Evaline:
The lab was quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of silence that made every small sound feel louder than it actually was - the soft bubbling of potion simring on the burner, and the slow, steady rhythm of my own breathing.
My eyes were fixed on the small object resting on the tal plate in front of .
A pill.
It was small, round, white.
But not the dull chalky white most dicinal tablets had.
No.
This one almost looked like crystal.
When the light from the lamps above touched its surface, faint reflections shimred across it like frost catching sunlight.
I stared at it for a long mont before letting out a slow sigh.
"Well," I muttered quietly to myself.
I reached forward and picked up the small plate, bringing it closer to my face so I could examine the pill more carefully.
It still amazed that it existed.
Originally, it hadn’t been ant to be a pill at all. I had brewed it as a potion first - acomplicated one. One that took nearly three hours and more concentration than most healing brews I had ever made in past several weeks.
But sowhere during the brewing process, a thought had crossed my mind.
What if I could compress it?
What if I could take the potion’s effects... condense them... and solidify them into a pill while infusing it with my healing power?
At the ti, it had felt like a wild idea. Almost impossible.
Pills were notoriously difficult for healers to make. In our world, most healing thods relied on magic itself.
If healers didn’t directly use their powers on a patient, they relied on potions, elixirs, or herbal pastes for wounds.
Those thods worked. They had worked for centuries.
Pills, on the other hand, were rare.
Very rare.
Compressing magic into sothing so small required incredible balance and precision. One wrong step and the entire thing could destabilize. Which was why most healers didn’t even bother trying.
But sohow...
Sohow, it had worked.
And now the result of that crazy idea sat quietly on a small tal plate in my hand.
I held the plate up to my eye level, studying the pill carefully.
Then I slowly extended my healing energy.
A soft warmth spread from my chest, flowing down my arm and into my fingertips.
Golden threads of healing power drifted around the pill like mist as I examined it closely.
I wasn’t testing its strength, I was testing its safety.
My healing ability had always been particularly sensitive when it ca to things that could harm the body - poison, toxic herbs, corrupted magic.
My power reacted imdiately to those things.
But right now...
There was nothing.
The pill was stable.
Safe.
My power flowed around it calmly, almost approvingly. Which ant one thing - It was safe for consumption.
But even knowing that didn’t solve my problem.
I lowered the plate slightly, frowning. "How exactly am I supposed to test this..." I murmured to myself.
Because no matter how safe it seed, I couldn’t just give it to one of the soul death patients.
That was out of the question.
Their bodies were already fragile enough. They had been trapped in a coma for months... so even years.
No healer had been able to wake them, and no magic had been able to repair what had been broken.
Which ant experinting on them was far too dangerous.
I sighed again.
"I guess there’s only one option..."
Right as the thought ford in my mind, the lab door creaked open.
I turned my head as a familiar face peeked inside.
Rowan.
The mont he spotted sitting at the worktable, his eyebrows lifted slightly. "Hey," he said. "Are you busy?"
I blinked before quickly shaking my head.
"No-co in."
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing it behind him. He then made his way toward the table where I sat, his boots echoing softly against the stone floor.
Then his gaze dropped to the plate in my hand... and imdiately stopped. "What’s that?"
I glanced down at the pill before answering.
"A test."
He leaned slightly closer, clearly studying it. "A pill?" he said, surprise creeping into his voice.
I nodded.
"What’s it for?" he asked.
I hesitated for only a second, but Rowan already knew everything. Besides, I had always trusted him with all my secrets.
"I have been trying to make sothing that might help the soul death patients," I told him.
That got his attention imdiately. His posture straightened, and his eyes sharpened.
"What does it do?"
I set the plate back on the table.
"It’s not a cure," I said quickly.
Rowan nodded slowly, clearly expecting that.
"But..." I continued, "the idea behind it is to temporarily maximize a person’s internal energy."
He frowned at my words and asked to explain.
I leaned back slightly in my chair.
"When the Great Evil steals a wolf from a werewolf’s soul, it doesn’t just remove the wolf. It creates a massive imbalance in the victim’s internal energy system."
Rowan nodded again. He already knew that much.
"A werewolf’s life force is tied to their wolf," I continued. "Without it, their energy becos... stagnant."
"Which is why they fall into comas," he said quietly.
"Exactly."
I gestured toward the pill.
"This pill is designed to force the body to temporarily amplify and circulate its remaining internal energy."
His eyes flicked back to the pill.
"If my theory is correct," I continued, "it could stimulate the patient’s body enough to trigger so kind of reaction."
"Reaction?" he repeated.
"Muscle movent. Increased brain activity. Maybe even a brief mont of consciousness."
Rowan’s breathing slowed slightly. "But it won’t wake them," he said.
"No," I admitted softly. "Not fully."
Because waking them would require restoring their wolves. And we still didn’t know how to do that. We weren’t even sure if defeating the Great Evil could bring their wolves back or not.
But for now, even a reaction would an sothing important.
It would prove the patients weren’t completely beyond reach. It would prove their souls were still fighting.
The lab fell quiet for a mont.
Then Rowan asked the question I had been expecting.
"So what’s the problem?"
I folded my arms.
"The problem is that I can’t test it on the patients directly."
"Because of the risk," he said.
"Exactly."
Even though my healing power insisted the pill was safe, that wasn’t enough. I couldn’t gamble with their lives.
Not like that.
Rowan crossed his arms as he asked, "So what are you planning to do?"
I t his gaze.
"I’m going to test it on myself."
The words hung in the air for a mont.
"I figured," Rowan said.
I tilted my head slightly.
"My healing ability says the pill is safe," I explained. "But if sothing does go wrong..."
I gestured toward him.
"You are here."
He raised an eyebrow.
"And?"
"And I trust you to look after ."
For a mont, he didn’t respond. Then he suddenly stepped closer to the table.
Sothing in his expression shifted.
"We should reverse the roles."
I blinked.
"What?"
He picked up the small tal plate.
"I would be more comfortable with you taking care of ."
My brain took a second to process what he ant.
"Rowan, wai-"
But I was too slow.
Before I could react, he picked up the crystal-like pill... and swallowed it.
Just like that.
My heart stopped.
"Rowan-!"
But it was already too late.
The pill was gone.
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