"She'll be fine. She just collapsed from mental exhaustion."
Serci and my daughter both gave a relieved sigh at this news.
After Veda collapsed, we brought her back to her room. The Royal Physician arrived shortly after she fell unconscious, but we were able to check her thoroughly thereafter. At first, we checked her on the garden floor once covered in her blood but when we found that her life wasn't in danger, we took her back to her room for a more thorough checkup.
"From what I can tell, she likely passed out due to mana deficiency. That spell must've been a great cast to wipe away completely whatever was causing her pain before. I can't be too sure what was happening because of that."
She was visibly frustrated as she gave a deep sigh. "Seriously... if the description in that book about being able to reverse anything done to living flesh is accurate so long as Karina hasn't taken hold of their soul then it can be called a blessing and a curse that I can't find any trace of it left with my detection magic."
She looks to me and I repeat the words in the book, " 'So long as the target hasn't died, the spell will return them back to their peak condition within the last 20 minutes,' is exactly what is said."
We could only accept it. The title matched what I heard and the Royal Knight had made sure not to lose the page himself when bringing the book to me.
It may only be a short window of time but it's enough to be considered a high-class incantation. From curing a quick poison that is choking the life out of the victim to returning their torn-off arm back to them so long as it's within ten meters. Nothing but the most instant theft of life would be rendered useless when faced with this spell.
'No wonder she wanted her book over a Physician, this book is practically an Artifact from its contents alone.'
I turn my eyes from the unconscious Veda back to my physician, "Thank you for your hard work, Ulda."
"No need for that. You have done much for me in my time of service, Your Majesty. Again, all Veda will need at this point is rest so don't worry over if she will wake and all of you get ready for your own night's rest."
Both Maridia and Serci both their heads. "Yes miss Ulda."
Though their sense of worry was impossible to fully get rid of till Veda next awakened, the words of the Nani who cared for them when they were young brought reassurance that everything would be okay.
But if there is one person who needs to hear it most, it would be the half-elf currently peaking the corner.
"Emeri!" Shouted Ulda. "That includes you! She will be fine and there wasn't anything like poison in that tea to bring about this situation! Unless she had the worst allergic reaction in history, what happened to her is resolved!"
Emeri flinched at the angry woman she once called 'big sister'. It was only a few seconds later that she came out from around the corner, bowing slightly before being made to leave alongside my daughter and her coworker.
Ulda probably wouldn't have reacted that harshly if Emeri hadn't appeared near the end with a barrage of repeating questions that had already been answered while we were bringing Veda back to her room.
But with everything settled, the only people left were me and Ulda in the room with the unconscious Veda.
Ulda sighs, "Now that we're alone, I will begin giving you my full diagnosis, Your Majesty."
This was what I was waiting to hear. I'd consider myself the most distraught on this situation that had occurred as I sat with her throughout the entire situation.
It couldn't have been poison because she never reacted within the first ten sips. It's also unlikely to be a heart attack considering the place she gripped wasn't her chest or even some other vital organ but her shoulder. And the way she looked just before falling over, it was almost as though she knew what was coming.
'So, what is it? What happened?'
"From what you have described to me before, it's possible to be something genetic. I don't have much knowledge of whatever illness it could be as I've never heard nor seen this before, and with no evidence left behind, it's nearly impossible to find the cause that was forced back into dormancy. Even with my analysis spell."
'This... could be something in her family line?'
But when I thought about it, I remembered something once brought to my attention this morning. "One of the maids mentioned Veda experienced sudden bleeding from her nose this morning and said her brother also experienced the same symptom. Also, during our conversation, she spoke of her grandmother and father's deaths that had been incidents leading to Uldrei taking care of them alone."
Ulda gives a heavy sigh. "I see... That could be the first sign of the illness returning but she had much she needed to do in the morning, and I wouldn't keep something like that in a public place where it could be stolen. I've also heard rumor that she's trying to reunite when possible with her brother, this likely being the reason. But I must say, she's lucky she has a spell that powerful else her and her brother's life could've been forfeited a long time ago..."
I look down at the book in my hand. My thoughts turned to my own life, to the day my mother used the crown on me when I was at my worst only for my illness to retreat for that month. "Do you think there's a way to cure her of that pain?"
Ulda stares at me before a weary sigh escapes her lips. "I don't know much about this, but if you really want to take my thoughts to heart, she either ascends to the status of a deity to surpass illness or she dies as another mortal like any other. Something genetically passed along is too advanced for us mortals to understand, but hers was made to go dormant, likely not the first time nor the last. This situation is beyond anything I know but if it's anything like your sickness, your highness, then she will need her crutch."
It stings to have this conversation again. I shouldn't have asked when I knew the answer, but I couldn't help having hope seeing as the last time I asked this question was over 35 years ago.
Letting Ulda return to her office, I sat down in the chair next to Veda's bed, spending this time looking through the book.
It appears her grandmother was just as grand as her grandfather, but not as attention-seeking, 'Though I know he wasn't either. He only ever came across those cases by mere coincidence.'
Mrs. Deidura was either a member of the Oriel University's Spell Discovery division or someone who worked alone in that same field as most of these are incantations you would never discover under normal circumstances. The details on them were so vastly detailed, that it tells how much she's spent time researching every single one of these for an extensive amount of time.
…
'A number of these spells could ruin kingdoms in only a few uses if you had the mana, but even an A Rank caster wouldn't be able to use most of these continuously without losing consciousness afterward. And the number of syllables in all of these can go from complicated to extensively necessary practice to perform without issues, not to mention the capacity that could only be fulfilled by working with others. These incantations could only really be used in surprise attacks or in a siege with the casters being well-defended, possibly even requiring one to cast a silencing field to keep everyone concentrated.'
'Goddess of Magic, you truly are conniving.
Or maybe the large drawbacks are her mercy.'
After flipping through a long number of pages in this book, a question came to mind. One I didn't think I would've considered after everything that happened before.
'Should this book be allowed to see another morning?'
The spells in this book make me fear for the future, a future where one abused child with an overwhelming mana capacity held enough hatred in his or her heart to use even a single one of these pages to bring about disaster to everyone and everything.
I look at the fire burning in the fireplace, lit to warm the patient against the cold night. This book, at the end of the day, was still nothing more than pages protected by leather. All I would need to do is walk over and toss it in and that would be the end of the hundreds of pages of future worries if it ever got out of her hands.
Then I take one final look at its unconscious owner, at the Orphan who had recently lost her last parent figure only days ago, separated from her brother with a disease that will return and likely take her life if she still hasn't remembered every word for that spell.
That's when I question myself in a different way.
'Would I be fine having the Crown of Fate taken from my grasp, left with nothing to keep my illness at bay, to keep it from eating me alive.'
Without another thought, I set the book down on the night desk. I turn out the candle, leaving the fireplace for the weary guest before leaving the room to continue my duties as Queen.