Chapter 7

Woof, woof.

The distant barking of a dog drifted into the room, prompting Kosha to rise onto his toes and peer through the palm-sized window set high in the stone wall.

Beyond the thick masonry sprawled the inner courtyard of Osterbrache Palace. Far below, a servant tossed thick slabs of meat to a hound so enormous that it could only have belonged to one of the nobles’ hunting packs.

Kosha shifted his gaze toward the corner of his own bleak quarters.

A bowl of lukewarm pea soup and a single withered sardine lay on the floor. That pitiful offering was his dinner. In this palace, mages were treated worse than livestock.

His current quarters remained little more than a prison cell. He had secured a transfer from the subterranean dungeon to the ground floor only because brewing potions required a proper fire.

Still, it can’t be helped.

He accepted his wretched circumstances with meek resignation. After all, he was a defective mage who had caused Prince Lucien an extraordinary amount of trouble, however unintentional his failures might have been.

Besides, the prince’s need for magical treatment remained a closely guarded secret. If word of his affliction became public, Gosrick, the prince’s most trusted adjutant, would not be personally overseeing every excruciating hour of the brewing process. Under circumstances this tense, demanding a proper guest room would have bordered on delusion.

“Trying to escape?”

A gruff voice broke the silence. Kosha turned to find Gosrick looming behind him. He released a quiet sigh and shook his head. After so many grueling hours spent beside the adjutant, the worst of his terror had gradually worn away, making the imposing man marginally less intimidating.

“No, sir.” Kosha’s voice scarcely rose above a whisper. “How could I possibly manage that?”

Gosrick folded his arms across his chest. “And why couldn’t you? You’re a mage.”

“Mage or not, I’m just…”

The words died in Kosha’s throat as his eyes drifted back toward the high window.

The tower walls plunged a dizzying distance to the cobblestones below. A fall from that height would shatter every bone in his body, making any hope of escape impossible. For one desperate moment, he considered calculating the air resistance, his own body weight, and the pull of gravity, but he abandoned the foolish idea almost immediately. Even if his arithmetic proved flawless, his depleted mana reserves could never sustain a levitation spell.

Why give myself a headache over it?

Gosrick dropped heavily into the wooden chair tucked into the corner of the cell. “Listen to me, you idiot. You need to get it right this time.”

The words carried a distinct threat, though the man’s voice had lost its razor edge after so many exhausting hours of shared vigil. Both men turned their attention to the small cauldron bubbling sluggishly over a low flame in the middle of the stone floor.

Kosha hesitated, gathering enough courage to voice the fear gnawing at his insides. “Sir, if it fails again, will you really…?”

Gosrick narrowed his eyes. “Really what?”

“Will you kill me?”

Rubbing his stubbled chin, Gosrick adopted a deeply troubled expression. A heavy silence stretched between them before he finally answered, “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. Just concentrate on the medicine.”

Inside the simmering cauldron, the potion churned like thick black sludge. Its vile appearance was only a temporary stage in the alchemical process. Shortly before dawn, Kosha would distill its core essence and infuse it with mana, transforming the foul muck into a vibrant, translucent green liquid. Until that crucial moment arrived, they had no choice but to wait.

Kosha released another quiet sigh as the memory that had haunted him all day replayed in his mind. For what must have been the twelfth time, he pictured the absolute disgust contorting Lucien’s face when he had presented the prince with the second potion.

Gosrick’s eyebrow twitched at the sound. “What’s with that miserable face? Do you honestly think you’re going to ruin this batch too?”

“No.”

Kosha lowered his gaze to the stone floor. Truthfully, the second potion had not failed at all. The absence of any visible magical effect had been deliberate.

“It’s just that I don’t think this one will taste any better than the last.”

He had already warned them about the concoction’s god-awful flavor. He had genuinely tried to improve it, but masking such intense bitterness without diluting the potion’s potency required a level of talent he simply did not possess. Tampering with the delicate balance of ingredients might neutralize the cure entirely, leaving him no choice but to make Lucien swallow the same foul sludge for a third time.

At this revelation, Gosrick’s expression twisted into a mask of profound dissatisfaction. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then repeated the motion several times, apparently unable to find the words to articulate his frustration. At last, he folded his arms tightly across his chest.

Kosha blinked beneath the adjutant’s intense, silent scrutiny. “Are you actually going to say something, sir? You keep staring at me.”

Unable to decipher Gosrick’s peculiar glare, Kosha self-consciously smoothed his matted bangs.

So I look a little rough. What of it?

