Chapter 4 : Break Loose

"He could conceal the truth but he couldn’t seal your power."

If this is your first time here, welcome aboard! Let’s start from Chapter 1:

Chapter 1 : The Forest

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Places mentioned:

Tyrannoson:

One of the three kingdoms on the Central Continent, ruled by the Valrino family.

Spring

The capital city of Tyrannoson.

Linsaidea:

One of the three kingdoms on the Central Continent, northwest of Tyrannoson, across a narrow sea, the Rustless Sea, to Mandia. A nomadic, rather savage people that tame mammoths.

Dinar:

One of the three kingdoms on the Central Continent, south of Tyrannoson, a desert nation.

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Creatures (that can speak and have names) mentioned:

Leopoldo Valrino

The King of Tyrannoson, and the sixth monarch of the Valrino family.

Yisreal Valrino

A son of the King of Tyrannoson.

Carwen Valrino

The King’s only daughter.

Princess Irene

The King’s daughter-in-law who is married to his eldest son.

Oberon Mellon

Ivan’s father.

Moine Mellon

Ivan’s grandfather.

Mr. Galorde

Ivan’s grandfather’s apprentice, having served both his grandfather and father as their assistant.

Lewis

An apprentice at the Medical Tower.

Howard

A royal pharmacist.

Susan

A royal pharmacist.

Garwallos

One of the sixth gods that participated in the Creation. At this point, Ivan doesn’t know what Garwallos created.

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4

Break Loose

Forty years ago, during the war against Dinar, he was reported buried by a sandstorm. So when the old king died, his younger brother, Lerwick, became the new king.

Two years later, he returned and hid himself in a brothel in Spring, where he met with his loyal followers. Lerwick discovered him within only fourteen days, and then he spent five more years in exile, hiding in the wilderness and foreign lands. Soon after he collected an army with evidence of the old king's death, he overthrew Lerwick.

Lerwick was hanged for usurpation, regicide, and treason, while his wife and children died from an acute disease the same night.

That was the man, Leopoldo Valrino, sitting on the throne, looking terrible.

His eyes were swollen and the skin underneath was dark, his lips chapped, and his head barely lifted as if the crown was crushing him even though he wasn't wearing one. He didn't ask anything about my trip. No greeting. No mention of my father's death. He lifted his eyelids, and from a brief glance, he knew that I was my father's son. He called me to come closer by slowly moving his right hand that was resting on the chair's arm.

“Your Grace.” I kneeled again right in front of him.

He stood up and spoke as he turned his back to me. “Follow me.”

The King walked me to a chamber in the west wing of Castle Katella. It was the redness that astonished me first.

The chamber was unlit. Outside, all three floor-to-ceiling windows on the same side of the wall were fuming with red smoke from the setting sun, like three entries to another world. It was not the typical orange-red; it was a vivacious red with a tint of pink, just like fresh blood. Every dust was a flare, and as the wind blew in, the red sheer curtains flew up across one-third of the room above the bed, where lay the King's son, Yisreal.

The prince's skin was bluish-purple, and his eyeballs were turbid, with no clear distinction between the white and the black of his eyes.

So this is it. All of this is about.

“Was he poisoned?” I asked, trembling.

King Leopoldo grabbed Yisreal’s hand and stroked it gently, which alerted me; no, it wasn’t contagious. Then how did my father get the same symptoms?

“No, I don’t think so.” His voice was sad yet rumbling like faraway thunder.

“How did it happen?”

His eyes glazed over Yisreal. “I don’t know. No one knows.”

“So there’s no clue about the poison?”

As I spoke, this thought flared across my mind: my father was poisoned by the same thing as the prince. He must have found the source.

“What about my father?” I blurted out, having forgotten whom I was speaking with. “Do you know how he died?”

“No.”

“But he died with the same—”

“I don’t know!” With a low growl, the King shut me up. I was supposed to apologize and beg for forgiveness, but I persisted in silence.

Leopoldo closed his eyes with a sigh.

“I don’t expect a little boy like you to save my son when even your father couldn’t, but I have no better choice. Every physician in Spring has been called. No one did any good. Your father was the only one who at least died with what he couldn’t help with. He has kept his honor.”

“And he didn’t leave a word about what happened to him?”

The King barely shook his head. He reached Yisreal’s neck where there was a silvery chain, and the King groped out a pendant that fell under the nape. He rubbed it carefully. I couldn’t see the whole thing, only the luster. No doubt it was precious.

I took a breath and emboldened myself to speak again.

