Thirteenth Prince's Odyssey-Chapter 33: The Northern Princess - III

Liam arrived earlier than most to the lecture hall, hoping the quiet might clear his mind. It didn't.

Today was Alchemy and Potion Brewing, Lecture Thirty-Three — Rehydration Elixir.

Professor Magnus Emberlain — tall, bearded, and with a coat stained in every hue of potion residue imaginable — strode into the room with a mug of bitterroot tea and the same energy as a young battle-mage ready to duel.

He didn't waste time. "Class. Focus. Rehydration Elixir. Simple, right? Well, try surviving an Ascendant-level dehydration collapse without it, and then tell me how 'simple' it is."

Liam straightened a little. The classroom buzzed with scribbling quills.

"This brew," Emberlain continued, uncorking a glowing vial of faint blue liquid, "restores not just water content in tissues, but encourages absorption through mana-sensitive pathways. With mana breathing involved, Ascendants recover in minutes. Without it, it still saves lives."

He paused dramatically. "Do you recall the old mortal epidemic? The rice-water diarrhea that devastated southern provinces? Ninety-five recoveries in a hundred — with this elixir."

Someone raised a hand. "What was the microbe's name, Professor?"

Emberlain waved it off. "Let the mortals remember such trivia. We deal with magic."

There was a ripple of laughter, but Liam barely heard it.

He tried tried to focus on the exact mana-to-herbal ratio, and the brewing's subtle aroma curve. He even noted the crimsonroot-to-honey bark balance. But sleep hadn't been kind. He couldn't sleep last night

His mind drifted.

And from the corner of his eye, he saw her — Serena.

Sitting in the front row, focused, spine straight, quill moving fast.

Like nothing had happened.

No shaking voice. No tears. No pain.

She looked calm.

Liam didn't know what to make of that. Relief, perhaps — that she wasn't breaking in front of others. Or maybe guilt — that she had to hide it all. That she was forced to carry on as though nothing had shattered.

He looked down at his own notes.

One word per line. A scattered mess.

He took a breath, then another.

If I can't fix her pain, he thought, at least I can respect it.

And maybe — just maybe — make sure nobody else adds to it.

And Liam, despite everything, began his brew.

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Emberlain moved from desk to desk, robes swishing, sniffing and peering into vials with narrowed eyes and exaggerated flair. Most students waited with baited breath, nervous, excited — especially when he paused beside Serena's desk.

"Immaculate as always," he declared. "Balance, clarity, even the mana layering — you're a natural."

The class muttered their admiration. Serena bowed her head slightly, lips tight. Liam noticed. She didn't even smile.

Finally, Emberlain reached the back row.

He stopped.

Blinking.

Then bent over Liam's brew, inhaling deeply — once, then again.

"My goodness..." he straightened, squinting at Liam. "Did you brew this, Pri — uh, Student Liam?"

"Yes, sir," Liam replied cautiously.

Emberlain leaned closer to the vial. "How on Nvaars did you do this?"

Liam sat straighter. "I followed the procedure, sir. As you taught."

"You simply followed?"

The professor's voice lifted an octave, drawing the attention of nearly everyone in the class.

And then the questioning began.

"What temperature did you maintain at phase three?"

"What was the frequency of stirring after adding bloodroot?"

"When did you introduce the honey bark — before or after the blood root released its essence?"

"How long did you decant?"

"What part of the elixir did you let crystallize, if at all?"

Liam tried to keep up.

"I... just tried to mirror your flame and — "

"I stirred once every third breath."

"I introduced the honey bark right after twenty-fifth stir, I assumed that was the cue to — "

"No crystallization. The solution was still opaque."

Emberlain stared.

"You learned visually? Everything?"

Liam nodded, hesitantly. "Yes sir."

The professor muttered something under his breath — possibly a curse, possibly a praise. Then, louder: "Do you understand what this means?"

Liam blinked.

"This brew is nine-tenths potent and seven-tenths efficient compared to mine. On a first attempt. That's unheard of. Even Serena needed four tries and still this brew is better."

There was silence. Even Serena looked up, surprised — if not slightly stunned.

A slow flush crept into Liam's ears, but he said nothing.

Emberlain placed both hands on Liam's desk, eyes lit with the zeal of a man who just found a dragon egg.

"Liam, have you ever considered specializing in potion craft? I could speak to the Headmaster. You'd have private tutoring, access to the south lab, even chances to work under visiting Potion masters from the Azure Spire —"

Liam froze. Then bowed his head politely.

"I'm honored, sir. Truly. But I'm under the instruction of Master Caelus himself. His Majesty has arranged it. I... won't be spending most of my time on campus."

The words hit like a brick.

Emberlain's face fell — not with offense, but something like regret.

"A shame," he muttered. "A true shame. I've only seen talent like that twice in my life. And one of them is dead."

He patted Liam's shoulder once and moved on, not even pretending to look excited about the next vial he examined.

Professor sure speaks his mind, he thought.

Liam didn't look around. He didn't need to.

He could feel the eyes. Serena's most of all.

What truly astonished Emberlain — and quickly rippled like wildfire through the classroom — wasn't just the precision of Liam's brew.

It was that he had tempered the brewing flame.

For Emberlain, maybe he knew that an Initiate had tempered the flame. But it was a topic of gossip for others who now think that they knew nothin about him.

The whispers came fast, hushed at first, then emboldened:

"That's not possible, right?"

"You can't control flame tempering without being at least a mid-apprentice..."

"I nearly scorched half my station when I tried."

"I've seen Adepts mess it up."

"He's probably a peak Apprentice pretending."

