Offered to the Triplet Alphas

[Xanthea]

"When did they start teaching about diseases of the immortals in the mortal world?" Lady Alessia asked.

"Why would mortals teach about immortals? How would they even know anything about us? They only make it to our packs once they are dead," Lady Letitia said. Then she glanced at me and maybe she realized I wasn't dead yet or maybe that I was still alive. "Or when we bring 'em here alive until they're dead."

"Ok, folks. I asked her a question and I am still waiting for an answer," said Nesryn as her intense look bore into me.

I contemplated my answer.

"Alchemy," I said. "In my realm... in ancient times... there had been many alchemists who laid the foundation for modern chemistry and medical science. I read about it in one such book called 'Alchemy of light'," I said, maintaining eye-contact with her.

"Hmm? Isn't alchemy ours?" Cedric asked with a confused pout.

"It is ours. But from time to time, we have shared our knowledge with the earthly realm through those contracts. What does their realm call it?" Lady Alessia asked thoughtfully.

"The devil's contracts, black magic. They have all kinds of strange terminology for it," Lady Letitia said.

"Right. Right. Those illiterates like giving such unusual names to our ancient and sacred knowledge. There's nothing black and nothing magical in this study. It's all just natural dark science." Lady Alessia said.

"Alchemy involves risks. Mortals are never careful no matter how much we warn them and when something goes wrong, they come and blame us. Call us evil, haunted and what-not!" Lady Letitia scoffed.

"Exactly! We're just being us, like they are being themselves. Although weaker than us, still we don't complain. We're naturally evil, but those nutters choose to be evil and to their own blood more often than you think. They can always choose to be kinder to their own kind and kin, but they're just ruthless. Can you believe it? Being so cruel to their own blood?"

Lady Alessia's words etched through my chest, scraping uneasiness into my veins. I dropped my weary gaze with a tight gulp.

"Here, High lady, drink this..." Nesryn quickly prepared a concoction out of the herbs and boiling water and helped the High lady to drink it.

Taking a deep breath, I stopped the struggling emotions to rise to my chest.

Everyone silently watched the High lady. I watched them with something warm sprawling in my chest. I don't know what I was feeling because I had felt nothing like this before.

Maybe that was what a family looked like.

How everyone came together to care for the one who needed their attention the most. How their bonds needed nothing to grow stronger. There was company and belongingness, care and concern, strange uniqueness and profound individuality with rare acceptance.

I knew I could never be a part of this family. But just watching them from a distance felt like a soothing embrace of a mother.

"You need to finish the potion," Nesryn said.

High lady pushed the glass away and shook her head.

"Not anymore..."

Her complexion turned to a purple hue. I knit my brows.

"It's not bitter. I have added sweeteners to it," Nesryn said, but the High lady kept pushing away the concoction.

"That's enough. I don't want to drink it anymore..." High lady winced.

The discomfort on her face wasn't because of the bitterness. It looked something different.

I glanced at her body again. Examining her more intently. Her fingers were shaking as she covered her mouth.

I shut my eyes and turned over to my mother's notes on this disease.

Last stage of Thintoathanasia or TTA. A flow chart appeared in the image of my mind as I read through it and all the ways TTA affected an immortal-

In case TTA affects the heart, the body below the neck starts to age like a mortal and it shows the same complications as a mortal in old age might face. So, it often causes difficulty for the guts to digest and absorb the right nutrients from the medicines.

It is prescribed to enforce concentrated concoctions to help with the treatment so that the body can absorb maximum from the medicines.

I flipped the page, and there were my mother's notes in her cursive handwriting-

Notes: Although the prescribed treatment must be enforced at all costs, starting the treatment as follows could add a more humane touch to it. Making the treatment a lot more bearable for the patient. It is not a conventional method of treatment, but it works.

It is often uncomfortable for an aged body to process such heavy doses. Their bodies might even reject the medicines in rare cases. Administering the medicines through veins puts the body under the same stress.

So, in early stages of treatment, an alternative could be: making the patient chew the raw medicines and asking them to keep it in their mouths, using their saliva to break it down. Small doses at intervals of an hour or two.

Although it might be a challenge to chew on the bitter medicines and keep their raw juice under their tongue. It can be far more effective than enforcing the prescribed treatment. Because the brain still has immortality factors and the absorption of medicines through their tongue makes it much easier and doesn't put their body under stress.

VVI: Once their body recovers enough to absorb the medicines comfortably...

"Once they have recovered enough, the prescribed way of treatment must be followed..." I mumbled to myself.

"Do you have some mental illness? What do you keep mumbling to yourself?" Cedric's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I opened my eyes.

