The Princess and the Alchemist - Part 28

The Princess and the Alchemist - Part 28
The great courtyard of Norden pulsed with an energy that hadn’t been seen since before the blight. Banners fluttered against the clear sky, and the air carried the fresh scent of damp earth — a scent everyone had forgotten existed. People crowded together, shoulder to shoulder, filling stairways, walls, balconies; entire families, farmers, soldiers, priestesses, and elders. The murmur was nervous, anxious, full of hope, and of the fear of hoping.
The palace doors opened with deliberate slowness. Guards marched out, creating a corridor. And then the Lycan King appeared.
He walked to the gates, where the black metal bars gleamed under the sun. His figure had always been imposing — broad, tall, marked by scars — but there was something different that day: a silent weight that quieted crowds.
The murmuring ceased.
The Lycan King looked at the people of Norden like someone carrying as much pride as a burden. His voice boomed like thunder:
“My people. Today I bring answers.”
A collective breath swept across the courtyard.
“The blight that struck our fields… has been contained.”
The crowd trembled. The Lycan King raised a hand, asking for silence.
“And more than contained, it has been eliminated.”
The sound that followed wasn’t just joy. It was relief, disbelief, people crying, hugging whoever was near, thanking the Moon Goddess, the earth, anything that might be listening.
The Lycan King waited until the voices calmed a little.
“This cure didn’t come from the Moon Goddess alone. It came from effort. From study. From the courage of those who dared to face the unknown instead of hiding from it.” He stepped aside. “And it came from her.”
The door behind him opened again.
Lissandra stepped out with Randal.
She wore a white and silver tunic. And even whiter than the fabric were her hair, shining like beacons, just like her eyes. The entire courtyard went silent for exactly three seconds, and then, as if a wind had swept through the people, someone knelt. And then another. And another. And another. Until, in seconds, all the people of Norden were on the ground in spontaneous reverence.
Lissandra stopped beside her father, stunned. The Lycan King placed a hand on her shoulder, as if affirming the world itself:
“The Oracle of Norden.”
The people filled the air with cries, tears, and names of blessing. Children lifted flowers. Priestesses raised their hands to the sky.
Lissandra bowed her head, thanking everyone, and for a brief instant, her eyes closed. When she opened them, she searched for someone.
Agon.
He stood at the edge of the crowd, half-hidden behind a group of soldiers, as if he had positioned himself there deliberately to avoid drawing any attention. His hands were clasped behind him, posture far too stiff for someone who preferred a study desk to ceremonies. Hair hastily tied. Lab coat clean but worn.
It was Randal who noticed him. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, the prince pushed through the wall of soldiers, grabbed Agon by the arm, and dragged him forward, without asking permission and without accepting resistance.
“Your Highness!” Agon muttered, trying to pull back. “This isn’t— I don’t—”
“Enough,” the prince replied without even looking at him. “You’re not hiding as if you didn’t save this kingdom.”
Agon looked uncomfortable enough to want to stick his head in a bucket and stay there until the ceremony ended. His ears were red. His eyes kept darting to the ground.
Lissandra saw him, and her expression changed — a tenderness so clear and so contained it felt like it traveled the distance like a silent arrow.
Agon lifted his eyes for a heartbeat. Just one. Lissandra smiled at him.
The whole courtyard remained at her feet, but in that moment, for both of them, the world narrowed to a single point of light between the two.
The Lycan King raised his arms, calling for attention again, but Lissandra kept her gaze on Agon for one more second, just long enough for him to understand that despite the grandeur of that scene, she was still the same Lissandra, just as he was still the same young aspiring alchemist who preferred the company of plants — and only a handful of specific people — even if Randal wanted him in full view of everyone.
The kingdom now celebrated the cure found by the physician’s son and assistant and the ascension of the new Oracle. But they had no idea that, right there, two lives were beginning to align.
To never walk apart again.

