Excerpt from "A Tale of Two Princes"

Khomnus mansion was quiet -- in fact, not simply quiet, but hanging in what seemed to be a pause in speech, an ear-straining silence of the most unnerving sort. All those in the mansion waited for a sound to be heard in the night, eyes open as they lay in their beds, breathing shallow from tension, as if in a trance.
In a roomy bedchamber, cast in silver by the moonlight spilling through a window, was Julia Khomnus: pale, cold, and asleep. Only she, it seemed, in her poisoned unconsciousness, was impervious to the mansion's eerie stillness.
Only she and Balthazar Trietus.
He appeared from the shadows cloaking the perimeter of the chamber, stepping across the carpet without a sound but for the rustle of his dark clothes -- he seemed quite like a ghost -- with his intent, icy gaze and such a calm expression on his face, and skin so pale it very much seemed to glow in the moonlight.
Upon reaching Julia's bedside, Balthazar grew still: his eyes grew deeper, and his brow furrowed as if some annoying fly insisted on buzzing about him as he watched her. After a while, though, he seemed to decide that lingering in his enemies' home any longer than necessary was not at all wise -- quickly, but with eerily fluid motion, he extracted from various pockets throughout his person a small phial of alcohol; a cotton swab; a syringe; and a tiny bottle, capped with a rubber membrane and containing a small amount of clear solution, and placed these items neatly and silently on the bedside-table. Without pausing for a moment, Balthazar checked Julia's pulse with two tapered, slender fingers at various points upon her right arm and, having located a vein quite near enough to the skin, picked up the phial and the cotton swab, emptying the measured contents of the former onto the latter. The phial vanished back into one of Balthazar's pockets, and once he had swabbed the determined spot on Julia's arm, the cotton disappeared as well. Every action was practiced and rehearsed top perfection beforehand: the swiftness and care of their execution was infallible, even as Balthazar lifted the bottle of solution, upturned it, and with the syringe pierced the rubber membrane. Once the syringe was filled to the desired measurement, Balthazar pocketed the bottle and leaned over Julia, inserting the syringe into the crook of her elbow and gently easing the plunger down until the syringe's contents were gone.
Stowing the syringe, Balthazar retrieved the swab and cleaned Julia's arm, before returning it once again to his pocket. Then, gently, he put the back of one hand to Julia's forehead; the same intent, deeply contemplative expression on his face.
"Soon," he muttered -- more to himself, or even to the cold, empty, silent air of the room, than to Julia -- "Soon, this war will be over, and I will find my throne waiting in its wake." Balthazar allowed the corner of his lips to rise in the faintest of smiles.
And then he was gone.