High lady gulped down the medicines with a lot of struggle. Before she could gulp down the last bit of the concoction, she threw up.

Lady Alessia gasped, slapping her hands over her mouth, her eyes filled with horror.

Lady Letitia stroked her back as she hiccoughed violently.

Nesryn gaped at the mess blankly.

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"I will call Raven," she threw the medicine right at a maid who caught it deftly. She took out her phone.

"No need to call him," High lady spoke through her coughs, blood dripping down from the corner of her lips. "There's nothing... wrong with the medicines. They are the... best meds of all the Infernal packs. I think I am just... not ready, maybe..."

My heart hammered in my chest. Was she blaming herself for not being able to take the medicines?

"He wouldn't come anyway... so don't bother..." High lady said in a tone that broke my heart.

Nesryn lowered her phone, defeated.

Will he really not come to see his mother even when she is this ill?

I gulped hard and clenched my fists. Something within me kicked in, and I stepped forward, having all the reasons not to.

There was something I could do. Something I had never done before. Something I had only read about. But deep down, I had a strong feeling in my guts that it would work.

At least, it would bring the High lady's condition under control.

I walked to the potion box, analyzing the contents in those vials with the reference pictures I had in my mind. I fetched a vial of dried morarentha flowers.

"What do you think you are doing?" Nesryn asked, holding my hand.

"This will help her," I said. "She'll just have to chew it raw and keep its juices in her mouth for a few minutes. This will control her symptoms faster."

"And who exactly are you to prescribe anything to our High lady?" Lady Alessia glared at me. "Just because you knew a little about this disease doesn't mean you are some doctor-"

"Six pods of funungus, three leaves of hetrotia, nine seeds of jixum, four petals of morarentha, dried roots of wild venus..." I recited the complete process of creating the prescribed concoction for TTA.

Everyone peered at me blankly in a silence interrupted only by the High lady's deteriorating condition.

"W-what in the devil's name!? Nes, what is she saying?" Lady Alessia exclaimed.

Nesryn squinted her eyes before letting go of my hand.

"Can I get a warm, wet towel?" I asked, and a maid instantly got it for me.

I wiped High Lady's lips and the stained gown clean, trying my best to not make eye contact with her.

"Your highness please chew this and keep it in your mouth. It would be much more helpful if you could allow its juice under your tongue." I peered at the floor as I presented her with the morarentha flower. "Even if it doesn't work, there will be no side effects because it's a part of the prescribed medicines for you."

I knew I was an outsider, and it was only logical for them to not trust me at all. But-

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High lady's trembling fingers brushed past my palm as she took the flower from my hand.

Minutes passed in silence as even High lady's occasional coughs and wheezes lessened. Her breaths were still labored and rugged, but the flower seemed to have worked.

"Can I... drink the... juice now?" High lady asked in a mouth-filled-with-water kind of tone.

"Yes, your highness," I said.

She gulped hard and then quickly poured the juice down her throat with water.

"If possible, you should chew the prescribed formula for a few days before resuming the actual treatment. It will prepare your body for the stress-"

"Take High lady to her room and clean this mess," Nesryn ordered. "Make sure she rests well."

The maids took High lady to her room. Lady Alessia and Lady Letitia followed her.

"Saw that?" Cedric chuckled. "The best alchemist in the Infernal packs? You are just a doofus! Huh!" He scoffed. "A mortal knows better than you. What a shame. Did you graduate in pea-sized brainology because that's what your range of knowledge seems like-"

"Cedric! What are you doing?" Nesryn folded her hands under her breasts angrily.

I turned around and unconsciously looked right into the camera of Cedric's phone.

"Recording everything," Cedric chuckled, lowering his phone and typing on it with a sly smirk. "Aaaand... sent! This is gonna burn him alive. Haha! What a lovely day!"

He stepped closer to me until his face was only inches apart from mine.

"I knew you were my perfect assassination partner. I am gonna convince you to be my luna and help me kill my brothers, but after I get back from the academy."

He stuffed his phone in his pocket and skated out of the castle.

"Hey! Don't tell me you sent that to Raven!" Nesryn raised her voice, but only a loud laughter from Cedric came as a reply.

She ran her fingers through her hair in frustration.

"He fucking sent it to Raven," she whispered to herself, but I heard it loud and clear.

Her phone rang.

"Oh, no! This can't be good," she grunted before picking up the phone. Nesryn took the call out of the dining hall.

I looked at Mavka, who looked absolutely horrified.

"Should I go back to my room now?" I asked Mavka.

"No. You are coming with me," Nesryn said from behind me. I merely looked at her and it was as if she read the question right off my eyes. "We are going to the Pheles palace - Raven's palace. He wants you there... now!"