Pick Your Poison

Chapter 5

Being surrounded by plants and books has proven itself to be the most comforting surroundings. They caused Fychon to be much more productive than he was whenever in the same room as the groggy prince.

He'd spend half the day in prince Kaine's bedroom, but in the end he barely made any progress. While, as soon as he moved himself and all his books and notes to the garden, he completed his research within the next two hours.

He had established to identify the poison this plant held; it was obviously Atropine poison, meaning he should be able to make a working antidote using the seeds of the also-toxic Physostigma Venenosum.

The only thing was that he would have to find that plant first. He didn't carry it with him, and to be completely honest he'd never even come across it in the forest he lived in himself. And since the only poisonous plant in the palace's garden was the Marwolaeth Araf used to poison prince Kaine, he was certain he wouldn't find it within the castle's walls.

With his head held low and a thousand thoughts running through his head, Fychon made his way back to the prince's room. He needed to explain what he'd found out and how it somehow had made everything even harder.

Unlike being able to treat prince Kaine with some regular herbs, like Fychon had hoped to, he now would have to travel to where these sacred plants grew.

He didn't like breaking this news, especially since prince Kaine could only have a few days left to live and finding these beans could take even longer than that.

It got even harder to break this news to the royal family, when Fychon arrived at prince Kaine's room. There were people inside, like most times Fychon wasn't in there with prince Kaine, and Fychon could hear them talking. Most of the words were just whispers and could almost not be heard from outside of the room. But there was one small voice that made its way to Fychon's ears.

"I'm just scared."

Fychon felt his heart sink a little when he realized that it was prince Kaine's voice. Unlike he did around Fychon, he seemed to drop his act when with his family; he really did sound terrified, which send shivers down Fychon's spine.

Somewhere deep down it would've been easier if Fychon hadn't heard it. It would've been easier to let the prince be like this for another few days if he was really as numb and uncaring as Fychon initially thought.

That's why, his heart felt so heavy when he opened the door and asked if he could speak to the king and queen in the hallway, alone. He didn't look up from the floor, because he didn't want his eyes to make it clear that the situation was direr than Fychon had hoped for it to be.

He also had his eyes fixated on his shoes as he whispered, "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? What are you sorry about?" the king asked, sounding worried instead of offensive this time.

Fychon swallowed. "The antidote is going to be hard to make." He looked up at the king and queen, his eyes giving them an apology.

The queen forced a weak smile. "But it is possible, right?"

"Well-" Fychon shrugged. "The materials I'll need; they're pretty sacred. I'll have to travel far to find them." Fychon bit the inside of his cheek; hesitant about telling them about the antidote being poison as well, eventually deciding to word it as, "And treating him with this will be dangerous as well."

Of course, the king and queen didn't take that as an answer; they asked for more, or rather why it was so dangerous.

"It's because poison is usually treated by injecting a different poison with opposite side effects." Fychon wished he just could stay silent about this, because he knew it would only worry them more in the end. "If done well, they'll cancel each other out. But this means that if it does go wrong-"