The silence that followed Bram's words pressed down on the room like a held breath.
Maera stepped back, tucking the sketch into her notebook without a word. Even she seemed to recognize that this moment wasn't hers.
I rose, slower than I meant to. My legs still ached, but not from the wounds. This was something deeper, heavier in the chest.
"Lead the way." My voice came out quieter than I intended.
Bram gave a sharp nod and turned, the other guard falling in behind. No words were exchanged. None were needed.
The palace corridors were quieter than I expected. Morning light filtered through the high glass windows, softening the stone and shadow, but it did little to ease the unease curling in my chest. Servants passed us without comment, their eyes dropping as we walked by.
Each step rang too loud in my ears.
I hated this... the quiet dread that strangled hope before it could take root.
Eventually, we reached the medical wing.
It was quiet, but not still. I caught the soft clink of glass, the rustle of pages turning, and the low murmur of healers speaking in corners. Sunlight poured through tall windows, reflecting off polished floors and whitewashed stone. There was a faint scent of herbs in the air, clean but sharp.
Bram led me down a side hall, past several curtained beds. Most were empty.
"She's being kept in one of the private chambers," he said, voice low.
A reward, then, for protecting the prince. Hopefully that meant she was getting real care.
As we rounded the corner, a healer looked up from a stack of patient records. She was dressed in pale linen robes with simple embroidery around the collar. When she saw me, she dipped into a swift bow.
"Your Highness. We were told you might come."
"I want to see Ella. Now," I said. Not harshly, but firmly enough that she didn't hesitate.
"Of course. Right this way."
She led us to a heavier door farther down the hall, carved with a sigil I didn't recognize until some distant part of me surfaced a meaning. Two. The second chamber.
The healer stepped aside, giving a nod. I paused, took a breath, and pushed open the door.
Ella lay inside, alone. Her face was pale, the kind of sickly white that came from blood loss and too much time in bed. Even in sleep, her expression was tight with pain. Her breathing was slow and uneven, like each inhale had to fight its way in. Fresh bandages were wrapped around her side, neatly done and clearly recent. Whatever wound lay beneath hadn't finished healing.
I moved to her side and sat down quietly.
For a moment, I just watched her breathe.
"Tell me, healer. What can be done to save her?"
Because there had to be something.
"I—I'm sorry, Your Highness. There's not much that can be done. The poison on the knives was simply too potent."
Poison. No one had mentioned anything about poison.
"Yet I survived."
"T-that's because Your Highness is of royal blood. Your body can withstand more than... well, more than even nobles like us. If not for that, you would have been gone before anyone reached you."
Of course. Command and resilience, enough to watch your servants die for you.
"But you said there's something. Out with it. What chance is there to save her?"
"W-well... it's unlikely. But if you can convince the Alchemy Tower to provide a potion infused with dragon's blood, there may be a chance. Only a chance! And it must be administered within the next twelve hours."
"I see."
I stood, that flicker of hope enough to push me forward.
"Tell me, where is Mirelle?"
"H-her Highness should be in her wing of the palace," the healer stammered.
"Good. Come, Bram. We're going to have a word with my dear sister."
If Mirelle made it difficult, I'd still get what I needed.
Bram hesitated for just a moment, clearly thrown by the shift in momentum, but quickly fell in behind me. The other guard followed as well, silent and steady.
I caught her in my periphery. No name came to mind... Sorry, anonymous palace ornament. Maybe I'll remember her name if she lives through the week.
We stepped out of the medical wing, and it hit me—I had no idea where my sister's chambers actually were.
"You. Guard number two," I said, pointing toward the quiet one.
"Y-yes, Highness?" she answered, voice small but clear.
"You know the way to my sister's chambers?"
"I—I do!" she said, a little too eagerly.
"Good. Then you'll guide us. I'm currently without a servant to announce my presence, so you'll serve nicely."
She nodded and hurried ahead, though I caught the faint twitch of her brow at being labeled a servant.
We moved through the palace quickly, turning deeper into less familiar halls.
As we walked, I glanced at Bram.
"What's your impression of Mirelle?"
