The Princess and the Alchemist - Part 25

The Princess and the Alchemist - Part 25
Tristan stepped forward, just enough for his shadow to swallow the small distance separating the three of them. The corridor seemed to shrink, pressed by the weight of what was about to happen.
“I’ll ask again,” he said, his voice low, icy. “What is that you’re carrying?” His eyes were locked on the box in Agon’s hand, as if it were a weapon ready to be used against the entire kingdom. “And why are you going to the king without authorization from the court? Or from your family, Lissandra?”
Agon drew a deep breath, trying to keep his tone neutral. “It’s an antidote. We believe it can contain the blight in the fields. We’re taking it to the king so he can—”
“‘You believe’?” Tristan cut in with a half-laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “You believe. Don’t drag my sister into your… inventions.”
“Tristan…” Lissandra tried to join the conversation, her voice soft, peaceful. “Let me explain.”
But he raised a hand, stopping her without even looking her way. “No. I want to hear it from him. I want to know what kind of madness you convinced my sister to follow.”
Agon frowned. “Your sister isn’t a child. She came because she wanted to. Because she saw purpose.”
“Because you manipulated her.” Tristan stepped closer. “You pulled her away from her responsibilities, from the Cathedral, from her duties as the next Oracle and as a princess. You turned her into the accomplice of an ambitious commoner who thinks he can save the kingdom alone.”
Lissandra flinched, and Agon noticed. Her hesitation when she tried to speak was like blood in the water to Tristan.
“Why is she like this?” Tristan turned to his sister, finally looking at her. “Why do you look guilty? What did you do, Lissandra?”
She blinked, instinctively taking half a step back, which to Tristan was the proof he sought.
“It can’t be…” He narrowed his eyes. “You really let this man drag you away from your duty.”
“Stop,” Lissandra whispered, tense. “That’s not—”
“That’s exactly what it is.” Tristan pointed at Agon without even looking at him. “Since this… doctor’s assistant arrived, you’ve changed. You hide in the lab, disappear for hours, show up exhausted, and now you’re carrying something hidden to the king? Do you know what that looks like?”
Agon felt something hot and fierce climb through his chest. He tried to speak, he really did, but Tristan didn’t give him space.
“It looks like treason.” His voice became a growl. “Not just to the king. To us. To your family. To your calling.”
Agon finally hit a point where patience gave way. “That’s enough.”
Tristan turned to him as if he had spotted an insect being too bold. “What did you say?”
“I said enough.” Agon stepped forward, not aggressively, but without backing down. “You have no idea what’s happened these past days. You don’t know the risks, what we did, what we tried. All that matters to you is keeping your version of order. And now you’re attacking your own sister for trying to save the kingdom.”
Tristan tilted his head, with a slow, incredulous smile. “You’re really bold for a commoner.”
The word fell between them with the weight of a punch.
Lissandra held her breath. Agon didn’t. He let it out in a short exhale, almost a warning. Tristan noticed. And he enjoyed the reaction. The cruel gleam in the prince’s eyes was unmistakable.
“Yes,” he repeated, savoring the word. “A commoner. Who thinks he can put his hands where they don’t belong.”
“Agon is the royal physician’s son and assistant,” Lissandra replied, her voice still gentle, but firm. “He—”
“Don’t you dare defend him!” Tristan exploded. “Since when do you raise your voice at me?”
“Since you’re being unfair.” Lissandra kept her chin up, though her body trembled slightly. “And blind. And arrogant.”
The silence that followed was like pure ice.
Tristan drew a deep breath, but not to calm himself. It was the kind of breath taken before an attack. His chest expanded, his pupils narrowed, and Agon felt the air shift around them, as if the oldest instincts in the world had awakened in the corridor.
Tristan took a threatening step forward.
“Lissandra,” he said, his voice low, dangerous. “Tell the truth. All of it. Now. What did you do?”
She faced her brother. The fear was there, clear, but so was something he had never seen so plainly in her: resolve.
“Fine.” She inhaled deeply. “I’ll tell you.”
Tristan crossed his arms like someone preparing to hear a confession of crime.
Lissandra began. “We used a petal we found on the tree outside and went to the Cathedral to get the rest. I went into the relic room myself. I removed the preserved flowers myself.”
Tristan’s face went pale, not with shock. With fury. Pure fury.
“You… stole from the Cathedral?” His voice cracked like breaking ice. “Stole? To indulge the whims of this—”
“They weren’t whims.” Lissandra cut in immediately. “It was necessity.”
“Necessity?” Tristan laughed without a hint of humor. “Necessity is fulfilling your duty. Obeying traditions. Respecting the things that uphold this kingdom. Not playing alchemist with—”
“I was saving lives!” Lissandra shouted, the emotions she had held back since the night bursting like a dam. “And so was Agon!”
Tristan went still. Dangerously still. Then he slowly turned his face toward Agon. And the hatred in his gaze was so intense it seemed to have physical weight.
“You.” The word was a blade. “You managed to corrupt even the princess of Norden.”
“I didn’t corrupt anyone,” Agon answered, his voice low, controlled. “Your sister is braver than you ever acknowledged.”
“Don’t speak of her.” Tristan stepped forward, his body starting to shift. The tendons in his arm bulged, the skin tightened, and black claws began to sprout at the fingertips. “And don’t you dare compare yourself to my family.”