“Your Grace, I need to obtain some blood samples from His Highness, which means I would need to pierce one of his fingertips.”

The King raised his eyes at me and then rose as slowly as the sun sank. I swallowed while passing him to collect the blood sample.

After I was done, he placed his heavy, calloused hand on my shoulders. If only he tried, he could have disjointed me.

“I won’t let Yisreal sleep underground by himself.”

He stepped out, and my whole body, especially my legs, began to shiver involuntarily.

I sat on the bed, looking at my patient, but all that flared in my mind was the body of my father. He had been poisoned after the prince, yet the prince was still here, while my father had long gone. I didn't understand. I watched the clouds on fire as Yisreal's life slipped away, not sure what to think about. I should have let the guards bring back a report that I had run into the forbidden forest and died.

“Are you the new Maester?”

I stood up at once and turned around. It was a young girl, about thirteen, dressed in apple green finery, standing under the doorframe. She walked in and immediately shifted her attention to the bed.

“Oh!” The girl burst into tears.

I looked at her and suddenly felt ashamed of the hardness of my heart, but I didn’t dare say anything without knowing her identity. Her soft, long hair was pinned with gems, her belt glittered in the dim light, and her hands were fine as ivory.

“You must save him, Maester,” she cried. “Poor Yisreal, my poor brother! You mustn’t die!”

Immediately, I stood up. “I’m very sorry, My Princess.”

She didn’t look at me, speaking while sobbing, “He disappeared for almost thirteen days, and when he was found in front of the castle, his skin was already blue. Ever since Maester Mellon died from similar symptoms, I’ve been worried sick. Maester, if you can save Yisreal, my father would give you anything, as long as you ask!”

“My name is Ivan, Princess. I will try my best.”

“Ivan,” she wiped off her tears. “I’m Carwen.”

“Princess Carwen.” I kneeled and kissed her hand.

“Just Carwen, I mean, between us.” She glanced at me. “You are even younger than I thought.”

Carwen told me many things about Yisreal, with an admiration that had nowhere else to express, but I was shocked to hear that Yisreal was a Garwallos.

Garwallos, named after the most mighty and warmongering god, was the title given to the greatest warrior of the Central Continent. Only aristocrats were qualified to attend every four years.

I glanced at Yisreal. Although the body was disfigured, it was obviously a young body that was limited to harbor great violence.

“How old was he when he won?” I asked.

“Fifteen,” Carwen answered proudly.

“But isn’t—”

Carwen smiled satisfactorily. “No, he wasn’t old enough.”

Immediately, I recalled I was stealing watermelons and pumpkins and being chased by the neighbor’s dogs at fifteen. I’d fought a wolf with a stick and had been carrying that stick around since. But we country boys detested that combat where all fighters wore the finest armor, held the hardest shields, and would cause national troubles if they accidentally killed their opponents. A Garwallos at fifteen, so what? I’d rather watch a real fight at the arena.

“Mother said he was not qualified to attend in the first place, so in the end, the honor went to the second-place winner—another Dinarian.”

I smiled unconsciously, and seeing Carwen’s confusion, I frowned quickly. “And His Grace?”

“Father wasn’t happy about that. You know we haven’t had any Garwallos in the past hundred years.”

I see.

The more Carwen tried to impress me with her beloved brother, the more I felt hopeless about saving him. I was haunted by a sense of doom that was much attributed to Yisreal's overly fruitful youth, as if he must die before falling into mediocrity.

Carwen glanced at the window and sprang up.

“I have to go. My nanny must be looking for me. I’ll be in trouble if they find out.” She quickly wiped her face and looked around the chamber.

“My Princess?”

“Where’s the mirror?”

I looked around. “No, I don’t see a mirror.”

“Anyway.” She took a breath, walked to the door, and turned around. “Ivan, please save him—and don’t tell anyone that you met me here.”

“You have my word,” I said without thinking. For the second half.

Her footsteps faded down the hallway. The moon had risen. A servant boy came in to light the candles all around the chamber. I watched him moving around. He should have come earlier. There should have been more servants here. There should have been more stuff here. The chamber was incredibly simple: only a bed, a desk, a chair, a wardrobe, and a couch. All wooden, all hard. No mirror, only my shadow on the windows by the candlelight. I looked up at the curtain flowing above my head. I looked at it for so long that even when the servant boy left, I didn't notice. I looked at it, as if in its graceful dance, there was a better motivation for me to save Yisreal.

Do I really want to know how my father died?