He knew perfectly well that his appearance was wretched. It felt like an eternity since his last bath. His recent days had consisted of tending filthy livestock, being dragged mercilessly through the forest until he was drenched in sweat, surviving a stint in the torture chamber, enduring the dungeon’s damp chill, and now sweating over a boiling cauldron for twenty-four hours without rest.

He undoubtedly looked and smelled appalling. If anyone accused him of resembling a filthy vagrant, he would have had no defense. It was simply the truth.

He only wished he could have stood before Lucien looking somewhat presentable. Perhaps then the prince might have recognized him as the same Kosha who had greeted him in the past, the boy who had brought him flowers time and time again.

But now he was a prisoner without rights.

Who was he supposed to ask for a bath, Gosrick?

“Forget it, kid.” Gosrick clicked his tongue in irritation. “Get back to work.”

The adjutant continued studying the boy.

Dark purple bruises mottled Kosha’s neck, while his swollen, bloodshot eyes stared blankly ahead, lending him a peculiar air of vacant foolishness. Rumors had spread among the palace aides, suggesting that the abused mage might be nursing a grudge and plotting to assassinate the prince.

Watching him now, Gosrick severely doubted Kosha possessed the mental fortitude required to plan a murder.

Is the boy not all there?

It was a perfectly reasonable suspicion.

Could an idiot like this really brew a proper antidote?

Oblivious to the heavy, suspicious stare burning into his back, Kosha busied himself with the cauldron and watched the bubbling potion with unwavering concentration. Whatever happened next, this would be the final dose.

For everyone’s sake, it had to be.

***

The final potion reached completion just as dawn began to break, a full day after Lucien had taken the second dose.

Kosha carefully decanted the clear, vibrant green liquid into a silver goblet embossed with grapevine patterns. He then knelt and raised the offering with trembling hands as the first light of morning crept over the eastern horizon.

Even at such an early hour, Lucien remained perfectly immaculate, without a single strand of hair out of place.

Does he sleep at all?

A flicker of concern stirred in Kosha’s chest.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Lucien raised the goblet and drained it. Kosha gazed up at him, his chest swelling with hope as vast as the rising sun.

Lucien remained perfectly silent for what felt like an eternity. Then, as though overcome by sudden dizziness, the prince pressed one hand to his brow and sagged back into his plush chair.

“Your Highness!” Kosha gasped.

The atmosphere tightened until it seemed ready to snap.

Kosha’s heart plummeted, though not because the knight beside him had drawn his sword and pressed the cold steel against his throat. His green eyes remained fixed solely on Lucien, shining brighter in the morning light, while his heart hammered so violently that every beat reverberated against his skull.

Whew.

After a silence that seemed to stretch for years, Lucien released a deep, ragged breath. He had been sitting with his eyes covered by one hand, but now he slowly raised his head.

“Ah, that’s the feeling.”

The words emerged in a low, languid murmur, confirming that this was exactly how it was supposed to feel. Lucien did not hurl the goblet across the room, spew curses, or kick Kosha where he crouched at the prince’s feet.

“Are you all right, Your Highness?” one of the retainers asked, approaching cautiously.

Lucien slowly surveyed the room. A soft, breathy chuckle escaped him, tinged with disbelief yet carrying an unexpected trace of generosity as his hand fell away from his face.

“Yes,” he murmured. “I suppose I am.”

A sharp hrk escaped Kosha before he could stop it.

Lucien’s gaze shifted toward the sound, and before Kosha could even consider looking away, their eyes met. A tremor passed through the mage. Something in Lucien’s blue-green eyes still seemed to shimmer with the final traces of the manufactured madness stirred by the previous doses.

“Ah, the mage.” Lucien regarded him with faint recognition. “I’d forgotten this was still here.”

Then, after a moment of perfect stillness, he smiled.

It was his familiar, picturesque smile, gentle enough to belong in a painting, with his finely shaped lips curving into a soft arc.

Did it work?

Moisture gathered in Kosha’s already damp eyes.

“Well.” Lucien tilted his head, his expression unreadable as his eyes narrowed. “You really did manage it in three tries, didn’t you?”

Kosha remained speechless, frozen on his knees.

“You acted as though you couldn’t, but you kept your word after all,” the prince continued.

At first, it sounded like praise, though his tone remained impossible to interpret. Kosha struggled to read the atmosphere while Lucien idly traced one finger around the rim of the silver goblet and smiled again.

“Anyway, hmm. I owe you one.”

His soft voice, languid tone, and inscrutable expression were all painfully familiar, etched into Kosha’s memory after years spent chasing after the prince.

“Thank you.”

At that single word of gratitude, every crushing worry inside Kosha melted faster than frost beneath the early spring sun.

Good heavens. Lucien thanked me!