Bram tensed slightly. "Her Highness Mirelle is... highly regarded, Your Highness."
"That's not what I asked."
He hesitated, then gave a cautious nod. "She is intelligent. Very much so. Most say she's the sharpest among the royal children, at least in wit."
"And?"
"She's... charismatic," he said, choosing the word carefully. "She speaks easily with nobles and commoners alike, and always seems to be three steps ahead in any conversation. People like her, but they also know better than to trust too much."
I mulled over Bram's words. They weren't what I expected, if I was being honest. At dinner, she had seemed polished but expressive, the most openly emotional of the siblings. I was mistaken, she wasn't naïve.
Damn it. I wasn't ready for this.. Not with such a high level opponent. Whatever price she asked for this miracle cure, it wouldn't come cheap.
We rounded another corner, and the corridor widened into a vaulted hall flanked by tall windows and gilded sconces. It looked nearly identical to the ones outside my own quarters. Same polished stone. Same quiet majesty.
Then we stepped through the arch into her wing.
The smell hit me like a wall.
Sharp, pungent, clinging. A dozen kinds of herbs and tinctures rolled over each other in waves. Bitter root. Crushed mint. Something sour and metallic. It flooded the air so suddenly it was like crossing an invisible barrier. One step, nothing. The next, overpowering.
We pressed forward in silence.
At the end of the corridor stood a tall door inlaid with alchemical symbols, some faintly glowing with residual energy. The sigil etched above the arch shimmered softly in response to our approach. Bram slowed, and the nameless guard who had guided us stepped ahead, straightened her back, and knocked twice with the kind of reverence reserved for shrines or graveyards.
"Her Highness, Prince Darian seeks an audience," she called out, voice ringing clear through the wood.
A latch clicked and the door opened.
The study beyond was a storm disguised as a library. Vials, powders, and hand-bound journals lined the walls, each labeled in curling script. Glass apparatuses formed constellations across long tables, linked by tubes and coils that clicked in rhythm. Colored liquids bubbled quietly in suspended flasks. Overhead, strands of soft blue light hung like chandeliers, pulsing in time with unseen energy.
Warm stone under plush rugs. The scent hit harder here, more focused. Every breath tasted like some hidden ingredient.
Powering through the stench, I stepped inside. The wave of herbs clung to everything, acrid and floral, pungent enough to cling to the back of my throat.
Mirelle sat at a broad desk near the far wall, a glass-tipped pen dancing across a page with fluid precision. Her hair was tied back, and she wore what could only be called a lab coat. It was sharp-collared, faintly stained with alchemical residue. The sight was so jarringly modern it made me wonder if she had been dropped here from Earth like I had.
"Good afternoon, sister. I thank you for having me."
She looked up, golden eyes flat with curiosity.
"What do you want, obnoxious brother of mine? Another potion to melt someone from the inside out? I wasn't told your attackers had been caught."
So. I've used potions for torture. Great.
"Revenge isn't what drives me today," I said. "I've come seeking a remedy, not a weapon. A potion that heals."
She blinked and tilted her head.
"Did the stars forget their names? Who is it that our ever-compassionate prince Darian wants to heal?"
"Someone who's earned it," I replied. "I'm told her only chance lies in a potion brewed with dragon's blood."
That got her attention. She set her pen down, hands folding neatly atop her notes.
"Brewed?" she repeated, and for the first time, her amusement felt real. "How quaint."
I said nothing.
"Do you think we steep rare essence like herbs in a kettle? That dragon's blood simply simmers until it's 'ready'?" She leaned back in her chair, the corners of her mouth twitching. "Tell me, Darian, do you also believe we grind unicorn horn into paste and whisper poems at the moon to activate it?"
I swallowed the curse rising in my throat. That landed harder than it should have.
I'd tried to speak vaguely, carefully. Short enough that no one could catch my lack of knowledge.
Brewing. What the hell else did you call making a potion?
"If you are an alchemist who knows the brewing of potions, then surely you understand the weight of what you ask. Even a thimble's worth of dragon's blood could buy the loyalty of a kingdom's spies for a year."
