Chapter 251

Not long afterward, the maids opened the door and rushed in. Talia cried out in a cracked voice.

“G-get a healer here at once!”

The maids, who had frozen in shock, immediately ran back out of the room.

Unable to endure the steadily worsening heat, Talia hiked up her skirt and tore away the bandages wrapped around her leg. Through her vision, flashing white like bursts of light, grotesque skin flushed a vivid red came into view.

When Talia saw the pale scar coiled around her left leg like ivy slowly creeping upward, she screamed.

The raised, uneven scar had climbed over her knee and up her thigh, sending thin branches toward her lower abdomen. Desperate to stop it, she clawed wildly at the writhing scar with her fingernails.

Blood ran down her thigh along with the searing pain. Ignoring it, she began ripping indiscriminately at the tough skin tissue, leathery as tree bark. As if trying to stop her, the young wolf shoved his head between her hand and leg and let out a sharp growl from deep in his throat.

Talia irritably shoved the wolf away.

“Go away! If I don’t tear this off right now......!”

Scratching at her leg like someone half out of her mind, Talia suddenly froze when she saw Khan tumble off the bed.

The young wolf seemed to have twisted his paw when he fell. Watching him limp back toward the bedside on one leg, tears burst from her eyes.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Khan.”

Talia hurriedly scooped up the wolf with trembling hands and muttered in a hoarse, metallic voice. Khan incessantly licked her cheek. Talia buried her face in his soft fur and let out harsh sobs.

At that moment, someone rushed into the room.

“Your Highness, I came as soon as I was summoned. Where are you feeling unwell.......”

Tiuran, who had been approaching the bed, abruptly stopped speaking. She seemed to have noticed the blood running down Talia’s leg.

The eastern healer drew in a short breath, bent beside the bed, placed a hand over the affected area, and sent mana into it. Before long, the stinging pain and the heat that felt as though it were burning through her body began to subside.

Talia let out a long sigh of relief.

“Water.......”

At her cracked murmur, the maid waiting beside the bed immediately poured a glass and handed it to her.

Talia struggled to push herself upright, accepted the glass with trembling hands, and drank. Only after the cold water washed over her throat, dry as parched leather, did her mind finally begin to settle.

“My skin suddenly started burning badly, and everything in front of me turned white. Why did this happen?”

“......It appears to be a side effect of the medicine.”

Tiuran spoke stiffly as she dampened a towel and wiped Talia’s leg.

“Poppy and mandrake are herbs with powerful analgesic effects, but excessive use can cause severe aftereffects. It seems that because the medication has been used too heavily.......”

“There was no other choice.”

At the sudden voice, Talia turned her head.

Marisen, looking disheveled as though she had come running after being summoned late, was striding across the room.

“Her Highness has suffered from chronic pain for years. She has developed a resistance to several herbs with analgesic effects, so there was no choice but to increase the dosage if we wanted them to remain effective.”

“That does not justify overusing herbs capable of causing potentially fatal aftereffects.”

Tiuran sharply retorted.

“You surely know that some medicinal herbs are also used as poisons.”

Marisen’s face tightened. She was clearly angered at having her prescription openly criticized.

“I did not use the medicine so indiscriminately. It was because Her Highness’s body had become excessively weakened.......”

“So now you’re saying this is my fault?”

Talia, who had been leaning diagonally against the pillows while catching her breath, cut in coldly.

The color drained from the healer’s face.

“That was not what I meant. I only meant that I had no intention of causing Your Highness harm.......”

“Whatever your intentions were, it doesn’t change the fact that your medicine ended up harming me.”

At the cold rebuke, the woman bit her lip and bowed her head.

“......I will take care to ensure this never happens again.”

Talia watched her through narrowed eyes, then shifted her gaze toward the eastern healer standing beside her. Tiuran was calmly straightening the hem of Talia’s skirt.

Suddenly, Talia remembered that something similar had happened in the past.

She looked back and forth between the two healers with a thoughtful expression before finally speaking as though she had reached a decision.

“From now on, the two of you will prepare my medicine together.”

Marisen snapped her head up.

