"The night before last; that was your moment to shine." Justriah smiled at the trembling serviceman and raised a wineglass into the air in a makeshift salute. "You failed," she chirped, her false cheer doing naught to hide her anger.
"I-I'm sorry," the man stuttered. "I c-can try again... I can... just... -- allow me to try!"
Justriah slowly sipped her wine, not once removing her iron gaze from his. Running a finger along the rim of the glass, she raised an eyebrow at the man and pretended to contemplate his future. After a few moments passed her smile transformed into a sneer.
"No. You absolutely cannot try again," she said and snapped her fingers, summoning one of three guards who always stood within a breath's distance. "Take this failure and do what you do best, Bartholomew."
"N-no. I c-can... no!"
Crack.
Bartholomew slammed the hilt of his blade down upon the man's skull and dragged his limp body down the corridor.
Justriah rose from her seat and turned her back on the scene. The fool would be dead within the half hour and it was his own fault. How hard was it for a serviceman to slip a simple potion into a single attendee's drink? It truly boggled the mind. The man had a chance to rise above his station and he squandered it by poisoning half the kitchen staff, and then had the audacity to suggest he be chosen to try again!? The nerve.
There was time enough for one last attempt to take the life of her daughter's intended before such an act would be deemed illegal. She had thought it a nicety -- an honour -- for one of the lower classes to succeed in this endeavour... she had been wrong. The only thing to do now, to make certain there would be no failure, was to do it herself.
Justriah sighed, loudly. She did hate tarnishing her own hands.
Helloooo! Two freewrites in one week! Hooray! I'm trying to get back into the writing groove so two in a week is a win for me. Thinking of doing my own personal Maynia soon but we'll see how I go. Might be throwing myself into too much all at once.
This #freewrite is based on the prompt for yesterday's five-minute challenge, which was: the night before.
Today's prompt is actually: an opportunity to reply -- and can be found at the following link:
https://peakd.com/hive-161155/@mariannewest/day-1279-5-minute-freewrite-thursday-prompt-an-opportunity-to-reply
Thank you for reading,
Until next time! 🙃
Oh, YIKES ... in so many ways ... yikes! Great story!
Yikes!! 😁 Thank you!
This is wonderful, Justriah is really the badass villain with clean hands.
Beautiful story, I'm glad i read it.
I'm glad you read it too 🙂 yes, she's quite the villain! I like her!
Yeah...
Keep it coming.👍🏽