"Or maybe everything they say about Prince Liam is a lie."

"Still... even a weak Skyvail cub is a Skyvail. When it matters, it soars."

Liam pretended not to hear them. He stirred the leftover potion residue in his beaker with slow, deliberate motions, as if lost in thought.

But his mind was racing.

He'd made a mistake. A serious one.

Revealing his realm — that didn't matter much to him. Sooner or later, the Institute would know. He couldn't hide his mana signature forever. But what Liam feared most wasn't their guesswork about his rank.

It was what he'd done to reach that result.

The moment Serena sat beside him last night, hurting, Liam had made a silent vow. And it had steered his hands, mind, and flame with unusual clarity.

He'd instinctively slipped into Heart Frailty, dimmed the noise, controlled his inner breath, and tapped into an ancient discipline only a few even dared to attempt. A discipline from memory, not training. From legacy, not study.

Not a soul in this room — not even Emberlain — would know how to recognize the signs. But if someone did, if someone even suspected what he used...

The knowledge of Heart Frailty was not something he could afford to parade around.

It was not a gift to be shared.

Because if the wrong person learned it existed —

Liam had no doubt.

They'd rip the truth from his body, even if it meant draining his mana heart dry.

The buzz about Liam's potion didn't end in the alchemy hall — it followed him like a shadow.

By mid-afternoon, the entire campus had picked up the scent of the story, and it was clear the gossip wasn't just for students. The professors had joined in.

In Art of War, Lecture 33 focused on the Battle of Zaar, but the instructor, professor Cornelius Faulkner, a stern silver-bearded man with a taste for battlefield analogies, somehow tied in:

"Just as a commander must choose his supplies wisely before a siege, so too must we recognize the value of proper elixirs in campaigns. Speaking of which — splendid work, Student Liam. Your brew would've saved five hundred lives on the fourth day of Zaar's second assault."

In History of Magic and Civilization, the topic was King Mark the Generous, Seventeenth of the Line — known for forgiving entire cities and turning plunder into scholarships. Yet halfway through recounting a tax reform, the professor Oswald Lennox casually detoured:

"— and during the incident of the spoiled well in the South Quarter of Rochester, Mark personally commissioned healers and potion brewers. Rehydration efforts were key — not unlike what we saw today in Professor Emberlain's class. Student Liam, excellent work once again."

Liam sat at the back during most lectures now. He didn't raise his hand, didn't respond — just nodded or gave a polite thanks when acknowledged.

Still, he was thinking.

So the faculty talks among themselves. All of them.

Either they knew he was in the Initiate realm and were genuinely impressed...

Or...

They think I'm someone to impress. Maybe a future King.

The idea nearly made him snort aloud. He smothered the sound with a cough.

I already resigned from the throne.

He couldn't tell what amused him more — the fact they were sucking up to someone with no interest in ruling, or that the palace had somehow kept his decision a secret this long.

Quite the achievement, really.

Ironhelm's court couldn't keep a fruit scandal under wraps, but his forfeiture of the entire throne?

Still under wraps.

He leaned back in his seat, watching as the professor returned to King Mark's reforms.

Liam Orlean: once the quiet prince — now the poster boy for diarrhea control.

What a legacy, he thought dryly.

Finishing a long session of mana breathing and successfully dodging his sisters' attempts to ambush him outside the dorms after class, Liam returned to the cantina for dinner — weary, but composed.

And, once again, the entire hall seemed to pulse with whispers the moment he stepped inside.

"First timer, my ass. No first timer tempers flame like that. "

"I heard he's studying under Master Caelus. "

"Doesn't he have a lot of Potion brewers under him?"

Liam didn't bother reacting. His face betrayed no irritation, no pride, no embarrassment — just calm disinterest.

Still my second day, he thought as he quietly stepped through the rows of buzzing students. And the routine remains the same.

He walked straight to the same spot by the window he'd chosen the night before — tucked away enough to be ignored, bright enough to feel detached from the crowd — and sat down without a word.

Ignoring the voices, the stares, the shifting glances from every table he passed, he let his tray settle on the table with a soft clatter and focused on his food.

And like he said — the routine continued.

The troublemakers, his sisters, were in the cantina.

Liam spotted them immediately — Cassandra laughing too loudly, Evaline gesturing animatedly, and Elaine pretending not to watch him while very clearly watching him. He braced himself, expecting another ambush. But to his surprise, they didn't bother him. They sat far across the room, content, it seemed, to let him be.

Strange.

Maybe they were tired.

Maybe they were plotting something worse.

Liam didn't trust the peace, but he wasn't about to complain either.

He began eating, his mind drifting. How long, he wondered, will it take for people to lose interest? A few more days? Weeks? A good scandal might speed it up. Maybe someone would finally set fire to the alchemy lab again.

He'd barely taken his third bite when the screech of a chair broke through the noise.

He looked up.

Serena sat across from him.

She didn't speak. Didn't even glance around. Just folded her hands on the table, her expression unreadable.

Liam blinked.

Both of them sat still, said nothing.

The clatter of cutlery and distant laughter filled the silence they shared.

He finished his meal without another word, wiped his hands on a napkin, and stood up slowly. He didn't want to stay longer than he had to — not for his own sake, but hers. If she wanted distance, if she was forced to be near him, then maybe it was better this way. He turned to leave, hoping his sisters wouldn't blame her and start something.

But then —

"Wait," Serena said softly from behind.

Liam stopped.

He turned his head just enough to meet her eyes. Her voice hadn't been loud, but it cut through everything.

"Can we talk," she said, eyes cast slightly downward, "privately... if you would."