The Princess' Harem
Chapter 109: Viana’s Birthday Present

Chapter 109: Viana’s Birthday Present

Viana sat up, her heart pounding. Eryndor had not appeared like this since he healed the others after the assassins’ ambush.

She dressed quickly, quietly, and followed the shimmering guide. It led her silently through the darkened palace halls, past sleeping guards, down to the secluded wing where Rissa’s laboratory lay.

The oak door, usually locked and guarded, seemed to yield to Eryndor’s presence, swinging open without a sound.

Rissa lay asleep on a cot in the corner of her lab, surrounded by her instruments and the faint, sweet smell of chemicals. The Desert’s Embrace plant sat in its sealed glass chamber, its leaves glowing softly. Eryndor drifted towards it.

Viana watched, mesmerized. Eryndor placed his shimmering hand on the glass.

A wave of pure, silver light pulsed from his touch, engulfing the small plant. The faint glow of its leaves intensified, becoming a brilliant emerald. The plant itself began to tremble.

Before Viana’s eyes, small, new buds erupted on its dark stems. They swelled rapidly, bursting into full, vibrant leaves.

Then, from the very base, new shoots emerged, thickening, growing taller, until the single plant became a cluster of identical plants, each glowing with the same internal light.

The glass chamber seemed to expand, stretching to contain the miracle within. The air in the lab grew warm, filled with a deep, earthy magic.

It was not a slow growth, but a rapid, almost violent multiplication, a burst of divine energy.

Eryndor pulled his hand away. The chamber, now much larger, contained a thriving thicket of Desert’s Embrace plants, their collective light filling the lab with a soft, green radiance.

He turned to Viana, then smiled with his usual ethereal beauty. "Now the source is abundant, you can heal the earth, the plants, and the animals. Happy birthday, Viana."

Then he was gone, vanishing like mist.

Viana stood for a long time, staring at the plants, her mind reeling. The very problem that had weighed her down, the slow reproduction, was gone. The impossible had just happened.

And it was her birthday present, given by the only person who remembered her birthday, out of hundreds of people in the palace.

***

The next morning, Rissa awoke to an unfamiliar, bright green light filling her lab. She rubbed her eyes, stumbled for her cot, and then froze. Her jaw dropped.

The single Desert’s Embrace plant had become dozens, thriving within the magically expanded chamber. Her experiments, her slow cultivation, had just been bypassed by a force beyond her understanding.

Viana quickly explained, her voice still filled with awe.

Rissa, after a moment of shock, became a flurry of scientific excitement. "Unbelievable! The very essence of life! This changes everything, Princess! We have enough! More than enough for many, many batches of Sunstone Dust!"

The news spread like wildfire through the palace.

Joel, Reyes, Rayne, Arden, and Kaley were summoned to the lab. Their reactions ranged from stunned silence to shouts of disbelief and profound relief. The tide had truly turned.

"This is a gift," Rayne breathed, staring at the multiplied plants. "A true miracle."

"The logistics shift completely," Joel declared, his mind already working on the new scale. "We’re no longer rationing drops. We can cover entire regions. But that also means greater visibility. Greater risk."

Teams were immediately re-organized. No longer were they carefully conserving precious dust.

Now, the challenge was mass production and rapid, widespread application. Rissa and Arden worked furiously, overseeing the careful harvesting of leaves from the abundant plants, turning them into massive quantities of Sunstone Dust.

Kaley, with his growing understanding of magical energies, helped supervise the processing, ensuring the essence was stable.

Viana poured herself into the new plans. Mobile spreading machines were hastily designed and built, larger than anything previously imagined.

Soldiers were now tasked with protecting not just small caravans, but entire expeditions of dozens of men carrying bags of the shimmering dust. The target areas became entire blighted forests, vast stretches of ruined farmlands.

Yet, even with the abundant cure, the fight was still a brutal uphill battle. The blight was relentless. The dry season persisted.

Spreading the dust across vast, open lands was challenging. Winds could still carry away the precious powder. They worked from dawn until dusk, pushing themselves to their limits.

The people of Elysia, seeing the first signs of large-scale recovery, were filled with a cautious, desperate hope. Areas that had been grey and withered began to show wider patches of green, spreading like vibrant moss.

***

Far from the hopeful, dusty labs of Elysia, within the opulent estate of Count Lazarus, a place more reminiscent of a lavish retreat than a stark fortress, the Count stood before a large fish pond.

Lazarus was a man whose quiet power stemmed from his vast, expertly managed wealth. His county thrived, or so it seemed, under his meticulous guidance, yielding fine textiles, rich ores, and other valuable commodities that flowed through the established trade routes.

Whispers of less savory dealings existed, of course, as they often did around those of significant fortune, but such matters remained discreet, mere shadows behind the bright façade of his success.

His presence filled the spacious chamber, adorned with tasteful yet undeniably expensive artifacts, without any need for forceful pronouncements.

His elegantly tailored dark velvet jacket, embroidered with subtle silver thread, absorbed the soft glow of the strategically placed luminaries. His face, handsome and bearing the marks of careful living rather than harsh ambition, tightened almost imperceptibly. A fleeting pulse at his temple was the only outward sign of his growing irritation.

"Report," he commanded, his voice smooth and cultured, yet carrying an unmistakable undercurrent of expectation, breaking the otherwise refined silence.

A gaunt figure, cloaked entirely in shadow, emerged from a discreet doorway concealed within the elaborate wall hangings.

This was Dexter, his most trusted confidante in matters best kept from polite society, a purveyor of information and dabbler in arts most wouldn’t acknowledge.

"The blight continues its advance, Master," Dexter reported, his voice a low, almost toneless murmur. "Elysia weakens. Food shortages worsen. The king’s authority wanes. Valendale’s prince remains within the borders, offering assistance that appears... insufficient."