Chapter 296: Three-Evils Remedy
His heart leaped as he recognized the voice as Penelope’s. He couldn’t make out the words, but he let it calm him and keep him under.
He saw her as if he was in the room with her, curled up on an ornate couch alone, leaning against the back of the couch. She dabbed her eyes and kept reading until her voice began to fade. She frowned and lifted her head just so until he swore their gazes met. Her eyes turned glossy as she stared at him but said nothing, and he said nothing. Tears slipped down her cheek as she turned enough for the blanket around her shoulders to slide down and reveal the loose white wrap dress she wore beneath the gleaming silver chest plate, molded to her with a sash around her waist and a crest he didn’t recognize. Then, there was a necklace that flashed red and ugly around her neck.
The sight of it echoed through him in a furious scream, frustration and the desire for blood followed.
Until the last of Her grace left him, until the last tooth was pulled…
The words soothed him. They felt imminent, even if it wasn’t immediate. A soft gasp of pain followed him, and he saw her drop her head and cry out.
He opened his eyes slowly. Tears burned in his eyes, and he could barely breathe around the tightness in his chest. Leona was speaking, leaning over him, but he couldn’t hear her. Then, the world came back in full sound, almost too loud.
“Prince Leandros, can you hear me?”
“Softly,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut as his ears started to ring.
She let out a soft breath of relief and nodded before whispering. “Of course. Better?”
He nodded, his nose wrinkling at the acrid scent of something in the air.
“Do you know why you would have taken a Deoaima potion?”
He frowned and shook his head. “What… is that? Bad?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just… telling. Do you remember taking it?”
He shook his head.
“That’s okay,” she said, reaching over and waving her wand at something above his head. “Do you remember… dying, Prince Leandros?”
His lips twitched. “Yes. Fell down a cliff… Mage spell.”
She licked her lips and glanced away from him. “... no other time?”
“Other?”
A wave of calming washed over him. She must have thought he would be hysterical, but the idea of him having died at some other point in his life didn’t feel strange to him. Some part of him already knew that.
“I will discuss it with you after you’ve eaten and rested. The first run isn’t complete yet, but I will stop here to allow you to rest. How are you feeling?”
“How much is done?”
She gave him a thin smile. “About seven months.”
“Please take these while I get you food. What is your irimes’ name?”
“I… don’t have… what is that?”
Her eyes widened just slightly as he sat up and took the potions from her. He eyed the vials.
“What are these?”
“You are a model patient, Prince Leandros,” she said with a smile. “They’re restoration potions. One for your mind, one for your body, the other for your metaphysical body.”
“My what?”
“Your soul, Prince Leandros.”
He frowned. “Soul medicine?”
“Yes. So to speak. Just enough so you can manage to eat without drowning in your soup, slipping into a fugue state, or falling into a panic.”
His lips twitched. “Brilliant options.”
He uncorked them one at a time and drank. “They… don’t taste bad.”
She shook her head. “That is because Zarantia is quite happy to let their medical professionals and potion makers remain under-educated. If it tastes bad, it’s only half as effective.”
He hummed and finished the last vial, pleasantly surprised at the jasmine flavor.
“Now, what did they taste like?” Leona asked, poised to take notes.
He frowned. “Does that matter?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Greatly.”
“The first one tasted… like grapes, I guess. Green grapes.” He frowned and tilted his head. “How do I know that? I’ve never had a grape before.”
They weren’t native to the mainland and Naos had never imported food for the palace.
She took note of that slowly. “You’re certain of that? Could it have been something you’ve forgotten?”
“Well… they don’t serve grapes in the dining hall… or in the palace.”
She nodded. “Noted. The others?”
“Roses and honey, I think. The last one was jasmine.” His shoulder slumped, and he shook his head. “I’ve never had honey either. I’ve smelled roses, but that’s about all.”
She nodded and leaned out of the dark wall. When she came back in, she held a tray of food from the kitchens. Leandros’s stomach rumbled. She cast a spell over the tray.
“What’s that spell?”
“Tampering Revealing,” she said a made a tutting sound as the juice flashed red, the rest shimmered gold, and she sent the entire tray away with a huff.
“Could you teach it to me?”
She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes. “My preliminary scans show that you have a high magio-kinetic connection. Do you know what that means?”
He frowned, and a voice he recognized drifted through his mind.
“Watch, then try it,” Penelope said, smiling at him in the shadow of a room he didn’t recognize. “You’ve always been better at learning through osmosis… You'll probably be a great healer if you wanted to be."
“I’m better… learning through osmosis.”
She nodded. She conjured a row of glasses and filled them each with water before dropping drops of different potions in each glass.
“Each of these should turn a different color.” She waved her wand in a quick swish and zag movement. “Evoke and Reveal.”
He stared at her mouth. He knew the words were in the mainland’s language, but he understood them. He didn’t speak any dialect from the islands. He looked back at the glasses. Each of the glasses lit up different colors.
“What… do the colors mean?”
“Red are behavioral potions. Oranges are poisons.”
He frowned. “Why do you have either?”
“Some patients are very uncooperative, even when they don’t mean to be.” She grinned. “And because some curses are countered with poisons. It’s called the Three-Evils Remedy.”
“Poison. Revenge. Mercy,” he said as a memory surfaced just enough.
She clapped her hands. “Very good! That is exactly the tenant of the practice.”
“And the other colors?”
Pink was specifically for memory potions. White was unknown but not lethal. Black was unknown but lethal. Green were restorative potions. Blue meant curses. Gold meant compulsion spells.
“Do the colors change based on a person?” He asked. “If… I’m allergic to something will I see black and someone else see white?”
“That is an excellent question. Someone with enough power could percieve the results differently, yes. It would required a very high level of magical affinity. In your case, yes. You could quite easily see different colors from other people depending on what is in it.”
None of them had an undertone of white or black. Did that mean he knew what kind of poison was in the water?