Stolen by the Rebel King
Chapter 352: Doomed

Chapter 352: Doomed

There was a pregnant pause. Slowly, but unmistakably, Silas reluctantly nodded.

Horror entered Prince Nathaniel and Sirona’s eyes, and they immediately scuttled back a few steps. Silas found it to be very unfair. "Not by choice!" he exclaimed, frantically waving his hands to calm them down. "His blood dripped into my mouth by accident! It tasted disgusting too, like a rotting body."

"How would you know what rotting bodies taste like?" Prince Nathaniel asked suspiciously.

"That’s a figure of speech," Silas complained. "And aren’t you supposed to be healing me? I feel like I’m treated like a criminal."

"You don’t have any wounds," Sirona pointed out, her hand glowing a bright purple as she waved it over his body as a form of preliminary diagnosis.

"No, that’s not possible― Alistair clawed my neck, see? And he also got my arms... my back... I know this because it hurt so much when his blood dripped into my wounds!" Silas twisted behind, trying to show the injuries Alistair left behind.

But to his surprise, the wounds were fully healed, his skin pink and fresh underneath the torn fabric of his clothes, the edges of which were stained brown with dried blood as proof of his earlier injuries.

"Oh god. This is because some of his blood fell on my wounds." He froze, staring up at the grim faces of his healers. "This isn’t a good sign, isn’t it?"

"No, it’s not," Prince Nathaniel said solemnly, with all the gravitas of a healer telling a patient he had a terminal disease. "This would explain a lot. Your physical wounds have healed but at a cost to your magic. We do not know what will become of you. We never expected Alistair’s condition to be contagious. Hopefully, the blood tests will tell us more."

"You can reverse this, can’t you?" Silas pleaded, his voice cracking at the end. "I can’t be a brainless, powerless beast! And I don’t want to turn into a monster like Alistair! I like my human hands! I hate drinking blood!"

The thought of turning into such a deranged beast that attacked his loved ones to drain their blood was terrifying. Silas looked down at his hands, half-expecting them to turn into claws. Was it simply his imagination, or did his nails look sharper than usual?

"Get me a mirror!" Silas demanded, his breaths coming out in short quick pants.

"That’s not a good idea," Sirona exchanged a wary glance with Prince Nathaniel. If Silas was already so frazzled looking at his hands, he would lose all control of his emotions once he actually saw the changes in his face.

The dark veins were spreading too quickly for their liking, framing Silas’s wide eyes. His sclera was now tinged pink.

"Why not?! What can’t I see!" Silas yelled out hysterically, "Am I turning into him already? Is that why you don’t want me to look?!"

"Prince Silas, please calm down," Sirona said. "The more frantic you are, the faster your blood flows throughout your body and the quicker the toxin will spread throughout. If you panic, you’re hastening your own demise."

"You try staying calm then when a monster tries to maul you to death!" Silas nearly screamed into his hands. "I’m going to turn into a bloodthirsty monster! Oh fuck!"

Prince Nathaniel sighed, "Prince Silas, I am very sorry about this, but this is for your own good."

"For what―" Silas asked suspiciously, but then a needle went into his arm. Prince Nathaniel watched dispassionately as he pressed down on the syringe, causing a strange purple fluid to circulate through his body. "Wait, what did you inject into me?" He screeched.

"A mild sedative," Prince Nathaniel said, holding his hand above Silas’s eyes, pressing down on his eyelids. "Now rest."

To Daphne’s surprise, her brother fell silent and he fell back on the bed with a loud thud. She gingerly went over to their side of the infirmary to take a closer look, and true enough, her brother was asleep. He seemed to be at peace, despite the maze of dark veins all over his face.

"He’s asleep?" Daphne asked in a hushed whisper.

"For now," Prince Nathaniel said, removing the syringe from Silas’s arm. "We cannot have him panicking; he’ll simply make things worse. Now we can examine him without worrying that he will transform midway and drain us all of our blood."

"A mild sedative eh? What were you intending to use it on? Dragons?" Sirona asked, eyeing the empty syringe warily.

Despite not being able to fight his way out of a bar brawl, the brains of Prince Nathaniel made him a threat. She had never seen a sedative of this color before, which meant that it had to be another one of his new concoctions.

"What did you give him? Are you sure it wouldn’t backfire?"

"I gave him an infusion of crushed lepidolite and other minerals," Nathaniel said. "It should keep him asleep for at least an hour."

"What if we needed to ask him for more information? How do you hope to wake him?"

"We know enough now," Prince Nathaniel said simply.

Sirona looked dubious, so he continued.

"If we want to know more, it’ll be easier to simply experiment on Silas while he’s still out cold," Prince Nathaniel said, gazing at his scalpel with consideration. "We might have a better gauge of his abilities."

"Do not do such a thing. Unlike Alistair, Silas can still be saved. We can’t cut him into pieces like he’s a pig at the butcher," Daphne said sharply, aghast at Nathaniel’s proposition. Even if she had no great love for Silas, she didn’t want him to be chopped up again and again while he wasn’t conscious to agree to this!

She promised Leonora that she would look after Silas, and so she would.

"Fair enough," Nathaniel agreed, but Sirona detected the slight hint of disappointment in his voice. This man really loved playing with fire, despite having no affinity for it. "Then we’ll run our tests on the samples we already got."

However, unknown to the rest of them, he had a feeling Silas was beyond saving. A powerful poison coursing through his veins would be a nightmare to purge― he might need new blood in his system anyway.

Now, the only thing he needed to find out was how to destroy Alistair to ensure he wouldn’t regenerate.

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