Disclaimer × Don't own any of these characters, unfortunately… oh wait. I take that back. I do own Erin, Elton, Luke, Josh, Tem, Zak, the story line and any other characters or places that you don't recognise. You know the drill… ;) Or you should anyway!

Author's Note × Um, I don't think I really have an author's note. It's just out of habit to type this up here. Hehe. Thanks for all the reviews! I have exams starting at the end of next week, so I don't know how often I'll update then… but it should be okay for now. =)

One more thing, I haven't mentioned this before, but just like Alanna is Lady Alanna of Trebond, Erin is Lady Erin of Serenité. Can't be bothered putting back in the earlier chapters, so I'll just put it here instead.

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HIDDEN THREAT

Chapter Six ◊ POISON AND STEALING

Alanna awoke late the next morning. The sky outside was a darkened colour, though the sun was up. Yawning, she sat up in her bed to see some-one sitting in the corner of the room. Starting, Alanna gave a small yelp before recognising the familiar violet eyes.

"What are you doing here, Thom?" she asked, sulking a bit after being caught surprised. She must've been more tired than she thought, normally no-one could've sneaked into her room with out her knowing it. Thom gave a small laugh, before glancing around quickly. They were in Alanna's small, though cosy, room at the inn. Near to where Thom was sitting, was an adjoining door that separated her room from Erin's. After satisfied that there was no one else in the room, Thom began weaving some simple designs with his fingers in the air, before letting it go slowly.

"So mote it be…" he whispered quietly, and for a brief second, a faint violet mist lit up the room before disappearing. Though she had seen Thom use his Gift when he was younger, she hadn't expected him to be so advanced, especially as she knew little of her own Gift. In truth, she was afraid of what she did not know.

"What in Mithros' name, did you do?" she demanded, trying to let Thom see how shaken she was.

"My, my… aren't we in a bad mood this morning, sis?" Thom teased, coming over to sit at the end of her bed. Alanna shuffled into a more comfortable position and waited for Thom to answer her question. He did, "I just wanted to talk to you about last night… I simply used my Gift to ensure that we are not overheard"

"Erin would never eavesdrop!" Alanna protested.

"I wasn't talking about Erin, though she probably would if she weren't too busy talking to the cute innkeeper's son. I was talking about other people. We can never be too safe, you know"

"Whatever," Alanna mumbled. Now that she was awake, she was suddenly hungry. The last night's events were a bit blurred together. She hadn't had that much to drink. Had she?

"I was talking to the other knights and squires at the time… what exactly happened last night?" Thom inquired, though it was obvious that he knew a lot more than Alanna did. She sighed. Why did her brother always beat around the bush? Why not just come right out and say whatever he came there to say? Deciding that she might as well try to clear her head about what happened, she briefly told Thom.

"Erin and I heard a faint scream or something coming from across the courtyard and went to investigate. Um, there was a page… I think, judging by what he was wearing and his age… anyway, it looked like he had fainted or something, right beside where their Majesties were sitting. I think he was serving some drinks, because there was a spilt wine glass next to him. Erin and I were kind of shooed away then, and I missed out on half of what was going on. There wasn't much else to do, so Erin and I made our way back to the other side of the courtyard. Is anything else you wanted to know?"

"No, not really. But I thought that you might be interested to know that I helped to clean up the mess made…"

"Oh, how nice of you," Alanna said dryly, stifling a yawn, "did you want to get to the point?"

"Erin was right. You are impatient. Aren't you?" Thom asked, "the point is that I managed to grab the wine glass the page was carrying"

"That's the point?"

"I'm getting there! Once back in my room, I tried some tests out with my Gift," he continued, ignoring Alanna's shudder, "and I found out that the contents of the wine had been tampered with"

That got Alanna's attention almost immediately. She sat up straight, "tampered with? How?"

