CHAPTER TWELVE
"THIS IS HARD!"
Once again, she didn't get it right. The color of the potion she's making keeps on turning on green yet the color she wants to create is pink.
"Craige..." She called out his friend name in exhaustion. She face Craige on his casual day, reading his book on the chair, almost lying down.
"Just give up. We don't even know if what's written on that old book is even accurate."
She rolls her eyes at him and dash herself into the floor. She stares at the ceiling as if she can find the answers she's been looking.
"Whoever writes that is a fucking jerk." She sounds so firm but after a second, her dramatic acting of crying began again.
"I'm gonna kill him...or her..."
She's still talking about the person who wrote that recipe and process of making that potion—she wanted an easy way to heal wounds because in that expedition...they will need to face real enemy.
Real battle.
Not just some training.
Not duels where you can raise your hand and give up.
She's done that plenty of times before—but she knows this upcoming expedition will be different. A week, maybe longer. Longer than she can even imagine.
She will get hurt.
And she doesn't want a potion that takes minutes to work.
She wants something instant.
"I want it to be like magic… instant. Like this…" She lifts her hand, commanding the object to float. The bottle rises into the air, spinning in a slow circle.
"Healing is different," Craige says calmly. "It needs time to recuperate."
He moves to her side and lies down facing the opposite direction, their heads resting close together while their bodies point away from each other.
He puts his feet on the couch.
"Lira is a healer."
"She will run out of mana..." She pointed out what is obvious.
"She's capable enough to heal more than a hundred without running out of mana, Sera..." He added.
"What if we encounter something more dangerous than a vampire." She twisted her body, now she's lying down on her stomach.
"Or what if we face a dragon… oh gosh. That would definitely kill us. I want to die, but not a painful death…"
She suddenly stands up, leaving Craige sprawled on the floor.
To Seraphina, he looks ridiculous, just lying there and staring at her, but she doesn't point it out right away.
"If I had to choose, I want a painless death. I don't want to die at the hands of a monster… that's my nightmare, sooo—"
She stops mid-rant and notices Craige still watching her.
"You look stupid in that position. Do you think you look cool?" she snaps. "Get up, you jerk. Help me."
That made his face grimaced for what he heard from her. This is the firs time someone said that he looks stupid.
"I kind of want to curse you now," he says, half-serious.
"Go ahead," she grins. "I dare you, jerk."
He doesn't answer her. With a quick twist and a push off the floor, he flips his legs like an acrobat, landing on his feet with a dramatic flourish.
Seraphina blinks at him, then bursts out laughing. "What are you doing? Trying to look heroic? You look ridiculous!"
He smirks, hands on his hips. "Ridiculous, maybe. But I made it look cool, didn't I?"
"No...you look more stupid than lying down."
She shakes her head as she starts to gather again the ingredients while trying to figure out what is missing or if there's something wrong in the process.
"Tss."
The only reaction Craige can make at that moment.
The only reaction Craige can manage at that moment is silence. She shifts from playful to serious, carefully adjusting ingredients, adding and removing components to get the potion just right.
All through the night, she tries and tries again. By dawn, Craige wakes to the sound of her laughter. Blinking awake, he sees her jumping with joy, clutching a bottle of potion.
A perfect pink.
"Aaaaaaah… I got it! I'm done… Craige!" she shouts, running over to him and shaking him awake, even though he's technically already awake.
Craige sits up, grinning at Seraphina, who is practically glowing with excitement.
"I thought we wouldn't make it to the expedition," he whispers.
Seraphina just pouts, giving him a playful nudge for his comment.
They've spent several sleepless nights like this, experimenting only at night because it's the only time they can work undisturbed.
This place is even Craige's hideout… though not really a hideout, since everyone knows it's his personal training room. An abandoned classroom, no one dares to enter, especially with the runes Craige set up to keep outsiders away… except for those he allows.
The higher-ups don't mind. It's far from the main building and abandoned anyway, the perfect place for them to work in secret.
"Let's tryyy this…" she says excitedly. She quickly leaves Craige's side and sets the potion on the table.
Craige watches as she rummages through the chaotic mess of ingredients, struggling to find what she needs among the scattered tools.
When she finally finds it, Craige's eyes widen, Seraphina suddenly slices her finger with the knife.
"Ah… shit… that hurts…"
"The fuck, Sera?!" Craige jumps to his feet, fully alert, but she doesn't even look at him. She goes straight for the potion.
She grabs it, opens the lid, and pours a small amount onto her wound. The pain makes her flinch, and she nearly drops the bottle.
"Fuck!" she screams.
Then, in seconds, the cut disappears. Completely gone. The sting lingers for a moment, sharper than the wound itself, but then fades.
Craige rushes over, taking her hand and chanting a rune to remove any lingering pain.
"I'm fine. Just surprised by the side effect… it burns," she says, picking up the bottle. Instead of being annoyed, she grins.
"This will work. At least it heals," she adds, holding her finger up to inspect it.
"No trace," she says, marveling at her own finger.
