Whether it was because her exhaustion was apparent in her visage or the soldiers got smart, the soldiers took Aloe back to her bedchamber after her encounter with the sultanzade twins. She honestly thanked them for their foresight. She may have not done any physically demanding activities in the short outing, but she doubted she had ever felt as tired as she felt back then.
The sultanzade had drained a lot of her energies with that short meeting.
Whilst they hadn’t spoken much about anything, the sultanzade allowed Aloe to realize that her situation was more public than she originally thought. They didn’t mention Fatima, so they don’t know about the… Aloe shuddered in her bed as she remembered the hotness of the aphrodisiac spreading through her body. It took a lot of her to not empty her stomach. She took a deep breath before continuing with her trail of thought. They don’t know about the Grace’s Exaltation aphrodisiac, which is good. If I had more sultanzade asking me for it now… I don’t know what I would do.
Fatima had neither come back to her in these few weeks, meaning that she either had not spent her last remaining two bottles, or that she was sensible enough to not demand Aloe anything in her current state.
“Yeah, sure…” The scribe snickered derisively in the tight contours of her bed. “A sultanzade being empathic? What a good joke…”
Aloe wanted to get out of Asina as soon as possible, but she knew her body was not ready for it. It would take weeks before she had enough strength to even sit down without fainting in pain.
For now, she slept.
Practicing internal infusion changes kept her distracted during these days. Sure, she had unlimited books at her disposal, but no matter how much she tried to concentrate, her mind was not in the right place. As her eyes landed on the paper, the words would sway around like waves, turning into incoherent splotches of ink.
“Talking about splotches of ink…” Aloe raised her head and looked around the room.
There were a million things she wanted to do, but she didn’t feel comfortable in her bedchamber, or more specifically the palace, to do so. With her ‘acuity’ active she could know that no one was watching her. Considering that she could hear the steps and heartbeats of people walking beyond her room with the door closed and tens of meters away, Aloe doubted there was a spy breathing shallowly enough to not be detected by her enhanced senses. The only people who could do that were sultanzade or assassins, and she highly doubted the sultanah placed her children to watch over her.
Not even to mention assassins. Aloe recalled that night, before the… misfortune. Aaliyah had talked long and long about her life as a scribe and her acquaintances and as the mention of assassins left her mouth, Aloe understood that woman didn’t like them. Not a bit. The sheer venom coming through her tongue, the despise and hatred as she mentioned Umar… No, she wouldn’t ever use assassins for her plans. She would kill every single one of them before that. The sultanah did not need to put that exact thought into words, but Aloe knew she would do it.
Aloe waited after Farah had gone away for a while and then explored every corner of the room with her enhanced senses to check that no one was spying on her. Sight was useless from her limited point of view, but she tried nonetheless to find anything with her eyes. Taste and tact were equally the worst, but at least her skin allowed her to feel the limited air currents in the room. Smell and hearing were the key players.
The scribe had asked the head maid to not light an incense under the pretense that it felt too oppressive, but the reality was that she didn’t want the fragrance to obscure the smell of possible lurkers in the shadows. Her nose turned empty.
As for hearing, her ears didn’t catch anything. She tried multiple things, like sticking her head on the mattress to hear vibrations or hitting the wood frame of her bed in order to see if a heartbeat or a breathing spike in result. Such things didn’t happen.
Okay, it seems I am on the clear. Aloe thought, not even daring to speak. What if the hiders were so stealthy that her senses were just not enough? The only saving grace she had was that she knew for a fact that any possible onlooker had no clear line of sight of her. At most, they could just listen to her.
With much malady, Aloe raised her torso and reached for the bags near her bed.
A few days ago now, Farah and other maids had carried all of her belongings into the bedchamber that had been lying around in her room back at the palace of the sultanzade. Her paranoia also paid there, because looking at the silks on her bag, Aloe knew no one had checked the contents. She cared more about the privacy of her bags than the chest filled with five thousand drupnars in the shape of fajati. A fortune, indeed, but fortunes could be remade. Lost secrets could not be recovered.
The scribe was careful with the bag, she didn’t have enough back or arm strength to raise the bag, so she had to take her sweet time undoing the many silks and knots keeping the most precious and secretive item inside.
Her fingers trembled from the uncomfortable posture, her body half hanging from the side of the bed in such a way that her body weight didn’t fall on her hips. Aloe took another sight across the and pressed her internal infusion as much as she could. Only the background noise of the palace and her bodily functions reached her ears. With much paranoia, the woman took a long item wrapped in cloth out of her bag.
The carelessness of her movements became apparent as the cloth started to get dirty from the bleeding item. Even if she knew for certain that it had been used, Aloe didn’t dare to get touched by the dark liquid.
Slowly, mostly out of difficulty from her trembling digits, the scribe undid the cloth. Inside, a big leaf with the texture of parchment and splotches of ink lay.
An Aloe Veritas leaf.
A consumed Aloe Veritas leaf.
Covetously, Aloe covered the leaf with her arms and the cloth, not letting any possible prying eyes read the contents written on the surface. Before daring to read it herself, she gulped down saliva so hard that she almost became deaf with her enhanced senses.
The contents read as follows:
Name: Aaliyah-al-Ydaz
Species: Human
Description: Female member of the human species, a species known for their ingenuity, high adaptive capabilities, and societal structure.
Internal Infusion: Charm
External Infusion: Longevous Perennity
A single string of text containing more knowledge than whole kingdoms had access to.
The treasure trove of information stunned Aloe. Many questions flourished in her mind, but above all else, she valued the question that had been answered for her. Not from the present information, but from the one detail that was lacking.
Human. She thought, not daring to speak. Many curses and spouts of ire flooded her mind, no being like Aaliyah could be human, but she let the insults rest, for there was something more important at hand. She’s not a Sultanzade. With Sultanzade, Aloe meant the evolution of humans and not the royal title. Rani is a Sultanzade, but Aaliyah not. Meaning no one evolved her. But if she wasn’t evolved and her children are…
Even a drunkard with half a wit that had been dropped as a baby could put the answer together.
Aaliyah has evolved all sultanzade. Only she knows how. Is it because of Karaim? Did she not tell me everything before…?
Aloe stopped for a breather.
As much as she liked to project strength in her mind, she was far from all right. Even these ponderations were taking a lot from her.
I… I have to assume she was not fully transparent back then. Aloe restarted. But… but I didn’t get the idea she knew about Evolution. Otherwise, they would have more exotic plants here and she wouldn’t have been interested in the aphrodisiac as much as she was. Does she evolve their children without knowing? The possibility seemed stupid, but both Evolution and Infusion – or Nurture as she called it – worked with vitality in similar ways. The only difference was the intent behind it.
Could it be that thinking about having stronger children whilst she was pregnant was enough to evolve them? The theory was borderline insane. I don’t know how much vitality is needed to evolve a human, but that woman had hundreds if not thousands of times my vitality. Maybe she doesn’t even notice? That even sounded plausible.
She let the matter rest for a while, that was a question that was difficult to solve, and she may never get the answer to it. Only one person knew of it, and she didn’t want to speak with her again if it could be avoided.
Aloe looked back at the bleeding Aloe Veritas leaf. There was more information to decipher in those words.
It's been a while since we have had a veritas description on a person.
The other day I made a character relationship map with my notes. Don't mind the arrow's direction, my notes are far from exhaustive.
I put it in spoilers, just in case, though you won't see anything that's been hinted already.
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