One day, as I had gone into town, I was discussing with Ryan in his office.
— Ravena, we need more remedies against malaria in the south of the country, he said in a falsely concerned tone.
You know it's an extremely poor region. The people there are ravaged by all sorts of strange diseases.
He paused, then his gaze changed.
— I want you to concoct a remedy powerful enough… to make me richer than I already am.
He stood up from his chair, walked around the desk, and approached me.
He placed a hand on my shoulder, as if he wanted to appear friendly.
— You won't need to make a lot of them, he added.
A single specimen will suffice.
We will replicate it here on a large scale.
I slowly shook my head.
— If you replicate them, they will never be worth the original.
What I create is unique.
It's handmade.
Ryan immediately frowned.
— Come on… Replication produces a copy perfectly identical to the original, on all levels.
How can you believe in that kind of superstition?
I looked him straight in the eyes.
— Do as you wish.
But don't come complaining afterward.
He remained silent for a moment, then sighed.
— Very well.
We'll do it your way.
But can you produce more than two million doses by next week?
I replied without hesitation:
— Of course I can.
And it wasn't a lie.
In reality, I could have made far more still.
What everyone ignored was that I wasn't an ordinary human.
I was born with a gift.
I could wield magic with disconcerting ease.
My remedies weren't simple plant mixtures:
they contained a living healing magic, woven directly into their structure.
That's why I had warned Ryan.
They could copy my formulas, reproduce my recipes using machines…
but they would never achieve the effectiveness of the original.
The artificial does not generate magic.
And in my remedies, magic was just as essential as the plants themselves.
Ravena left the office without another word.
Outside, the city continued to live as if nothing existed beyond itself.
People walked, bargained, laughed, talked…
all prisoners of their habits, their roles, their little certainties.
She advanced through them without really seeing them.
She had only one goal:
to leave this place as quickly as possible and return to her isolated zone, far from this agitation she almost instinctively despised.
But barely had she crossed a few streets when a crowd attracted her attention.
A compact crowd had formed around a small body lying on the ground.
A child.
He lay on an old worn cloth, his face pale, his breathing irregular.
He wasn't dead yet…
but something was deeply wrong.
The mother was kneeling beside him, in tears, her hands trembling.
— Please… someone… help him…
Around them, people murmured, stepped back, watched without acting.
Some shook their heads.
Known remedies had already been tried.
None had worked.
The woman had spent everything.
Every coin.
Every hope.
Ravena approached slowly.
A single glance at the child was enough for her.
She understood immediately.
It wasn't an ordinary disease.
It wasn't even something that classical medicine could treat.
Without making a sound, she went to the mother and knelt beside her.
— Hello, ma'am.
The woman raised eyes reddened by tears, surprised by this calm voice amid the chaos.
Ravena opened her small worn satchel and took out a vial.
A clear liquid, slightly luminous.
— Make him drink this all at once, she said simply.
He'll be fine after.
The mother hesitated for a fraction of a second, then seized the vial as if it were the last thing to cling to.
— Who… who are you? she asked in a broken voice.
Ravena did not reply.
She was already standing up, turning her back to the crowd.
Without waiting for thanks.
Without waiting for recognition.
She walked away, blending back into the city, as if nothing had happened.
Behind her, a few seconds later, a more regular breath was heard.
But Ravena did not turn around.
She wasn't there to be seen.
When I returned home, my steps led me almost mechanically away from the city.
Yet my mind remained caught on the image of that boy lying on the ground.
I thought back to what he really had.
It wasn't an ordinary disease.
It was a mind infection.
This kind of affliction is not treated with classical decoctions, nor with traditional medicines, nor even with the treatments that most healers consider advanced.
A mind infection acts on a different plane.
It causes what is called spiritual fever:
a brutal surge of parasitic energy that burns the subject's mental essence, weakens the physical body, and ultimately leads to death if nothing is done.
The body, unable to understand what is attacking it, exhausts itself fighting something invisible.
This type of disease almost always appears after a direct encounter with a spirit.
Not just any spirit.
A spirit charged with hostile intentions.
With resentment, hatred, or simply predatory will.
This meant one very clear thing:
that boy had crossed paths with a malevolent spirit.
Face to face.
I knew this sensation well.
Because I too, living far from cities, near forests and areas where boundaries are blurred, had already encountered that kind of entities.
I had suffered this infection myself.
The fever.
The visions.
The progressive weakness of the body.
The sensation that something was insinuating itself into the mind, slowly.
At the time, no one had come to help me.
So I had found the remedy alone.
That's when I had understood that purely material medicine had limits…
and that magic, well used, could fill that void.
When I finally arrived at my hut, the sun was already low.
I set down my bag, removed my city clothes, and put on simpler attire, more suited to work.
Here, I didn't need a facade.
No one to impress.
I then went down to the cellar.
That was where I truly worked.
The air was cooler there, charged with smells of earth, dried roots, and plants hanging from the beams.
Rough wooden shelves ran along the walls, filled with jars, notebooks, vials, and stones engraved with ancient symbols.
I didn't have a sophisticated laboratory.
But I had better:
knowledge.
I now had to focus on the malaria remedy.
A true remedy.
Not an imitation.
Not a weakened version.
A remedy capable of healing in a single gulp.
I took several plants out of their packets.
Some were known:
bitter leaves capable of bringing down fever,
purifying roots that strengthened the blood.
Others were much rarer.
I took a thin stem with slightly bluish reflections.
A plant that grows only in areas where magic naturally impregnates the soil.
It didn't heal directly.
It amplified.
I slowly crushed the ingredients, taking care to respect the precise order.
Each plant had a role.
Every step mattered.
Then came the magic.
I placed my hands over the container and closed my eyes.
I didn't recite complicated incantations.
I didn't need to.
I simply let the energy flow.
Healing magic does not impose itself.
It accompanies.
I guided the essence of the plants, linking them together, enhancing their properties without denaturing them.
It was a delicate balance.
I took notes as I went.
Always.
I then opened an old notebook, yellowed by time.
My old notes.
Entire pages devoted to the study of medicinal plants, their effects on the body, the mind, sometimes even the soul.
Some annotations were clumsy.
Others almost obsessive.
I reread what I had written years earlier, comparing, correcting, adjusting.
The preparation took three days.
Three days without real rest.
Three days monitoring the temperature, the consistency, the magical reaction of the mixture.
The potion slowly changed color.
From brown to dark green.
Then to a clear hue, almost luminous.
When the first version was finally ready, I felt neither excitement nor pride.
Only caution.
I took the vial and headed to a small isolated hut behind mine.
Inside, a mouse was locked in a cage.
It showed a disease very close to human malaria.
High fever.
Extreme weakness.
I took a single drop of the potion.
One drop was enough.
I made the animal swallow it, then stepped back.
The first minutes were silent.
Then the mouse's breathing stabilized.
Its tremors gradually ceased.
Its posture changed.
After a while, it stood up.
Alive.
Clearly alive.
I noted the result without smiling.
The remedy worked.
And somewhere, very far from my hut, I already knew that this kind of power would not remain ignored forever.