Celestial Hymn 45 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn

Chapter 45

-VB-

Myrcella got poisoned?

At first, the thought didn’t make sense.

First off, I was not someone who would leave an obvious soft target like Myrcella without any protections. The gifts I got her year after year? Each and every single one of them possessed some kind of defense. Poison defense was one such thing since I knew for a fact that the Martells were going to pull something. It happened in canon so why not here? So of course, I made sure to protect her against poison!

Second, she was supposed to be safe within the walls. I had acolytes residing within Kings Landing and the Red Keep itself. What the fuck were they doing?!

Third, Myrcella was poisoned, yes…

I found myself standing over her bed. She wasn’t dead, thankfully, but her skin was dreadfully pale.

The sweet girl who didn’t scream at me for being older than her, who smiled in thanks at my gifts, and was, in general, a good fucking person laid dying.

“And who is responsible?” I asked quietly.

The acolytes behind me didn’t respond for a second before one stepped up.

“We suspect that it is the Martells but they have neither claimed responsibility for this nor were there any Martells in and around the city.”

“Why didn’t her poison protection work?”

“She normally does not wear the gifts you got her at breakfast. She’s been sick lately so her meals have all been on her bed…”

“And since none of my gifts are even close to being sleepwear, she didn’t have them on when she ate something poisoned.”

“Yes, milord.”

I let out a stream of air before kneeling down and summoning Sorcery from within me. My mana reached out and began to probe at her body. I could tell from even a preliminary look over her body that she was in a fragile state, and Sorcery could not affect something I did not know about.

That was it’s one real weakness. It went as far as my imagination and pool of mana reserve could support it, but if I couldn’t imagine because I didn’t know, then I could not do anything. I had a PhD in medicine thanks to the Fantastic Four boon, but any number of poison could cause the symptoms I was seeing.

At the very least…

“Did you pump her stomach?”

I also had protocols in place.

“Yes, milord. We followed the instructions you left with us. The results were … fouler than any vomit I’ve ever seen,” the anonymous acolyte (because I wasn’t looking and I didn’t bother to memorize the voices and names of four hundred plus acolytes) responded.

“Good. It probably means you got some of the poison out of her system and kept her alive as a result. Good job.” Instead of acting on my knowledge of medicine by directly interfering with her biological processes, I continued to “scan” her with my mana.

… I found the issue. Whatever the poison was, it was being absorbed through the intestine and causing damages all along the blood vessels as they travel but most critically in the liver and the lymph nodes where they start to impact initially. It’s some sort of bioabsorbable caustic agent that doesn’t activate until it’s been metabolized hepatically.

Now that I knew what I was fighting, I let my mana seep into her and begin eradicating the substance.

“The rest of you can go,” I ordered. “But make sure this room is guarded.”

---

It took me nine hours of nonstop work just to remove all of the poison from her system.

Sure, it was nothing compared to what some of the more lengthy surgeries were like, according to the PhD shoved into my brain, but it was still nine hours of sitting still while concentrating simply on the task of using my mana to neutralize the poison one clump at a time.

God, this was why I preferred to table flip the landscape. It’s so much more satisfying.

At the end of it all, I still felt better once Myrcella, my blonde sweetheart, was finally safe and no longer in danger of bleeding from the inside out.

Now that she was safe…

Someone needed to pay.

Even as I fell asleep next to her bed, I began to suspect that the Martells might be behind this one.

And wouldn’t it be jolly fun to test my new spaceship’s untested kinetic weapons on Dorne? From orbit?

Something to think about.

-VB-

Myrcella let out a sigh.

She’d fallen ill.

It happened once in a while, but it was a little tougher this time. The fever got a little too high for the Grand Maester’s liking, and even her betrothed’s acolytes had been called up to help her with her pain.

She was surprised that there was magic to reduce pain.

It was probably one of the best things about magic she knows so far.

She set her spoon down after finishing up the wheat porridge. She knew that she was sick because the porridge today didn’t quite taste right, but hopefully, she’ll -.

Drip.

She froze because she didn’t think she was a messy eater but something had just dribbled down her lips. Blushing a little, she reached up with her handkerchief and -.

Drip.

She pulled the handkerchief back… and saw red.

“... Ah.” She continued to stare at it with wide eyes. “Kathy, I think something is wrong with me.”

And then the pain hit.

But there was no pain anymore.

Her eyes slowly slid open. Myrcella looked up at her room’s familiar ceiling and pivoted her head around the pillow.

To her surprise, she found her betrothed slumped next to the bed to her left.

Oh.

He came to see her. He must have heard she was sick.

… It made her happy. Mother never visited her when she got sick. Joffrey never did, either. Father did. Twice. Tommen was the only other person who ever came by to see her aside from the maids and servants.

She hesitantly reached out with her filthy hand and laid it over her betrothed’s hand that had been right next to her hand. He didn’t wake up.

He must have been tired, doing his lordly duties and still finding time to come see her.

…

Why did that make her want to cry so much?

-VB-

A/N: revenge comes next.