Chapter 165: The Princess and the Alchemist - Part 8

Tristan strode down the corridors, his boots striking the floor in sharp echoes. Servants shrank against the walls to let him pass. They knew that when the Prince of Norden walked alone, it was best not to utter a single word.

Tristan’s face was all restraint: tense muscles, steady gaze, every step measured. The morning’s training still clung to his skin, but anger kept him cold inside.

The rumor the servant had revealed would not leave his mind.

The words had taken root.

Since the arrival of the new royal physician and his son, Tristan had paid little attention. It hadn’t seemed important, especially since he believed physicians were more useful to humans than to lycans and werewolves, who usually possessed enhanced healing.

Now, standing before the door, he felt the air shift. A faint hum, almost imperceptible, vibrated from the other side, and the smell of herbs and smoke seeped through the cracks. Tristan pushed the handle.

He entered cautiously, brow furrowed.

There was no sign of Agon. Nor of his father. Only the distant drip of water and the soft rustle of paper.

He advanced, studying the place like one crossing enemy ground. A diagram on the wall caught his eye — a drawing of a human arm, veins traced in blue ink, surrounded by incomprehensible notes. Beneath it, proportions, formulas, and annotations that looked more like spells than medicine.

On the table, on the strangely cluttered side of the room, an open notebook. Tristan hesitated, then picked it up.

The handwriting was restless, hurried — a mix of sketches of flowers, internal organs, and symbols that resembled runes or something like them, though distorted. He read aloud softly, trying to understand:

“Sap synthesis with silver powder — possible regenerative link... incomplete sample — exposure causes tissue excitation — partial success.”

He turned the page.

“If moonlight can restore vitality to plant cells, what might it do to the blood of those born beneath it?”

His jaw hardened.

He didn’t understand the details — the formulas, the terms, the symbols — but he understood enough.

This wasn’t medicine.

He dropped the notebook onto the table with a dry snap. “Witchcraft,” he muttered.

He moved toward a shelf. The jars bore strange labels. Some contained crushed leaves; others, small bones suspended in translucent liquids. One jar held a severed root that, for some reason, pulsed as if still alive.

Tristan stepped back, disgusted.

“So this is what fascinates my sister?”

He imagined Lissandra in this room, her fingers brushing the same pages. The image made his skin crawl.

Two of the Four Lycan Kingdoms had already fallen to this kind of madness: scholars toying with chemical reactions, creating liquids capable of impossible and dangerous feats. Norden would not be next. Not while he breathed.

A sound shattered the silence: the creak of the door.

Tristan turned.

Eron stood in the doorway, holding a bundle of dried herbs in his hands.

“Your Highness,” he said, bowing his head. He had recognized him by his attire. “An unexpected honor.”

Tristan met his gaze coldly. “Your laboratory reeks of corruption.”

Eron set the herbs carefully on the table. “I see my son’s experiments have unsettled you.”

“‘Unsettled’ is a poet’s word,” Tristan replied curtly. “I’d call it an offense.” He pointed at the notebook. “What do these notes mean?”

The physician’s tone remained calm, though his hands, clasped behind his back, were tense. “Research, my prince. Nothing more. Agon has a curious mind. He believes knowledge, when properly used, can serve the realm. He’s fascinated by plants.”

“Serve the realm?” Tristan stepped closer, his gaze burning. “By playing with colored liquids that might explode in your face while you stir them?”

Eron held his stare. “With all due respect, Your Highness, Agon is not mad. He studies to heal. He uses herbs, not curses.”

“Herbs?” Tristan cast a scornful glance at a nearby jar where something luminous moved slowly within the liquid. “That’s not an herb, physician.”

“It’s a root from the fields of our homeland,” Eron explained carefully. “My son discovered that when exposed to—”

“Enough.” Tristan cut him off. “Remember your place. My father must hear of this.”

The silence that followed was sharp as glass.

Eron lowered his eyes, but not his resolve. “I know my place, yes. Just as I know my duty — to the health of the royal family and all who live and work in this palace.”

“Then remember your duty doesn’t give your son the right to play god under this roof,” said Tristan. “If I find out he’s dragged my sister into this madness…”

“…Your sister?”

Tristan said nothing more. He left the threat hanging, incomplete but heavy as steel.

Eron drew a long breath. “My son will bring no harm to Princess Lissandra.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Make sure he proves it. For both your sakes.”

He turned away. At the door, he cast one last glance at the room and muttered under his breath, just loud enough for the walls to hear:

“Perhaps your son has forgotten his place.”

