The scribe focused on the burning watchtower on the horizon, the scout of this metaphor alerted her with their shouts. Internal Infusion. External Infusion. She reread the words on the bleeding leaf to herself. She would not trust this information beyond the confines of her mind. Two infusions. The sheer possibilities were endless. If one infusion is already strong, how would two be? Unfortunately – or fortunately considering who that person with two infusions was – power was never free. Infusions worked through the usage of one’s vitality and bodily attributes. To reinforce one aspect of the body, you had to weaken another one. Still, the upsides overcame the downsides with room to spare.

“Karaim had a talent for manipulating vitality, even if his reserves were pathetic,” Aloe recalled the sultanah’s words of that night. Before she put her claws on her body and poisoned it. “Even worse than the average child. But I had yet to increase my own then. So his last favor was to dote me with a stance. A second stance.”

They call it Nurture, but it’s Infusion that she was talking about. The bedridden woman pondered. A second stance. A second infusion. She has been superior to her peers since she was young because of Karaim. In a way, doubling the power.

As stated, a second infusion would only strain the resources that were already being used by the previous infusion, but why did one need to boost their senses and speed when their skin was harder than steel and their punches could tear down buildings?

And with her vitality… The last thing Aloe wanted to think about was that blood-laden night, yet she couldn’t deny she got a lot of information from it. She had only gotten practice from animals – namely Fikali and the camel that brought her to Asina – but with her scarce time she had learned to get a grip on living being’s flow of vitality. That plus her acquired knowledge in Infusion with plants meant she could get an idea of a person’s infusion with a touch.

And she had more than a single touch that night.

Aloe embraced the Aloe Veritas leaf as she felt bile gathering up. It took more than a few breaths to control her body.

I couldn’t feel her external infusion back then… Aloe pondered, a warm tingling gathering in her hands as she recalled the caresses. She tried her best to only think of the firm yet soft flesh in a vacuum. Otherwise, her heart may not be able to hold it. But I was sure her internal wasn’t ‘toughness’. If she hadn’t changed it, then the veritas agrees. The scribe didn’t recognize either of the infusions in the leaf, but she ignored them for now. But her skin and body were tough, far more than mine even with ‘toughness’ active.

She could still feel the pressure on her fingernails as she clawed on the woman’s skin and begged for forgiveness, but no matter how much strength she put in – even going as far as to change her internal infusion to ‘strength’ against her best interests – the sultanah’s skin never tarnished, let alone bled.

Aloe took a deep breath. Then another one.

It took her five minutes for her hands to stop trembling. Her eyes felt moist.

It must be her vitality. The scribe concluded in her best effort to ignore her aching heart. She has so much of it that even her infusion doesn’t shift her body attributes that much. Aloe had felt it in her body before too. The more vitality she had, the healthier she felt. The accumulation of vitality didn’t only make her infusions stronger, but also her body. With that much vitality, with thousands of times that of a normal adult, how much are her body attributes boosted passively?

It wasn’t a rhetorical question, she honestly pondered by how much – in a numerical sense – was the sultanah stronger than the average person. But beyond that question born from scholarly curiosity, what lurked beyond made her tremble.

The primordial fear of realization.

That the woman that caused her all that pain was just too strong by default, without any infusions at play.

She didn’t realize when, but her hand was lying on her heart, her chest rising up and down. No ‘acuity’ was needed to tell that wasn’t a normal heartbeat. She’s no woman. Aloe told herself. She’s a force of nature. A monster. A calamity. If she didn’t whisper those words to herself with the intent to fool herself, maybe her hips wouldn’t end up being the only thing broken.

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I need a second infusion. The scribe told herself. But how? The veritas describes it as an external infusion and both my experience and the sultanah’s words point out that you need an intermediary to do so, a third party.

Aloe did her best to scramble her brain for any idea, but nothing came out of her brainstorming session. And even if it did, she knew it would be useless. She had too little vitality to be anything remotely of a menace. What if her skin was tougher than bark and her arms could be steel? The sultanzade could still snap her like a twig, maybe even without their stances. And they had military and combat training. She was a scribe in a court of soldiers, raw strength wouldn’t help her. The only thing she had at her disposal was her wits.