“Your Highness, I am a high-ranking practitioner who underwent professional training for many years under House Taren. There is no reason I should be treated as the equal of some mere eastern herbalist.......”

“Are you defying me?”

Clutching her throbbing head, Talia firmly cut her off.

“Tiuran is a healer belonging to House Siorcan. Originally, she held the same position as you. But she too made the mistake of prescribing the wrong medicine and was demoted to assistant healer. Wouldn’t it only be fair for you to receive the same punishment?”

Unable to find anything to say in response, Marisen pressed her lips tightly together.

Talia continued coldly.

“From now on, the two of you will take turns treating me.”

“......As you command.”

The woman lowered her eyes and answered stiffly.

Talia gestured toward the door with a tired expression.

“You may leave now. I’ll entrust my condition to Tiuran today.”

The woman’s lips moved as though she wanted to say something, but she soon left the room with a resigned expression.

Looking exhausted, Talia sank deeper into the pillows and turned her eyes toward the woman beside her.

Despite the sudden decision to restore her position, Tiuran showed almost no sign of surprise or joy. She merely walked calmly over to the brazier and began putting various herbs into a pot.

“I will prepare a medicinal tea to purge the toxins that have accumulated in your body. After drinking a cup, you should eat plenty of porridge, drink plenty of water, and rest. It would also be best to reduce your use of painkillers for the time being. Instead, I will find another way to relieve the pain.......”

“I understand, so look at Khan’s leg first.”

Talia carefully lifted Khan, who was curled quietly on her lap, and spoke in a worried voice.

“He fell off the bed earlier because of me. I think he twisted one of his front legs.”

The woman, who had been stirring the pot with a ladle, returned to the bedside.

While the healer carefully examined his leg, Khan remained completely limp and motionless like a doll. Yet Talia could feel the tiny heart in his chest beating rapidly.

Her heart ached at how badly frightened he seemed to be because of her. More than anything, she was afraid that Khan might come to hate her.

“It isn’t broken, is it?”

“It is only a strained ligament. Magical beasts tend to recover quickly, so he should be completely healed within a few days.”

Even Tiuran’s calm explanation failed to ease Talia’s worry.

“Can’t you use healing magic and fix it right now?”

“Your Highness, magical beasts possess strong resistance to magic. Unless an exceptionally powerful amount of mana is poured into them, healing magic will have little effect.”

Talia felt her heart sink.

That meant that if Khan were ever seriously injured in the future, there would be very little she could do for him.

She looked down at the wolf with a pale face.

Khan still seemed uneasy. His tail, usually swaying gently, was curled tightly into a circle and completely still, while his ears drooped low.

Feeling guilt weigh heavily on her chest, she carefully drew Khan against herself.

Instead of twisting away in refusal, the wolf pressed his nose into the hollow of her neck and let out a faint rumbling sound.

The sight of him allowing himself to be held without the slightest resentment despite how roughly she had treated him made her throat tighten.

“I’m so sorry, Khan. I’ll never hurt you again.”

As Talia gently stroked his faintly trembling body, she suddenly sensed a peculiar gaze and lifted her head.

The healer was looking down at her with faint pity in her eyes.

In an instant, humiliation crawled down Talia’s spine as though she had been stripped bare.

She snapped rather sharply,

“Didn’t you say you were going to prepare that medicinal tea or whatever it was? Instead of standing there staring, why don’t you do something?”

“My apologies. I will prepare it at once.”

The healer replied calmly and turned back toward the fireplace.

Talia also gave the maids watching her anxiously a look telling them to leave. Then she set the wolf on the floor and limped behind the screen.

The large bathtub was filled with bathwater that had long since gone cold.

She stripped off the indoor dress stained with blood and lowered herself into the water with a splash.

As the coolness spread across skin still burning with lingering heat, the tension drawn tightly through her body slowly drained away.

Curled up inside the bathtub and trying to steady her breathing, Talia glanced down at her submerged leg.

The scar that had climbed all the way up her body had already returned to its original state.

She ran her fingertips over it for a moment, then roughly washed her face.