The words "2 drops" are scratched out on the paper. Beside the crossed-out number, a small 6 is written.
Seraphina carefully adds six drops of Nightshade Essence.
Craige stares at the ingredient list, noticing how she's crossed out parts of the original instructions and altered the process to find the perfect right amount.
"What a brain…" he whispered. Craige looked at her again just as she cut a deeper slice into her hand.
Craige winced. He wanted to stop her, but he didn't, he knew she wouldn't listen anyway.
He flinched at his friend's scream, but it was quickly followed by laughter.
"She's crazy," he muttered to himself.
From the potion she brewed, she managed to produce twenty bottles. She didn't bring all of them; five were left behind for research purposes, at least, that was what she claimed.
"The Professor is calling everyone to the field. We need a final check-up for our journey the day after tomorrow."
The two of them turned to Lira, who didn't seem surprised by the chaos she found in the room that day. Sera immediately showed her what she had made.
"Check it. Check it, Lira," she said excitedly, as if she had known the girl for a long time.
Lira chuckled softly and took the potion.
She used a rune to assess whether the potion was safe or dangerous. Meanwhile, Sera waited patiently, like a puppy, staring with wide, hopeful eyes.
Her hands were clasped in front of her chest.
When Lira finished and declared the potion perfectly safe and non-poisonous through her appraisal, Sera clapped her hands, grabbed the bottle, and jumped in a small circle with excitement.
"Your lady is quite mad." She looks at the potion Sera gave her.
"Like father, like daughter—perhaps that old saying holds true after all. She's utterly obsessed with potions," she remarked as they waited for Sera to finish her routine in the washroom.
"Just as her father was consumed by ancient runes."
"What else could she be?" Craige answered, his voice low. "She bears the name Virel."
"I suppose rumors never travel untouched," she said. "They bend themselves to whatever purpose suits them."
She is talking about the different rumor about the Young Lady.
Mean and obnoxious, they say.
---
"Lady Sera…"
She immediately turned toward the one who called her, unable to stop herself from looking the person up and down.
"Princess Avelyne…" she replied in return to her call.
She walked toward her slowly, her steps as graceful as they needed to be. Her hands were clasped in front of her stomach, just as a princess should.
"I heard a unique rumor that's been circuling the noble ladies these days." She said.
Seraphina who didn't even say anything, she's waiting for the Princess to say what kind of rumor has she's been hearing these days.
"Would you mind if I say?"
'Even I do, would you even care?'
Words that can't be spoken to her.
"No, Princess." She said.
The Princess smiled at that. Ready to slunder her.
"Go on." She looks away from Princess.
"Spill every rumor spoken about me," she said calmly. "I may not find them interesting, but I listen. Surprise me—tell me something even I do not know."
The Princess's smile faded at those words. She despised how a girl, not even part of high society, could speak to her in such a manner. Yet she could not touch her, could not openly act against her. All she was left with was to slander her.
And if she overstepped, the backlash would fall on her instead.
"That you spent the whole week with Lord Craige, every night."
She looks at her, she wanted to get a reaction but to her surprise, she didn't even bother to look at her.
That irritates her more.
Look at me!
"Indeed, the earth has ears and the wind has a mouth. If you speak of it that way…"
That was when she finally looked at the Princess, her head tilting slightly.
"It almost feels as though I have indulged myself in the world's desires," she added.
Just then, the wind stirred, playing with her hair, letting it dance freely, while the Princess's hair remained neatly braided, untouched and unmoved.
"You may ask Craige if such a relationship truly exists between us," she continued.
"Besides, I believe a man's word is something no one dares deny. They will believe him more… than a woman's."
She stated a truth everyone tried to conceal.
It was the truth.
"He denies such a thing happened," the Princess said, her tone carrying the unspoken, "Yes, I know the truth, but we'll twist it anyway."
"Then I suppose you've made your guess," Sera replied, "but you still want me to deny it… to shape the story the way you wish."
She shifted, turning her body fully to face the Princess, every movement deliberate.
This was exactly what the Princess had wanted from the start, her attention.
"You will start by saying...
'She claims nothing of the sort happened. They were only experimenting with a potion. Let's just forget it, perhaps she is telling the truth.'"
Sera's gaze locked on the Princess, sharp and cold.
"Your people will respond, marveling at how you magically believe me, and they will say…"
'You are truly kind.'
'That is why people will always lie in your face—because of your kindness.'
'Of course she would deny it, Princess.'
'Yes. Who would ever admit to committing such a deed?'
As if she really have seen the future, her hands clasps together as she makes her way infront of the Princess, looking at her.
She was taken aback at her action.
"Those," she said quietly as she walk backward away from the princess, "will be the responses of your so-called ladies."
A sudden and subtle awe from Princess from how Sera predicted such event, smirks at Sera.
"You will be a good writer. Try becoming an author, you would suit such profession."
Sera's lips curved into a ghost of a smile. Not warmth. Not pride. Only satisfaction.
She met the Princess's gaze.
Steady and unwavering.
"Then I will be a historian," Sera said quietly.