As soon as Rhaegar left the room with Cadmus, Raymun, and the two members of the Kingsguard, the gentle smile on his lips disappeared. He looked at Cadmus with a sharp and oppressive gaze. "Tell me, what did Lord Peverell find in my mother's body."
Although Cadmus had hidden his emotions well, the person before him was a king, one of the humans most capable of discerning a person's intentions. After all, a king's basic quality was to try to see people's thoughts through their expressions.
"Give me two hours and I'll bring you a complete answer." The mage looked at the king and spoke in a calm tone. Cadmus didn't speak directly about his suspicion of poison; he could be wrong, after all, there were some blood diseases. Therefore, he needed some tests to draw conclusions.
"Just tell me something." Rhaegar said in an equally calm tone. "Is it very serious?"
Cadmus nodded his head. If his suspicions were correct, it was a very serious matter. So serious that it would shake the entire kingdom if it were true.
Rhaegar took a deep breath, clenched his fists, but soon relaxed again. He looked at the room behind him with a somber expression. He only hoped that his mother was well; he wanted nothing more than that, something any son could want for his mother.
"Barristan, guide Lord Peverell to a private room and protect him." Leaving those words, Rhaegar left with Arthur Dayne. Cadmus looked at the king's back and let out a sigh. Being a king wasn't so easy, especially with a second civil war getting closer and closer.
"Follow me, Lord Peverell." Old Barristan spoke in a harsh and solemn tone, but without the previous animosity and caution. With the Unbreakable Vow, Cadmus couldn't hurt the king; he had personally seen what effects the contractor would suffer just by thinking about hurting the other contractor.
Barristan then guided Cadmus to a room not too far away and stood at the door, protecting the room with a cold and relentless expression. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw the sword at any moment.
In the room, Cadmus wasted no time and took a work table from his bag. This table had all the items he needed to begin his experiments.
Taking Rhaella's blood, Cadmus placed a drop of blood on a small glass square, then another drop on a small glass square and repeated the process eight more times, totaling ten blood samples.
The first thing he did was place the blood under a magnifying glass, which looked more like an extremely realistic eye, and magnified the image of the queen's blood.
The first thing he noticed was a substance that was attacking the white blood cells. And if anyone knows something basic about biology, they know that white blood cells are responsible for a person's immune system. If something is wrong with the immune system, the patient will at the very least be exposed to diseases much more easily than anyone else.
Honestly, this poison in adult men and women won't have much effect, but when a person gets sick with this poison, it will practically increase the chances of mortality to extremely dangerous levels. Not to mention that for babies and the elderly, this poison is basically lethal.
Cadmus couldn't help but take a deep breath upon learning the effects of the poison... remembering how many babies Queen Rhaella lost during and after pregnancy, a shiver ran through Cadmus's body. This poison wasn't just cruel, it was simply inhumane.
Especially remembering how many stillbirths, miscarriages, and infant deaths occurred with House Targaryen over the past nearly three hundred years. Cadmus practically saw a huge cemetery of children and babies before him.
After learning the effects of the poison, Cadmus began to extract samples of the poison from the queen's blood; it was such a small amount that it was only possible using magic, but Cadmus was confident he could reverse engineer and reconstruct the poison. Once you have the poison in hand, it's easy to make an antidote.
Two hours later, Cadmus already had a flask containing 100ml of a colorless and odorless liquid. Looking at the liquid in the flask, Cadmus couldn't help but think that such a small thing was capable of killing countless people without them even knowing about it.
Storing his work table, Cadmus wasted no time and left the room, where he found Barristan still standing by the door.
"Ser Barristan didn't need to stand guard at the door; I know how to protect myself." Cadmus said with a serious look. He really didn't need protection; he could reduce someone to ashes with a wave of his wand. The old knight's protection was useless to him.
"I'm following my king's orders, Lord Peverell." Barristan spoke while walking beside Cadmus, always looking around for any dangers. Although it was unlikely to happen, the castle was heavily guarded, not to mention that the king was protected by Arthur Dayne, a man who could kill dozens of assassins as if they were chickens.
Cadmus nodded his head and with quick steps, walked rapidly toward the king's chambers. His eidetic memory had already recorded the exact location of the king's chambers. Barristan felt that something was wrong with Cadmus's haste and couldn't help but feel a tightness in his chest.
-
As soon as Cadmus entered the king's chambers, he noticed that it was already dark through the window and the number of torches around had increased, but the atmosphere was tense and shadows moved around with the flickering flames.