I walked out of the chamber and saw no one else coming. The deep hallway outside echoed with forlornness. It was already a grave.

The refreshing, earthy smell of grass and the loud crickets calmed me as the shadows of my horse and I slowly split from the tremendous shadow of Castle Katella on the ground.

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A dark-haired woman stood by the handrail on the second floor, looking at me. A lanky, freckled boy with red hair—very shy, very young—nodded to me. A man came down the stairs and introduced himself in a lukewarm manner. His name was Howard, a pharmacist.

“And that’s Susan,” Howard pointed at the dark-haired woman upstairs, who was the other pharmacist. We stood awkwardly for a moment before the red-haired boy asked if I would like to put my suitcases away.

I shook my head and paced around. The tower had four levels, with only the ground floor and the top floor having actual platforms; the second and third floors simply surrounded the first floor with handrails. Shelves, drawers, and cases filled with bottles, books, and jars covered the walls on those two open floors. In the middle of the ground floor, there were five stoves, and only one was burning, with a pot boiling on the fire.

“Who’s this potion for?” I broke the silence.

“For Princess Irene,” Howard answered casually.

“She wants a baby?”

A momentary surprise flashed in Howard’s light blue eyes before he shrugged it off. “Everybody knows.”

I glanced up at Susan, who was listening while pretending to be busy finding drugs.

“Then you should use Horsebitting grass that was cut in winter, not these summer cuts,” I said, looking around for traces of my father. “Summer cuts are too warm for females. She will have hot flushes if she drinks this on a daily basis.”

Susan’s shadow upstairs paused its pretentious rummaging.

“Where’s the servant?” I asked, looking around. “Have someone pour this out.”

“We do use the winter cut,” Howard insisted, measuring me.

“Winter cuts smell bittersweet; these smell crisp and spicy.”

“I’ll pour it, Maester.” The red-haired boy came back, lifted the pot from the stove, and walked out to the backyard.

“Lewis is an apprentice, not a servant, Maester.”

An old man stepped out from a room on the ground floor, looking at me with a harsh warmth.

The moment I saw him, I knew he was Mr. Galorde, my father’s assistant, who was first cultivated by Grandpa as his apprentice. He was supposed to be my assistant, but even standing in front of him shrank my just-boosted pride.

Susan finally came down the stairs. She wasn’t a very good-looking woman, but smart-looking—prominent forehead, hooded eyes, thin, flat lips. She glanced at me, saying nothing, and I didn’t care that much—respect or authority. I would either be one of the greatest Mellons ever by saving Yisreal or die by failing.

“You must be Galorde,” I said, nodding to the old man.

He walked closer and patted his rough hand on my head, frowning with a complicated expression. With no small talk, he handed me a key and said, “Your father’s workplace is up there. But I’m afraid you can’t enter it with the key.”

I was bewildered. “Then why are you giving me the key?”

“I’m passing on to you what belonged to your father. Now, go get some sleep.” He then seamlessly turned around and added, “And you all, everybody, it’s time for bed.”

Susan, Howard, and Lewis left. I stopped Galorde as he followed them to the door.

I showed him the mini glass tube with Yisreal's blood in it.

“I need more information on His Highness’s treatment history.” I shook the tube. “I also need some reagents to analyze the toxicity. I must use my father’s workplace tonight.”

Galorde looked unconcerned, almost relieved. He raised one of his gray, bushy, and messy brows and said, “Oh, it’s turning blue! The last time the blood was still purple!”

“So? Purple means that the color was closer to normal blood?”

“How smart,” he said, unimpressed. “When I collected the blood for your father after he was poisoned, it was blue, and within half a day, he had—” he swallowed, “passed away.”

This moment of grief was quickly washed away by my anxiety. I insisted that he help me open my father’s workplace.

He knocked on my head.

“Ouch! You—”

“Go to bed! You know where your chamber is, right? Go! It’s too late.”

“Of course it’s too late!” I yelled since there were just the two of us. “The prince is dying! Go to sleep? And then what? Wait for the king to chop off my head?”

“Calm down, lad,” Galorde hushed me while putting his hands on my shoulders and gazing at me with sincere seriousness. “If you trust me, who has survived two kings, I promise that this king won’t be able to kill you. Now, go to sleep—that’s your best choice.”

He walked to the door with me yelling at his back, “Yeah, thank you, the best choice is to kill myself right now!”

Galorde raised a hand above his shoulders, waving without turning around. As soon as he shut the door, I was furious, pacing back and forth and staring at the stove fire with an urge to kick it over. I kept rubbing the key with my thumb as I looked up at the top floor. Without much hesitation, I grabbed a candlestick and walked up the spiral stairs to the top loft, where my father’s office was.