I… A tired sigh left her mouth. The hot vapor showed that her body was too active for a bedridden patient. What about the infusions? She did her best to change the subject.

Internal Infusion: Charm

External Infusion: Longevous Perennity

The Aloe Veritas leaf read.

The external infusion. The one that Karaim gifted her decades ago. It had been so long ago that not even her mother was born, let alone Aloe herself. So long that her grandfather and mother were already dead… No… Not now. I… I cannot afford to…

Her eyes became watery. No matter how shallow or deep a wound may be, it will never truly heal. The echo of it in the shape of a scar would remain. It hadn’t even been two months since her mother’s death, there wasn’t a scar yet. The wound was open and festering. Among many others.

Aloe took a Cure Grass pellet. The vitality pill wouldn’t do anything to her with her full deposit, but the motion of swallowing calmed her down. I wished I had ter’nar tea… The palace was surely predisposed with commodities to make her forget, but she didn’t want to use them. The less she related to this place, the better.

Longevous Perennity… The name already hints at him. I don’t know how the veritas knows the name, but it certainly sounds like a moniker Karaim would give. The name reminded Aloe of her first infusions – the ones centered on plants – like ‘bountiful harvest’ and ‘accelerated growth’. The name ‘longevous perennity’ feels like… the opposite of ‘accelerated growth’. She had no evidence to corroborate it, but the hunch was strong with this one. Also… if the sultanah is still using Karaim’s original external infusion, only if… then there’s only one thing that comes to my mind as to what the effect may be.

For better, but mostly for worse, Aloe would never forget that night. The only positives of those memories were the bountiful information that the sultanah had doted her with. She couldn’t guess why the woman had done so, mayhaps just an indulgence, but so much knowledge hid in her words that Aloe believed it would take her years to decrypt it all.

Aaliyah spoke about how Umar was barely older than her, and how Karaim was a bit younger. The visage of the three people flashed on her face. The last time she had seen Karaim was four months ago when the man died. He was feeble back then, and whilst his skin was wrinkly and his hair white, it was clear that a hint of youthfulness still lingered on the man. He died from illness, not age.

The next one was Umar. That man was decrepit. He couldn’t have more than five years more than Karaim, yet the apothecary and assassin looked like he was nearing a hundred. Umar was one of those people that looked older than they were. Though I guess he was already seventy. That’s old enough.

And finally, Aaliyah. The only woman in the group, yet the only one that still looked young. Younger than mother, barely older looking than her identical daughter, Rani. If her aging continued like this, people would look at Rani in the future to see how the sultanah would age. Why hasn’t she aged like them? Why does she look younger than her children? A woman nearing seventy looking like one barely twenty-five.

The answer was clear to Aloe.

‘Longevous perennity’ is an infusion that slows down aging. The scribe guessed with utmost confidence. I don’t know if sapient beings that know Infusion can change their external infusions by themselves, but even if the sultanah can change hers without assistance, it makes sense why she hasn’t. If Karaim infused her around her fifteen years of age and she only looks twenty-five... taking into account that she is close to seventy… She has basically only aged a fourth of what she should…

The sheer realization infused fear into Aloe. No matter what she did, the sultanah of Ydaz would outlive her. That prospect didn’t make her comfortable or happy. A person with good health lives until seventy or so… times four… That’s almost three centuries…

It took Aloe all of her might and will combined to not puke again.

It repulsed her that woman would live for two centuries more. The image of her living and herself dying of old age made her arms tremble. Tremble in…

What about ‘charm’, her internal infusion? Aloe preferred to ignore the concept of mortality. It was unfortunately too close to her, and that woman too far away. I can guess what it is. Though I don’t know where that infusion stopped and the aphrodisiac began.

I think the infusion does exactly what I think it does. Aloe closed her eyes as the gravitas of the situation hit her, of other realizations. She had changed her internal infusion multiple times… back then. ‘Charm’ is very self-descriptive yes.

The image of her beautiful amethysts, her ebony hair, her bronze skin, her motherly curves, her toned muscles, her perfect face, her bountiful chest, her lustful body, her… All came back to her.

Aloe puked at the side of the bed.

It was clear to her what ‘charm’ did.