…

The afternoon light entered the greenhouse like a golden curtain, touching the leaves of the moon-herb and making them shine like small constellations rooted in the soil and in a few pots. The scent of medicinal plants mixed with the soft perfume of the new night-blooming flowers Lissandra insisted on growing there, even when Norden’s climate didn’t seem to agree.
Agon stepped in slowly, closing the door behind him carefully so he wouldn’t accidentally startle her. That place always made him uneasy for housing more plants than he had ever managed to keep in one place, no matter how much he wanted to.
Lissandra stood with her back to him, tending to the soil in a pot, her loose hair falling to her waist. The intense glow of her strands lit the greenhouse interior, competing with the sunlight.
He couldn’t help the thought… or the desire to say it.
“Your hair is… different.”
She turned her face gently, a discreet smile forming on her lips. “Different how?”
Agon took a deep breath, as if about to confess a groundbreaking alchemical secret.
“Shining.” He ran a hand through his own hair, unsure where to put it afterward. “The light suits you. It looks… like part of you.”
Lissandra lowered her gaze, and her smile grew — shy but happy.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I’m still getting used to it.”
“To the shine?”
“To everything.” She touched her own chest without thinking. “To the responsibility. The weight. The… everything that happened.”
Agon stepped closer until he was just a few steps from her.
“You’ve handled everything better than anyone could.”
“I only did because I wasn’t alone.”
Lissandra lifted her face, and in her eyes was a clarity that seemed to cut the air.
“You helped me. More than you think.”
Agon swallowed. “I did what needed to be done.”
“No.” She took one step toward him. “You did much more than that.”
The silence that settled wasn’t uncomfortable. It was dense, full of unspoken things, full of stories waiting to be born. The moon-herb leaves shimmered, as if the garden were listening with interest.
Lissandra drew a breath.
“Agon… I need to tell you something.”
She looked nervous, but not afraid. It was a different kind of trembling — the kind that comes when the heart jumps off a cliff before the mind can stop it.
He straightened his shoulders. “Tell me.”
“When you held me in the hallway… when you thought I was going to faint… I felt something.” She clasped her fingers tightly. “And it wasn’t just pain. Or fear. It was…” She searched for a word and found it. “It was comfort. Your touch calmed me in a way nothing ever has.”
Agon blinked, as if he needed to rearrange his thoughts to avoid saying something absurd.
“I… I’m glad to hear that. Really glad.”
She laughed softly and shook her head.
“I was scared then, too. Not of Tristan. But of what it means. Of what I feel when you’re close.”
The air seemed to tighten around them.
“Lis…” Agon murmured, unable to hide the tremor in his voice.
She walked toward him.
She moved with such natural certainty it felt like the two had been meeting like this for many lifetimes. When she stopped in front of him, she lifted her hand and touched the side of his face, where the faint stubble shadowed his skin.
“I like you, Agon. And not just for what you did for me. I like you as I am now. As Oracle. As a woman. As Lissandra.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing it like someone drinking water after crossing a desert. When he opened them, he found her eyes shining with a light that didn’t come only from the Oracle’s magic — it came from her.
And then she said:
“I want to marry you.”
Agon froze. It felt like the entire universe had frozen with him. Only the garden remained alive, its leaves swaying softly with the breeze drifting in from the open door.
“Marry…?” he repeated, as if trying to confirm he’d heard correctly, his voice surprisingly rough. “But you’re…”
She smiled — a smile full of certainty, confidence, and future.
“Yes. Marry. You and me. No rule forbids the Oracle from marrying.”
Agon let out a disbelieving laugh — short, emotional — and pressed a hand to his chest, as if he needed to hold his own heart in place so it wouldn’t run off.
Lissandra kept smiling.
Inside the greenhouse, among colorful plants and the scent of newly reborn life, the proposal hung in the air like the first star appearing before nightfall. And though the answer was about to be spoken, the sound of his laugh already said everything.
It was the sound of a love that had blossomed long ago. And how it ended, we already know.