Grinning, Thom knew that Alanna would want to know about that. But as he remembered what he had found, he suddenly turned serious, "the wine contained a mild poison… not enough to kill a person, but enough to make them sick. Very sick, depending on how much is drunk".

"But who would want to poison a page?"

"You're not thinking, are you, Alanna? You said yourself that the page was probably serving the drinks, and that he was found near their Majesties…" Thom trailed off as Alanna put two and two together. Her mouth dropped open.

"Are you saying that he was serving their Majesties, took a sip of their wine and fainted?" she demanded, eyes alight.

"Or, in other words, some-one tried to poison either the King or Queen"

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Erin wandered through the market place alone. She had woken up early that morning and checked in on Alanna who was still sleeping. Deciding not to wake her up, she had gone to the downstairs of the inn and talked to Josh, the inn-keeper's teenage son. She had had a quick breakfast before deciding to take a walk. She didn't like sitting around and doing nothing.

"Can I help you, miss?"

Erin turned to face a smiling young woman standing behind a store of jewelry and fine clothes. Looking wistfully at the expensive items, Erin sighed. "No thank you, I'm just looking…" she replied, walking away to the next store before she was too tempted to buy something. She didn't know for how much longer she and Alanna could stay at the inn for. Though not even Alanna knew it, Erin had taken to being friends with a thief before being sent to the convent. She wasn't the most skilled at stealing and she didn't do it very often but, sooner or later, she and Alanna were going to run out of coins. Spotting a rather fat, greasy haired man with too many rings on his fingers, Erin stopped. She frowned as he shoved a little girl out of his way, laughed and continued walking.

Looking around quickly, Erin slipped her thin, though strong, silver dagger from a hiding place under dress. She had always kept it for security and personal reasons. She subtlety followed the man like a second shadow, and grew to dislike him even more as he continued to make lewd comments at others. He stopped in front of an old tavern to talk to another man for a second and, as it was fairly busy, Erin saw this as the perfect chance to get some more coins. She casually made her way over to stand beside him, and positioned the dagger just right. But before she could slice the bottom of his thick purse, she heard him talking in a rather nasty tone of voice.

"I don't care what he says! I want my money, Tem!" he snarled at his companion. There was thick silence.

"You and I both know that we had an agreement, Zak…" came the reply in a rich, warning tone of voice.

"Yes, and that agreement was that I supply the poison, and you supply the coins! I've kept up my part of the bargain, where's yours?!"

Tem laughed softly, and Erin shivered. It was a cold and cruel laugh, "oh, is that what you thought the agreement was? I'm afraid that's where you're wrong, my friend. You don't get your coins until we get the… uh, 'desired effect' we want from the poison. Get it?"

Zak sniffed loudly and indignantly, "I don't give a damn about your 'desired effect', I supplied the poison, so you must supply the money!"

Shaking her head slowly, Erin felt as though she was getting a headache. What was going on? Feeling as though she had already stayed there too long, she deftly cut through the stitching holding together to bottom of the purse, and caught several golden coins in her hand.

Perfect, she thought, glancing over to make sure that Zak didn't notice anything. Satisfied that he was too busy arguing with Tem, Erin made her way slowly back into the crowd, slipping both the coins and dagger out of sight. She had enough to last her and Alanna for a another couple of nights. She was nearly to the end of the street, when someone grabbed her arm.

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AN × Hehe, sorry to leave it there! But I need to save some things for the next chapter! =) Please R/R!

Reaya - LOL. Didn't quite expect 20 reviews on the night after I posted it… but I did update! Hehe. The last two chapters were on the festival… wasn't quite what I wanted, but there will be more balls and festivals later on.

PoleKat - Don't worry, I'm planning to update sometime in the next few days or so! Hehe. It's not too bad of a cliffhanger, is it?? =)

HuntressDiana - Alanna and Jon should get talking soon… I kinda rushed the last two chapters a bit… oops.

Mist Tiger, Charmed luver22 and ndblue123 - hehe, thanks for the review!

---× Lady Kalitana ×---