I had spent years studying the forgotten arts , the old remedies scribbled in the margins of ancient texts, our family heir loom, passed from my great grandmother to me through my mother. The cure to every snake bite contained therein.
I worked swiftly. From my satchel, I drew vials of powdered moonroot and dried adder's tongue—rare ingredients, things no proper physician would dare use. I mixed them with honey and a drop of my own tincture, the one I reserved for desperate cases.
"This will burn," I murmured, pressing the paste to the wound.
Princess Elara whimpered but did not wake. Around me, the court gasped as the flesh around the bite darkened further,but I knew what they did not. The venom was rising to the surface, drawn out by the remedy.
Next, I forced a sip of bulbosa extract between her lips. The physicians monitoring me by the door side cried out in alarm. "That's poison!"
"And so is the snake's bite," I snapped. This was why I insisted I needed some space but the nosy physician insisted to monitor "One fights the other." I asserted.
The princess's body arched off the bed, a strangled cry escaping her. The physician lunged forward, but I held up a hand. "Wait."
Then, silence.
Elara's chest rose. Fell. Rose again.
And her eyes opened.
---
Color flooded back into her cheeks. The wound, once blackened, now seeped only clear fluid. The poison was broken.
The physician exhaled and left the door side to inform the king, almost immediately the king was in the room as if he had been waiting nearby,it was no surprise I was a mere peasant apothecary . He clasped my shoulder, his grip firm. "Name your reward."
I shook my head. "I need no reward."
"Then you leave me in your debt," he said, and there was something dangerous in his voice, something that told me this was not the end.
As I packed my satchel, the court soldiers and physicians stared at me with something between awe and resentment.
I smiled to myself. Let them whisper.