The door shut with a deep thud, like a verdict.

For a long moment, Eron didn’t move.

He stood there, surrounded by the pulsing silence of the laboratory. Agon’s notes fluttered faintly in the air Tristan had left behind. He looked at the notebook lying on the table and sighed, weary.

“Curiosity is not a crime,” he murmured.

He bent down, picked up the notebook, and smoothed its pages, as if protecting something alive. He didn’t fully understand his son’s fascinations, but he knew how much they mattered to him — and he would never rebuke him for wanting to grasp what no one else cared to.

…

Agon walked with a small bundle of herbs in his arms, his apron still stained with soil and resin. He had spent the morning in the outer gardens, collecting samples under the curious eyes of palace workers and the disdainful stares of guards. The light filtered through the stained glass, casting blue patches on the floor — and beneath one of those patches, he saw him.

Tristan.

The prince stood in the middle of the corridor, as if the palace itself had grown legs to block the way. The yellow gleam in his inhuman eyes was that of someone who had already decided the tone of the conversation before speaking a word.

“Lord Agon.”

Tristan’s voice was low but heavy with authority.

Agon stopped, bowing his head slightly in respect. “Your Highness.”

“I see your duties as the royal physician’s assistant keep you busy.” Tristan stepped forward, his boots echoing down the corridor. “But I fear your concept of ‘duty’ includes… improper matters.”

Agon took a slow breath. The air between them felt thicker than normal. “I’m not sure what Your Highness means.”

“No?” Tristan came closer, his eyes like blades. “Strange. Because I was in your father’s chamber this morning. I saw what’s inside — your… experiments.”

Agon kept his face neutral, though his pulse throbbed in his temples. “They’re only botanical studies, nothing more.”

“Botanical?” Tristan raised an eyebrow, sarcasm dripping slowly. “I saw symbols and drawings even the Oracle of Norden couldn’t decipher. I saw substances that seemed to breathe. Tell me, Lord Agon… is that how you serve the crown? By creating monsters in jars?”

Agon stepped back half a pace, holding his gaze with calculated calm. Normally, he didn’t pay much attention to how others smelled, but something in Tristan’s scent made him want to flee.

“I don’t create monsters, Your Highness.”

For a heartbeat, silence became almost tangible.

Tristan clenched his jaw and growled, closing the gap between them until they were an arm’s length apart. “You think knowledge makes you our equal.”

Offended, Agon growled back and answered before he could stop himself, voice firm and low: “And Your Highness seems to think a title makes you superior to everyone else.”

The air froze.

A servant passing in the distance pretended to see nothing and slipped through another door. The entire corridor seemed to hold its breath.

Tristan stepped forward, his face inches from Agon’s. “Watch your words. Here, insolence can be mistaken for treason.”

Agon held his gaze, and for a brief instant, something sparked there — like an experiment on the verge of explosion. But he controlled the impulse. The sarcasm died on his lips, and the scientist took a small step back, lowering his tone.

“It’s not my intention to offend. Only to answer truthfully.”

Tristan studied him as if weighing the words — and for a second, he almost seemed frustrated not to find the fear he sought.

“Remember your place, physician’s son,” he said finally, his voice cold and restrained. “My sister’s heart is too compassionate. It would be unfortunate if someone tried to take advantage of that.”

Agon looked up, his tone still calm but with a shadow of irony impossible to hide. “Compassion isn’t weakness, Your Highness. It’s the mark of those who can still see good where others see only hierarchy.”

Tristan stared at him in silence for a long moment. Then he turned sharply and strode down the corridor, the sound of his boots fading over the marble — dry, rhythmic, commanding.

Agon stood still until the echo was gone. Only then did he let out a quiet sigh and continue on his way. But the encounter would not go unnoticed.

Servants had seen. Guards had overheard fragments — Tristan’s raised voice, the scientist’s calm defiance. Within hours, the halls of Norden whispered about “the meeting in the corridor”: the prince and the physician’s son, face to face like fire and ice.

Some said Agon had insulted royal blood. Others, that Tristan had lost control. None knew exactly what had been said, but all sensed the same scent in the air: something dangerous beginning to burn. And among the shadows of the columns, someone — perhaps a servant, perhaps a counselor — murmured softly:

“Seems the scientist fears nothing.”

But what no one noticed was that, at that very moment, Agon was smiling to himself as he walked back to his father’s room, his fingers still stained with earth. It wasn’t that he felt no fear. He was simply very good at replacing it with something worth thinking about.

In his case, how eager he was to show his next notes to Lissandra.