Chapter 36. A child's head on a pole
****
Again today, Isabel rummaged through her hair and pulled out her medicine bag.
There were only a few pills left.
This was a sign that she needed to put her secret preparations into action quickly.
Besides, this was an enchantment, not an antidote.
It was merely a tool to ease the pain for a while.
It was also a dangerous drug that would put her in a deadly position.
If she ran out, she would soon join the other women in the cottage and die from the pain.
As her condition worsened, the intervals between doses became shorter.
Now she could barely last a few hours on a single pill.
She hesitated for a moment, then popped the rest of the pills into her mouth.
At least for a day, she would have the strength of a healthy person.
Whatever happened after that didn't matter.
She'd been waiting for this day for so long.
What terrified her most was dying without being able to avenge the Bayate family, or more precisely, the blood of Bayate Odant.
Through all the hardships she had endured as a slave to Anut, her single-mindedness had never wavered.
She had lost everything, but a single desire had kept her alive.
One day, Emperor of Anut's entourage came to her.
"I will send you to Bayate, as you wish."
The young emperor kept the Bayate faction in check.
He selected those who had a deep grudge against the Bayate family and chose Isabel as the most suitable.
Hashad wanted to use her vengeful spirit to bring down the Bayate family.
The condition of her assignment to the Bayate was that she contract the plague.
He didn't have the courage to face the black wolf head-on, so he came up with a plausible explanation.
A terrible disease that once swept across the South.
She drank the blood of Lantol, offered by the Emperor's servant, without hesitation.
Death was not to be feared.
Even if it meant joining hands with the Anut emperor who had made Aselia disappear.
Power struggles among the Anut ruling class were not her concern.
Bayate Odant had died on the battlefield many years ago.
He was hailed as a great Anut warrior and given a lavish funeral with the love and respect of all Anut across the country.
It was an unfair end for the barbarian who had brought her life to ruin.
Isabel was tormented to the point of death by her inability to slay Odant with her own hands.
She knew full well that she would never escape that nightmarish moment that would haunt her until the day she died.
As Aselia’s influence in the south was great, but she was helpless against the ruthless attacks of the northern barbarians.
As Aselia’s royal knights resisted the unruly invaders to the last.
In order to bring the princess, the last of Aselia's royalty, to safety, the Knights strategized to use the terrain to their advantage, scattering Odant's elite forces.
In the process, a friend of Odant's was killed by an arrow from Isabel's bow.
If not for him, Odant would have died on the spot.
He should have.
Driven by evil, Odant hunted down the families of the Knights of Aselia and publicly executed them in front of the entire kingdom.
He hung their dismembered bodies on the city walls for all to see.
Isabel's husband and young daughter were also torn apart in unspeakable horror.
For the first time, she bitterly regretted ever becoming one of Aselia's knights.
None of this would have happened if she had run away, not caring whether Aselia was ruined or not, not caring whether a princess without a drop of blood was dead or not.
Isabel took a long look at her daughter's head on the pole.
The pain must have been too much for her to close her eyes.
The gaze of the dead child clutched at her heart.
Aselia was gone, and the path to vengeance was closed.
The Royal Templars had all perished at the hands of Odant, and only Isabel had managed to hide her identity and survive.
She cowardly escaped with her life, but it was a life of dishonor, a life better spent dead.
Today, Isabel would get her revenge.
Today was her chance to end this long, long time of suffering.
The shadow of her own death washed over the Bayate like a tidal wave.
The outbuildings were swarming with the sick, hovering between life and death.
The women brought here were innocent, but Isabel's heart was not big enough to feel compassion for them.
As she had hoped, the plague had spread to the Anut warriors as well, and naturally their escort had become lax.
The same would be true of Netira's home.
She would not allow Odant's daughter to be buried alive and intact.
Failing that, the plague she had unleashed would cling to the Bayate and take the lives of all within it.
Emperor of Anut would be oblivious to the situation, and the herbs used as antidotes had long since disappeared from the world, so the path to their salvation was blocked.
This was a battle she could only win.
Isabel’s chapped lips curled into a thin line, and there was a faint moisture in the corners of her eyes.
***
"Sister, I don't think Five will last much longer."
Isabel's voice was tinged with fear.
5 had been moved to another room yesterday.
The temporary caretaker replacing Ellie had decided to separate the infected from the uninfected and keep them in different areas.
It was for the best for now.
It would have been nice to have a separate room to treat them, but the fact that they hadn't killed the sick slaves yet was something to be thankful for.
The people of the outbuildings were no longer allowed to wander outside of their designated areas.
Even Ihedia, who had been traveling freely between the outbuildings and the main house, was banned from the main house as the situation spiraled out of control.
She was forced to wait quietly in the outbuildings until Kayan figured something out and summoned her.
Though he had taken her at her word, it would be some time before he could find a direct solution to the illness.
Until then, would she be safe?
Ihedia's face took on a dark look of concern.
"Will we soon be too?"
Aurora asked, her voice trembling.
The outbuilding had long since been transformed into a place of death, and groans of agony filled every room.
It had happened less than ten days ago.
"If you've been in the same room as Five and it hasn't caught you yet, you'll be fine."
"Really?"
"I don't know exactly, but I'd have to think that we're naturally immune to it, unlike the others."
Aurora's face brightened slightly at that.
She knew that Ihedia was trying to reassure her, but it seemed to calm her nerves a little.
Aurora looked over to the bed of Three and whispered to Ihedia.
"I overheard a woman from Aselia in the other room the other day saying that 3 was actually a knight who used to escort the Princess of Aselia."
"A knight?"
"I thought competent female knights were common in Aselia, where the distinction between the sexes was blurred. I thought the royal knights of Aselia were wiped out during the Anut invasion, but somehow they survived and made their way here. It feels strange to me that the one who should be holding the sword is stuck here, sulking."
At that moment, the image of 3's heavily callused fingers flashed through Ihedia's mind.
She wondered if they were the marks of a long time holding the sword.
"But..................."
Aurora trailed off, as if considering something.
"What happened?"
"Well, I saw 3 eating something by herself the other day. It was some kind of tiny pill, and she was taking it out of her pocket and accidentally dropped one, but when I looked closer, I realized it was.........."
Aurora pulled a small, white circle out of her pocket and held it out to her.
Ihedia looked at it closely and gasped in surprise.
"An enchantment?"
Aurora nodded slightly.
It was faint, but the pill glowed on its own.
It was a characteristic of enchanted tools.
Normally, pills made by harvesting the magic of natural objects would have a pure white glow around the rim, but this one had a rather cloudy color.
It was black magic.
Black magic was an impure energy that was mainly obtained through killing.
Taking something as dangerous as this might give you a brief respite, but it would only hasten your demise.
It must have been the one that Isabel had taken out of her hair and ate it when she was alone in the stable once.
"Maybe it's just luck that she didn't get infected, but... I think it has something to do with this enchantment."
Why would anyone take such a dangerous enchantment in secret?
It was something they should never have gotten close to if they wanted to survive.
Most of all, she wondered how 3 could have gotten the potion as a slave.
Especially in such large quantities that she could keep it hidden in her pockets.
Enchantments were very expensive, but they were also very difficult to make, so even if you had the money, they weren't readily available.
Either she had prepared it before she became Anut's slave, or she had someone helping her.
A chill ran down Ihedia's spine.
****
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