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Aaron's room, much like his sister's, had become a laboratory. However, instead of it being a laboratory of books and politics, it was a laboratory of alchemy and shadows.
Tonight, he wouldn't be doing the final step in production for his work. That required his mother or brothers to be there, controlling the flow of shadows. Instead, he was unpacking yesterday's work.
He moved mechanically, the dawn light flickering through, as he washed out the equipment. Yesterday he had made gold, but now he rinsed out beakers and reset the apparatus. It was drudgery and would have been done by servants if his mother didn't want the secrets of alchemy stolen, but Aaron didn't mind. It cleared his thoughts, and the familiar routine calmed him down. Cleaning up and resetting was just as important as the act of gold-forging or brewing immortality. He had never been arrogant, anyway. Not like his siblings-sister included.
It was then, in the quiet dawn, that the deadliest and greatest idea of alchemy presented itself to Aaron.
He began by opening one of the old texts, written by alchemists that had come long before him. He liked to flick through them, hoping for inspiration in the muddled writings of foolish men. None of them had gotten anywhere, though he supposed it was hardly their fault. They didn't have access to the essential element of alchemy-Witchairian magic.
He opened the new book that Lysandra had bought him whilst slightly drunk-an old, weathered tome that bore the familiar smell of parchment. Usually books like these went through ageing processes, when cunning booksellers would make them look very old because that would attract alchemists looking for hidden volumes from long-burnt ruins of yada yada.
But you never knew. He examined one of the alchemical poems-yes, this one was truly nonsense-and would have laughed. Except for the fact that whoever wrote this guessed far too much for his own good.
In the sun, in starlight, in fire,
The gold shalt turn to lead,
In the shadows, in the night,
The lead shall grow to shine.
(The editor had forgotten to switch to old language for this line.)
Bind the shadows! Bind the shadows!
Into gold, into forever.
Into breath and bone.
It wasn't actually shadows that made the alchemy function. It was simply their origin-Witchairian Magic. But he had heard the witches been called 'Shadows of the North' or 'Ladies of Shadow' too many times to count. Sun had no effect on alchemy, of course, but light was commonly theorised as the origin or death of alchemy.
He would go to his mother tomorrow and get her to order the copies burnt, devoured by the flame they loved so dearly. They came too close to the truth.
But first, he repeated the last two lines in his head.
Into gold, into forever
Into breath and bone.
The first two made plenty of sense. Turning lead into gold and making the immortality elixir had always been the aim of alchemy, and Aaron had achieved them both. But...the last line was strange. Into breath and bone. Alchemy could not create the living. Well, he had never heard of any theories about it. There were ideas about a cure-all that would heal any disease and a universal solvent-the legendary alkahest-but he had discounted them as fantasy and the line didn't refer to those anyway. It suggested that alchemy could be used to create new life, not heal it or dissolve it.
YOU ARE READING
Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)
Fantasy'Medea Crimson took a deep breath, walked into the abyss and died. It wasn't for the first time.' Completed, first in the Lost Continent Series. Three Kingdoms on the brink. A war on the horizon. The peoples of the Lost Continent are forever divided...
