while she was coughing blood. Had she been poisoned right before visiting him?

In the dungeons as well. He was stupid not to recognize the scent of belladonna wafting around her, mingling with the pungent sewer smell he had constantly put up with in his cell.

One of his knights had taught him rudimentary medicines he could whip up by using common plants in Pedelia.

“Ye be careful, lad. What can heal ye may kills as well,” Sir Hanrick had warned him.

Cassis cursed. He should have paid more attention to his lessons. Did he really know the difference between poisons and medicine?

He counted the times Roxana had shewn blood on his fingers: today, the time she had come to him out of sorts in the dungeons before disappearing for a week.

Yes! Something sparked in his head. That day he had smelled her blood in the dungeons. He was sure he had smelled belladonna then as well.

A crease appeared on his forehead as he cradled his chin in his hands.

I don’t want to die, Roxana had said.

Dear God, the woman knew she was being poisoned from the beginning.

Translator’s Note: ****looks at flowers on road. Will no longer pick them.