Lucien extended a hand as though inviting him to rise, and the sight emptied Kosha’s mind completely. Only two days earlier, the prince had nearly strangled him for attempting to stroke that very palm.

With his heart overflowing, Kosha gingerly accepted the offered hand and clumsily struggled to his feet.

Lucien withdrew his grasp before Kosha had fully risen, causing the mage to stumble and sway. Kosha assumed the dizziness came from his own overwhelming excitement.

Before he could make sense of the rush surging through him, powerful hands seized the back of his neck and one of his arms.

“Wait, what?” Kosha stammered.

Why? Why again?

He had not even managed to identify the men who had grabbed him from behind. Lucien merely watched, smiling like a figure in a portrait without making the slightest move to intervene, which only made the situation more baffling.

“Hold on! Where are you taking me? Huh? Your Highness!”

Despite his protests, Kosha was dragged from the room once again.

This time, however, they did not return him to his prison cell. A fresh blindfold prevented him from determining where they were taking him, but the journey felt brief. Before long, the guards shoved him into another room, ordered him to behave, and locked the heavy wooden door from the outside.

Once Kosha pulled the cloth from his eyes, he found himself in a chamber resembling a small chapel. A thick layer of dust coated every surface, suggesting that the place had remained unused for years. Long abandoned by human warmth, the room felt bitterly cold, prompting him to rub his arms as he slowly examined the sanctuary.

A solitary chair stood before the altar, its golden frame fitted with an extravagant embroidered cushion upon which a worshipper could kneel. At the eye level of anyone kneeling there stood an altar crowded with small, delicately carved religious artifacts. Some depicted human figures, while others portrayed beings that were unmistakably inhuman.

These were remnants of the ancient world.

In the distant past, such creatures had lived among humanity and were revered as demi-humans. Unlike ordinary mortals, they possessed extraordinary strength and wondrous abilities, inspiring reverence, fear, and awe in equal measure. Most ancient religions had sprung directly from the worship of those beings.

That was why those distant centuries had come to be known as the Mythic Age, though the era had ended long ago. Those impossibly wondrous creatures had vanished, leaving behind only the bloodline of Mages, a subspecies descended from one of the ancient races.

Naturally, religion was no longer what it had once been. Some worshippers of the ancient beings remained, but most humans had turned their devotion elsewhere. They prayed to natural forces such as the sun, the sky, and the sea, or to imagined and wondrous entities no living person had ever witnessed.

Supplication seemed to be an inescapable part of human nature. Even when praying into the void felt futile, people could never quite abandon the act.

Kosha studied the tiny carvings and wondered what the chapel’s former owner had worshipped.

What sort of person, powerful and wealthy enough to possess such an extravagant private sanctuary, had once knelt before this altar?

To whom had they prayed?

His thoughts drifted back to Lucien.

The prince did not appear to have used the chapel himself, since there were no signs of recent or habitual worship, yet the antique sanctuary suited him perfectly. Lucien’s face possessed an austere, almost ascetic beauty, solemn enough to make him appear genuinely pious.

When Kosha imagined the prince kneeling before the altar with his eyes closed, a soft laugh escaped him.

Lucien was so beautiful. So kind.

“Thank you.”

The remembered words echoed in his ears as vividly as though Lucien had spoken them beside him, prompting Kosha to clap one hand over his mouth.

So I really did it?

Of course, Lucien’s condition had been Kosha’s fault in the first place, which meant correcting it was only right. Even so, Kosha was, in many respects, a defective product. Since reaching adulthood, he could count on one hand the number of times he had successfully cast a spell, thanks to the painfully erratic mana flowing through his body.

On most days, he scarcely felt like a mage at all. He had never received a proper magical education, and the only reason he had lived among humans and tended geese was that he had nowhere else to go.

And yet, I did it.

Even Kosha could scarcely believe it.

Could this truly have worked?

From the moment he realized what had happened to Lucien, a single conviction had consumed him. He had to repair the damage and save the prince. Perhaps that sheer desperation had carried him through.

Kosha looked down at his palms, which remained heavily bandaged. Despite the grime covering the rest of his body, his hands were perfectly clean. No matter how little water he received, he had always saved enough to wash them, knowing that clean hands were essential when brewing medicine.

I saved Lucien.

In ancient times, when fire-breathing creatures with batlike wings still roamed the earth, legends told of heroes who slew savage monsters and rescued persecuted princesses. Kosha felt as though he had become one of those heroes himself.

Of course, in this story, the savage monster that cornered the prince was probably me.

His heart raced as heat flooded his face. Kosha pressed both hands against his burning cheeks, unable to tell whether the sudden thrill came from seeing Lucien at such close range or from finally accomplishing something useful for once in his life.

***