Cadmus found Rhaegar behind a desk signing something; the king was truly hardworking. With his arrival, the king stopped writing and looked up, staring into Cadmus's green eyes with a deep and almost frightening gaze.
"It's poison." Cadmus got straight to the point and spoke; he took it from his bag and placed the flask containing the poison on the desk.
Rhaegar's face turned cold; he looked at the colorless poison in the glass flask, a complex emotion passed over his face, before a chilling coldness appeared in his eyes. He stood up and stood before the window with his back to Cadmus.
Arthur and Barristan gritted their teeth; both were furious for not protecting the queen from being poisoned.
"What does the poison do." Looking at the moon rising in the night sky, Rhaegar's voice sounded cold and emotionless.
"It attacks the immune system." Cadmus said in a calm tone, but thinking that the king wouldn't understand these modern terms, he began to elaborate. "The human body is something highly complex; it wants to stay alive at all costs, so it creates countless defenses to fight diseases. Imagine an army inside the human body fighting against any disease and unknown things. That's the immune system."
"For young and adult men and women, the poison doesn't have much effect, but when the host gets sick, the poison attacks the human body's immune system, thus preventing the body from recovering from a disease. The poison basically increases the mortality rates of someone who is sick."
"Another thing worth mentioning is that this poison is particularly lethal for babies, children, and the elderly, as the immune systems of these types are developing or are too old."
"This poison is chronic, so they poisoned the queen when she was still young, perhaps at thirteen or fifteen years old. If I were to say precisely, I would say it was at the moment she became pregnant for the first time." As soon as Cadmus finished speaking, a frightening silence hung in the air.
The sound of gritted teeth sounded particularly clear.
"Are you sure it wasn't because of incest?" Rhaegar's voice sounded a minute later; his voice was tinged with a faint hope that he didn't even realize.
Cadmus didn't hesitate to respond. "If that were really a problem, Old Valyria would have disappeared in the first hundred years and wouldn't have lasted five thousand years. In just three generations there would be deformed children, with mental problems and perhaps they wouldn't even walk."
"Blood magic is magic that can alter the human body; vampires and werewolves are some of the experiments of Valyria's blood magic. The Dragonlords of Old Valyria were so good at blood and fire magic that they practically created a civilization based on it. With the amount of blood that was used in annual sacrifices, I doubt they even got sick, gaining a pseudo-immortality." Cadmus stopped speaking and looked at the king, who was still with his back to him.
"My king, I have something else to report." Cadmus spoke in a calm tone.
"Speak." Rhaegar's voice sounded deep, but Cadmus knew the king was furious.
"It's likely that the poison has passed from mother to child and so on, although in smaller doses, that is if they weren't poisoned again."
Arthur and Barristan became as cold as the winter of the North. They drew their swords and knelt before Rhaegar.
"We failed to protect you, my king." Both spoke at the same time; the swords were placed on the ground as if they wanted Rhaegar to kill them for failing to protect him.
"Sheathe your swords and stand up." Despite Rhaegar's words, Barristan and Arthur remained kneeling, too ashamed to do anything else.
"Have you become so rebellious that you no longer consider me your king?" Rhaegar's voice rose this time; there was deep anger in his tone.
In the same instant, Barristan and Arthur stood up, but still had their heads down.
"Raymun." Rhaegar's voice sounded again. The Hand of the King, who had been in the room the whole time, stepped forward.
"My family has been poisoned; there are three suspects. The Faith of the Seven, the Maesters, and House Lannister, possibly all three together. I want you to search for everything, medical reports and any records of diseases over nearly three hundred years of my House." Rhaegar said in a cold tone.
He already had the suspects; he just needed some evidence. As for proof, he didn't need proof; he was a king, he wasn't a weak king, he was a king who would make the two oldest organizations in Westeros know the pain of a father, brother, and son.
"Cadmus, if I ask you to fight politically against the Faith of the Seven, will you accept?" Turning to look at Cadmus, Rhaegar asked in a calm tone.
"You didn't even need to ask; I'm a mage and they're clerics, we've been enemies since I joined the Court of House Targaryen." Cadmus said with a smile.
Rhaegar nodded and extended his hand; Cadmus understood what he wanted to do and took the king's blood and placed it in a flask.
"If I have poison, I'll bring the rest of the family to you." Rhaegar said in a solemn tone.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty, the antidote isn't so difficult with the poison in hand." Cadmus said in a confident tone.
"I hope so." Rhaegar replied in a deep and tired tone.
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Read my other books:
Game Of Thrones: The God-Emperor of Planetos (500,000 words written).
Percy Jackson: Godwyn the Golden.
Game Of Thrones: The King's Court Wizard