Luc’s Poisoning and Theo’s Rescue

Luc’s poisoning turns a journey toward the capital into a race against a toxin that even its mages cannot overcome. For Theo, saving him means crossing a portal that could expose his identity and surrender the life he has built in Leafel; refusing, however, would leave Luc to die. Theo chooses to go, and keeps working until the poison is gone—even as the effort drains his own strength and mana.

Background and Stakes

Nearly three weeks after the Hero’s party had departed, Theo had learned to bear Luc’s absence more easily because he expected the trip to the capital to be relatively safe. That expectation ended when Micah appeared at Theo’s door, wide-eyed and out of breath, with Dmitri beside him. He hurried Theo to Leafel’s main square, where a portal had opened beside a statue of a local hero. The high-level spell required either exceptional magical mana or several mages, and a crowd of townsfolk had gathered to watch it.

Bryony ran to Theo and clasped his hands. Wicker was there too, carrying the news: a demon had attacked Luc in a hit-and-run just before the party reached the capital, striking him in the face with something. Luc would not wake, and a deadly fever had set in. Nothing the capital mages had tried was helping. The party had obtained permission to open the portal and fetch Theo because they believed he might be able to help.

The rescue carried a cost beyond the danger of the journey. Theo understood that stepping through the portal would make his whereabouts and identity known to those in power. Even if the court mage failed to recognize him, Camden would; Theo could be forced back into the Hero’s party, where the truth about him might come to light. Malthios stirred with concern, but that did not ease Theo’s anxiety. He also believed the authorities would treat Luc as expendable, raising another child to take his place if Luc died. Theo’s answer to that calculation was personal: Luc was not expendable to him.

Identifying the Attacker

Before leaving, Theo asked what the attacker had looked like. Bryony described someone small, about Wicker’s height, with the lower part of their face covered by a scarf. She thought the figure had a horn in the center of the forehead. Malthios immediately identified the attacker as Nissle, one of his best assassins alongside Luvel, and warned that Nissle’s poison concoctions were deadly. Luc did not have much time.

Theo asked Malthios whether he knew a cure. Malthios knew ways to ease the poison’s effects, but not to cure it outright; Theo would have to use his own magic. That distinction made the rescue a test of Theo’s healing rather than a remedy Malthios could supply. When Bryony caught Theo’s arm, he realized he had already turned toward his shop. He told her he needed to collect a few things and would be quick.

The Rescue in the Capital

At the capital, Eliza stood between Theo and Luc’s bed. Camden gently urged her to trust him, saying he was sure Theo could heal Luc. When Eliza moved aside, Theo rushed past her and nearly threw himself onto the bed. Luc was swallowed by an enormous bed and its quilt and sheets; his skin had turned ashen beneath the fever flush, his dark hair clung to his forehead, and his eyes moved restlessly beneath their lids. His cheek felt cold to Theo’s touch. Malthios judged that Luc had only a couple of hours left.

Theo’s confidence faltered at the point where he had most to lose. He had never doubted his healing abilities before, but now his hands shook as he knelt over Luc, hovering above his forehead and heart. Wicker nodded encouragement, and Cargo appeared beside the masked figure to remind Theo that he was no quitter. Theo could not manage a smile. He turned back to Luc and began.

Theo summoned his own magic while opening the limits on Malthios’s mana, letting it flood through him until the room shone green. Malthios cautioned him against pushing so hard that he shifted forms. Theo answered that Luc’s safety mattered more. Time passed without Theo noticing. The blend of poison ravaging Luc’s body resisted destruction, and Theo knew he could not leave even the smallest trace behind. He held his position through growing aches, a dry throat, and sweat on his brow, while Malthios repeatedly reminded him to breathe so that he would not lose himself in the magic.

Aftermath and Significance

Theo watched for each change in Luc: color returning to his skin, his breathing easing, and the restless movement beneath his closed eyelids settling. Each sign relieved the tightness in Theo’s chest, but the effort was consuming his energy and mana. His vision blurred and darkened as his magic made its final scan. It came up clean. Theo released a dry, sob-like sound as relief and exhaustion overtook him, then collapsed beside Luc. Luc’s face was the last thing Theo saw before he blacked out.

The survival that follows gives the rescue meaning beyond its immediate reversal from impending death. Luc had already told Theo that his earliest relationships had been brief or broken by the demands of the Hero’s life, and that he had come to regard lasting love as difficult for someone with his calling. Their bond had since taken tangible form in the ring Luc placed on Theo’s marriage finger: his father’s silver ring, textured like scales and set with a dark sapphire, the sole object Luc said he had inherited from him. Luc’s father had died saving his adventuring party from a demon attack. In the poisoning crisis, Theo answers that legacy of sacrifice not by accepting Luc’s death, but by spending his own strength to keep him alive.

The danger also throws the political conflict around Luc’s future into sharper relief. Julius later tells Theo that Eliza had threatened him to prevent him from joining Luc’s party, and suspects that she wants Luc to continue their bloodline and sire the next Hero. When Eliza eventually confronts Luc over his choice, she asks whether he intends to end their bloodline and abandon what he had trained his whole life to do. Luc says he has chosen a quiet, peaceful life with the man he loves, and a future in which people born with the Hero’s gift can choose their fate rather than be bound to duty. The rescue does not itself settle that conflict, but it preserves the life and relationship at its center: the same Luc whose death Theo could not accept later claims a future beyond inherited Heroic obligation.