Lissandra felt the danger before she even saw the partial transformation begin. She raised her hand.
“Tristan, stop. You’re losing control.”
“I’m regaining control,” he hissed. “The control you handed to this—”
He lunged forward, and Agon didn’t even have time to react. Lissandra moved first. She threw herself between them like a pale flash, raising her arms to stop the blow. Tristan’s claws, sharp as glass, tore into her forearm in a swift arc.
The sound that escaped wasn’t a scream—it was a cut-off breath, shocked, pained.
The world stopped.
Tristan froze, staring at his sister. At the blood. At the open wound, pulsing red. But instead of guilt, something far darker crossed his face.
He turned toward Agon, chest heaving, and snarled:
“This is your fault.”
The air was heavy, vibrating, almost electric. The smell of Lissandra’s blood was fresh, and to any inhuman in the palace—especially Tristan—it was fuel for something far more dangerous.
Lissandra held her arm, blood running between her fingers, hot like molten metal.
“Lis…” Agon murmured. Clumsily, he set the antidote box on the floor and turned to her, not knowing where to place his hands, not knowing what part to touch without making it worse. “Hold still, I—”
But his voice was swallowed by Tristan’s growl.
“You corrupted her.” He said it like reciting divine judgment. His voice was broken by rage, by instincts devouring his self-control. “You dragged my sister off her path… away from her calling…”
“Tristan, stop.” Lissandra tried to raise her voice, but pain shredded every syllable. “I made my choices. It wasn’t him—”
“She was promising!” Tristan roared. The word echoed through the corridor like a stone hurled at glass. “She was a devoted priestess until this lunatic got in her way!”
The word lunatic ricocheted in Agon’s skull like a shard.
“She’s not to blame for anything!” Agon finally raised his voice, strong, firm, almost a roar. “She only wanted to save lives!”
But Tristan wasn’t listening. He wasn’t the brother anymore, or the prince, or the soldier. He was something else—something consumed by fanaticism and fear and wounded pride.
The muscles in his right arm began to swell abruptly, like ropes pulled far beyond their breaking point. The skin heated and turned reddish, veins bulging as if something inside them burned.
“No…” Agon whispered, already knowing what was coming.
Tristan’s hand spasmed once. Then again. His fingers cracked as each joint stretched unnaturally.
It was too fast.
Agon sensed the attack before it happened, but sensing isn’t the same as acting.
The prince lunged like a predator, with raw, clear intent to harm—to maim, to destroy, to rip from his path whatever he believed was corrupting Lissandra.
And yet, the one who moved first wasn’t Agon.
“Stop!” Lissandra threw herself forward, without thought, without plan. Her instinct spoke before any logic.
The impact landed like a clap of thunder.
Tristan’s claws caught her at the side of the body—not on the injured arm, but lower, at the flank. Flesh opened in three deep, hot lines that bled instantly.
The sound she made wasn’t a scream. It was worse—a short, choked breath, like someone losing their air from a perfectly placed blow.
The whole world shrank to that.
For Agon, everything became a single red point.
The sound: the wet crack of skin giving way.
The smell: blood, fresh blood, Lissandra’s blood.
The sight: her collapsing toward him like a broken branch.
He caught her before she fell, his knees giving out with hers. The box with the antidote was pushed aside.
“Lissandra, breathe. Breathe.” Agon’s voice shook, and he didn’t even notice.
Tristan stood frozen for a moment, his deformed hand suspended in the air, his claws dripping with his sister’s blood. But his eyes… showed no remorse. They were full of… rage.
He stared at Agon as if he were the attacker there.
“This,” Tristan growled, breath uneven. “This is your fault.”
Agon lifted his head slowly. The rage came in waves, but it was cold. Measured. Lethal.
“You attacked her.”
“You put her in my way!” Tristan took a step, claws still exposed. “Since you arrived here, you’ve brought disorder, brought chaos, dragged my sister away from her place, made her defy the family—”
Agon rose slightly, keeping Lissandra supported on his arm, shielding her with his body.
“If you take one more step,” he said, with a calm that only exists in absolute danger, “I’ll end you.”
Tristan laughed—a distorted, hoarse, half-feral laugh.
“End me? You?” He lifted his deformed hand. “You have no idea what I—”
“Tristan…”
Lissandra’s voice cut through everything. Weak. Trembling.
He looked at her at last, not as a brother, but as someone searching for guilt in her face. Something to justify everything. But her eyes held no guilt. They held pain. Fear. And disappointment. The worst thing a brother can see. And it didn’t calm Tristan. It ignited him even more.
“He did this to you,” Tristan repeated, as if he needed to reinforce his own narrative so it wouldn’t collapse. “This intruder. This—”
Agon growled back. It wasn’t something he usually did, but in that moment, he couldn’t hold it.
He rose slowly, still holding Lissandra with his left arm, and faced Tristan with the ferocity of someone who doesn’t fear his own fate.
Between facing Tristan and protecting Lissandra, he would always choose her. But right now, the two were the same.
Tristan moved his clawed hand like someone preparing for a second strike. Agon shifted his weight, ready to react—to fight, if necessary.
They were about to collide like opposing storms when footsteps echoed at the end of the corridor. Fast. Many. Heavy. Approaching with speed and purpose.
The echo spread along the narrow walls like a warning that this confrontation was about to gain witnesses, or that something even greater was about to erupt.