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I turned the knob, adjusted the door, and tried inserting the key deeper and then pulling it out a bit. It wouldn’t open. I pulled, pushed, and kicked, cursing hopelessly.

“Damn it! Damn it!” I kicked the door. “Somebody come open the door!”

My head started spinning after I heard a whisper that was like a fast-moving object rustling through the grass. I turned around, and my surroundings began to wave like hot air over the desert, and strangely, I saw things much clearer—

I could see everything—from the beams of the tower to the texture of the fire in the stove on the ground floor, and even the occasional blue flares in the red. There was a basket suspended in midair, which was used to transport drugs to different floors, and I could hear the sound of a hair-thin thread breaking in the thick, twisted rope. Even the things outside were audible. An early fallen leaf crisply grazed across a hard, barren spot on the ground; an owl fluttered and retracted its wings, and the branch it perched on vibrated. Shifting my attention back inside, I saw ants climbing out of a crack in a shelf on the third floor, and some freshly cut herbs losing juice to the liquor that soaked them in the jar. These details inundated me, and I held onto the handrail while kneeling on the floor in case I tipped over. I felt like a blind and deaf man since birth miraculously cured.

Just now, I perceived something that was more than micro and faint, something that could have petrified me but appeared reasonable in this situation. The core of the fire in the stove turned green, and that flare of greenness rose to the dome, so conspicuous yet so dark, shrouding the tower and dimming it. Then it took shape, fell on the stairs, and moved up to me.

“I—van—” a hiss of my name seemed to come from the green, worming fire.

I stood up and pushed my back against the door of my father’s workplace. “Who’s there?”

“You—can’t—save—him—” it spoke again with the slow and low voice of dilapidation.

“Who…who are you?” I swallowed. A chill ran down my spine as I saw the body enwrapped in the green flames. A snake. A long, skinny, triangle-headed snake, flicking its tongue and crawling along the floor to my feet, raised its head to mine. I grabbed the candlestick, ready to burn it and then stab it with the needles that pierced into the candles.

“Oberon—died—for—nothing—” it hissed to my face.

Its mouth was entirely black. It was a black mamba, one of the most poisonous snakes. Its venom was also one of the best medicines to detoxify other poisons. I wasn't really afraid of it, but this was not just a black mamba; it was a speaking snake that sounded exactly like something that was never supposed to speak.

"What the hell are you?" I tried to sound calm and formidable, even though my feet started inching backward toward the unopenable door.

The snake shrieked—or laughed—and I had to cover my ears with my hands.

“Who-am-I? I-van—”

It sank to the ground and started creeping to my feet, entangling my ankles, my calves, my knees—I didn’t move or struggle, as I didn’t feel anything except for its movement that I saw. What happened? Did I lose my sensations?

“I was enslaved by the Mellons for a hundred years—you drowned me—sucked out my blo—od—” It extended the word "blood" extra-long and almost deafened my ears.

“En…slaved?”

The snake didn’t answer but slowly spiraled up my legs and moved its head back with its tongue flicking in my face. I reflexively closed my eyes—but again, I didn’t feel it at all; nothing wet, nothing cold.

“Why—did—you—call—me—”

“What?” My skin was covered with goosebumps, and my mind was filled with confusion.

“What—do—you—want—Mellon?”

“I was trying to open the door.”

I immediately regretted being honest with a snake as its body quickened to spiral up my waist and chest. The slow, sinister way it spoke gnawed at me.

“You—can’t—open—a—door—”

The snake shrieked even more loudly this time. “He—can’t—open—a—door!”

I yelled out while covering my ears: “Shut up! Shut! up!”

“Hahahaha—how—pathetic—” The green flames around it fluttered and hissed as if someone had just poured oil on it.

“He raised you as—a—mortal—coward—hahahahaha—Oberon—had always been—a—coward—”

The snake wouldn’t stop laughing. I attacked its head with the candlestick, but nothing happened—the candle, including the flames on top, went through its head as if through the air.

“Oberon died for nothing—” the snake moved to my ears. “He could conceal the truth but he couldn’t—seal—your—pow—er—r—and now, you’re going to die very soon too—mor—tal—”

I saw the shadow of myself and the candlestick in my hand on the door behind me. I moved the burning candle around the snake, but nothing changed. Its head, which could bite my cheek off if it opened its mouth, was right above my shoulders, casting no shadow.

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