"I am aware of its rarity," I said, letting just enough arrogance slip into my posture to make it believable. "But surely a prince can afford it."
She laughed.
"You still overestimate your worth, Darian. My tower has only two. And one must remain sealed, always ready for Father."
The word hit oddly. Father. I had been scolded for calling him that. Yet she said it like it was second nature. Was it arrogance, or a fundamental difference?
"Then that leaves one," I said. "Tell me what you would ask in exchange."
"Do you truly think it a price you could afford? I doubt any of us could, save perhaps Alric." She tilted her head slightly, tone dipping into something just short of pity.
"Perhaps I expect too much, but I assumed even you understood its worth. Dragon's blood is not a bauble to toss after sentiment. It is a diplomatic treasure, to be used on a vassal we must impress or a foreign power we must make indebted to us."
That... that was more than I had hoped.
"Something beyond even the master of the tower. How disappointing," I said, tone sharp, hoping provocation might stir her into motion.
Mirelle laughed softly, the sound laced with contempt. "Trying to provoke me into some grand show of power? I cannot offer what I do not have."
Her expression shifted, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "What made you think you needed a potion in the first place? Did someone tell you the blade was poisoned?" She clicked her tongue. "I gave specific orders to keep that from you. Not that it matters, you survived. Your body processed the toxin on its own. That's the gift of our blood, Darian."
"I don't want it for myself, Mirelle." I clenched my jaw, but the frustration was already bleeding into something hotter. My birthright surged, unbidden. Sparks danced between us. Her eyes narrowed.
"For the servant, then?" she asked, voice curling into disbelief. "Now you care? After everything? You went through maids like wine. You chased them off or scared them stiff. And now, what, one takes a blade for you and suddenly she matters?"
The fury wasn't entirely mine. My own frustration was real, sharp as a blade, but something else surged beneath it. Older. Hotter. A wrath that didn't rise so much as erupt, flooding through me like fire through cracked stone. Cold in its clarity, absolute in its conviction.
"I don't need your scolding," I said, voice low and trembling with pressure. "I need a potion. For my vassal. The one who risked her life for mine."
Mirelle's expression sharpened, and the weight of her birthright slammed into me. Sparks turned into arcs of light. The space warped. But I didn't stop. I kept moving.
Not through strength of mana. Through sheer will.
Her eyes widened.
"I awoke," I said simply. "In the middle of that fight. And now I see things clearly. I understand. I'm being packaged up for export, sold off to elevate Thalia. And in all likelihood, this attempt on my life was for that. And you, for all your pride, are eating from the same trough I am."
She gritted her teeth. "And?"
"We can't beat them alone. Not like this. Help me save her, and I'll help you." She hated being outdone. That much had been obvious.
Mirelle's stare held for a long, silent beat. Her face stayed cold, but something shifted. She was calculating now.
"What help could you offer me?" she asked. "Am I meant to trust a one-night miracle against years of proof?"
"I'm standing here, am I not? Past your comprehension. You felt it. You still feel it."
The pressure between us deepened, growing heavier and more concentrated, like gravity folding inward on a single point. Light warped in strange curves, the air rippling with heat and strain. Mirelle's fingers twitched, then curled into a tight fist… but she didn't strike. Slowly, deliberately, she exhaled and let the tension drain away.
"You ask a great thing of me, Darian." Her voice was quiet now. "Let us stop this foolishness and speak properly."
She pulled back her birthright. I did the same.
We sat at her cluttered desk. Papers, glass tubes, and glowing crystals cluttered the surface. She sighed and rubbed her temple.
"Tell me how you did it," she said. "You stopped my birthright. You did something similar with Thalia, didn't you? I thought she had softened, but now..."
"It's a trade secret," I replied, folding my arms. "I don't give things away for free."
She gave a dry, almost amused breath. "I don't care to use it, I'm not interested in killing our siblings."
At that, the guards shifted nervously. Mirelle ignored them.
"I only ask," she said, pausing, "because that ability of yours might... perhaps it could be enough to offer something in return. Something worth the price of dragon's blood."