Before long, the maids threw open the door and entered. She cried out in a hoarse voice,
“F-fetch a healer! Right now!”
The maids, frozen in shock for a fraction of a second, turned and dashed from the room.
Unable to bear the searing heat, Talia yanked up her skirt and tore away the linen wrapped around her leg. Through a vision that flashed with blinding white flares, the hideous, mottled red skin came into view.
Seeing the pale scar—winding around her left leg like ivy—slowly creeping upward, Talia screamed.
The raised, lumpy tissue had scaled past her knee and up her thigh, spreading thin offshoots toward her lower abdomen. To stop it, she frantically dug her nails into the scar as it squirmed like an earthworm.
Blood trickled down her thigh alongside a scalding agony. Blind to it, she tore wildly at the bark-hard skin. As if trying to stop her, the young wolf forced his head between her hand and leg, letting out a sharp, whimpering whine.
Talia shoved the beast away in a fury.
“Get off me! If I don’t rip this away right now…!”
Clawing at her leg like a madwoman, Talia flinched and froze as she saw Khan tumble off the bed.
Tears welled in her eyes when she saw the wolf limp toward the bedside, favoring one leg after having apparently twisted his paw on the hard floor.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Khan…”
Trembling, Talia hurriedly scooped him up, whispering through ragged, broken breaths. Khan licked her cheek without stopping. Burying her face in his soft fur, she broke into harsh, shuddering sobs.
Just then, someone rushed into the room.
“Your Highness, I came as soon as I was summoned. Where is the—”
Reaching the bed, Tiuran went rigid. Her eyes had caught the blood running down Talia’s leg.
Taking a sharp breath, the Eastern healer dropped to her knees beside the bed, pressed her hands against the wound, and channeled her mana. Gradually, the stinging agony and the fire eating away at her began to recede. Talia let out a long, trembling breath of relief.
“Water…”
At her cracked whisper, the maid waiting by the bedside immediately poured a cup and held it out.
Straining to push herself upright, Talia took the cup in her shaking hands and drank. As the cold water washed down her parched, leather-dry throat, her mind slowly cleared.
“Suddenly my skin was on fire… and my sight started flashing white. Why did this happen?”
“…It appears to be a reaction to the medicine.”
Tiuran, wiping the leg clean with a damp towel, spoke firmly.
“Poppy and mandragora possess potent analgesic qualities, but excessive use brings severe aftereffects. The medicine was abused to such an extent that—”
“It could not be avoided.”
At the sudden interruption, Talia turned her head. Marisen, looking disheveled from having hurried over late, was striding into the room.
“Her Highness has endured chronic pain for years. Having developed a tolerance to ordinary analgesics, the dosage had to be increased if there was to be any relief at all.”
“Even so, relying on herbs that bring deadly consequences cannot be justified,”
Tiuran replied sharply.
“Surely you are aware that such remedies can just as easily become poison?”
Marisen’s face hardened. She looked incensed at having her judgment challenged before witnesses.
“I did not administer it recklessly. It is because Her Highness’s constitution has grown so excessively frail—”
“So now you mean to tell me this is my fault?”
Talia, leaning back against the pillows to catch her breath, cut in with biting coldness. The color drained from Marisen’s face.
“That is not what I meant. I only wished to say that I had no intention of causing Your Highness harm…”
“Whatever your intentions were, your medicine did harm me. That is what happened.”
At the freezing rebuke, the woman bit her lip and bowed her head.
“…I will take care that this never occurs again.”
Talia watched her with narrowed eyes before glancing toward the Eastern healer beside the bed. Tiuran was smoothing the hem of Talia's skirt with calm, deliberate hands.
A bitter memory flickered through her thoughts. Talia studied both healers for a moment, her gaze drifting between them, before speaking with cold resolve.
“From this point on, the two of you will prepare my medicine together.”
Marisen’s head snapped up.
“Your Highness, I am a senior healer formally trained for years by the Taren. There is no reason for me to be placed on equal footing with an herbalist from the East—”
“Are you defying my command?”
Clutching her throbbing head, Talia cut her short without mercy.
“Tiuran is a healer of the Shearkan house. She once held the same standing as you. Yet she was reduced to an assistant simply for making an error in her prescription. Would it not be fair if you were met with the very same measure?”
Left with nothing to counter her, Marisen pressed her lips into a tight line.
Talia continued, her tone chillingly flat.
“The two of you will take turns tending to me.”
“…I shall obey your will.”
The woman answered stiffly, eyes lowered to the floor.
Weariness washing over her, Talia gestured toward the door with her chin.
“Leave. For today, Tiuran will see to me.”
Marisen parted her lips as if to speak, but finally gave a resigned look and turned to leave.
Drained of strength, Talia sank deeper into the pillows and turned her gaze to the woman remaining at her bedside.
Despite the abrupt reinstatement, Tiuran showed neither surprise nor triumph. Unruffled, she stepped over to the brazier and began dropping herbs into a pot.
“I will brew a medicinal tea to purge the toxins lingering in your blood. Once you have taken a cup, you must eat some porridge, drink plenty of water, and rest. It would also be wise to reduce the painkillers for the present. In their place, I will seek another method to ease the ache…”
“I understand, but look at Khan’s leg first.”
Talia carefully gathered Khan from her lap, speaking with frantic concern.
“He fell from the bed because of me. I think he hurt his foreleg.”
Tiuran, who had been stirring the pot with a ladle, returned to the bedside.
Khan remained motionless like a doll while the healer gently probed his limb. Yet beneath his chest, Talia could feel his tiny heart hammering furiously.
It stung her to see him so visibly shaken on her account. More than that, she was terrified he might come to despise her.
“The bone isn’t broken, is it?”
“It is only a strained tendon. Beasts of his kind possess remarkable resilience; he should be whole again within days.”
Despite Tiuran’s reassuring words, Talia’s unease did not settle.
“Can you not mend it with healing magic right now?”
“Your Highness, magical beasts bear high resistance to spellcraft. Unless one forces an overwhelming amount of mana into them, ordinary healing takes little effect.”
Talia felt her heart drop. It meant that if Khan were ever grievously wounded in the days ahead, there was next to nothing she could do for him.
She looked down at the pup, her face pale.
Khan was still visibly cowed. His tail, which normally fluttered, was clamped tight without a quiver, and his ears were pinned flat.
With guilt pressing heavily on her chest, she pulled Khan gently into her arms. Rather than squirming or pulling back, the wolf pressed his nose into the crook of her neck and let out a faint whimper.
To have him nuzzle closer without an ounce of grudge after she had treated him so roughly made her throat knot up instantly.
“I’m so sorry, Khan. I won’t ever hurt you again.”
Caressing the small, trembling body, Talia felt a gaze upon her and glanced up. The healer was watching her, eyes tinged with a soft pity. In that moment, a prickle of humiliation ran down her neck, as though she had been stripped bare.
Her voice came out sharper than intended.
“Did you not say you were brewing a tea? Why are you standing there gaping instead of doing your work?”
“Forgive me. It will be ready shortly.”
Tiuran replied calmly, turning back toward the hearth.
With a flick of her hand, Talia dismissed the maids watching anxiously from the corner, lowered the pup onto the carpet, and limped behind the folding screen. There, the bath was filled with cold water.
Shedding her blood-stained indoor robe, she sank down into the water. As the cool chill enveloped her smoldering flesh, the coiled tension finally seeped from her limbs.
Curling up in the tub to catch her breath, Talia glanced down at her submerged leg. Without her noticing, the scar that had clawed its way up her torso had receded to its familiar shape. She traced it with trembling fingertips, then splashed the icy water roughly over her face.
END
