CHAPTER 255: THE CRUELTY BEHIND THE SEAL

"Sir Vesper," she said gently, before his thoughts spiraled any further, "you weren’t with me back then."

Salem finally stopped pacing and turned to look at her. "So ... that means we never met in your first life?" he asked.

Primrose shook her head slowly. "Back then, I didn’t have anyone who specialized in poisons. That’s why Silas was able to poison me little by little for years without anyone noticing."

Salem was stunned when he heard that Primrose had been poisoned for so long with the Virgin’s Poison. But his reaction wasn’t just from pity or sadness, it was confusion.

"Wait ... wait, are you saying that after the poison started affecting your body, you still lived for months?" He frowned deeply, clearly baffled. "That ... that shouldn’t be possible."

[She’s human,] Salem thought. [How could she survive for months after the poison began showing symptoms?]

[If she were a beast, I could understand that, but a human? Most can’t even last two days.]

"That’s what happened," Primrose said simply. "I don’t know how, but I managed to survive for months." Then, in a quieter voice, she added, "Though honestly, I would’ve preferred if I had died sooner."

Because truthfully, those few months had been the most agonizing part of her life. She spent most of her days stuck in bed, enduring pain that felt endless, and worst of all, Edmund wasn’t even there. He had to leave the palace to stop a war between the beast tribes.

Now that she was so used to having him by her side, the thought of going through something like that without him made the pain feel a thousand times worse.

"That’s ... really something," Salem muttered. "Would you mind if I took more of your hair and blood?"

[If her blood has some kind of strong antibody or resistance,] he thought excitedly, [I might be able to duplicate it and sell it for a high price! I could finally refill my treasury!]

What a shameless capitalist beast.

"You can ask my husband first," Primrose replied dryly. "Just ... choose your words carefully, or he might actually have your head cut off."

She was half-joking when she said that, but knowing Salem and his habit of saying all the wrong things at the worst times, it wasn’t entirely impossible that he’d end up in a guillotine instead of discovering some miraculous antidote.

"I just wanted to say ..." She steered the conversation back toward the real reason they were all gathered. "I want Dr. Silas to suffer before I throw him out of the palace. But before that happens, I need to set Hazelle free."

She turned to Raven, looking her straight in the eyes. "I’m sure Sir Vesper has already told you about this, so I just want to hear it directly from you, are you able to do it, Lady Raven?"

Raven didn’t respond immediately. She stayed quiet, lost in thought, carefully reviewing every method she knew for breaking a slave seal.

Even though her mouth didn’t speak, her mind was already proving that she could do it. She truly had the ability to release someone from a slave seal.

"I can," Raven finally said. "But destroying someone’s slave seal without knowing the secret words set by its creator takes a very long time, possibly a month. Besides, she would need to be kept in a sealed chamber during the entire process."

Primrose frowned. "But that won’t work. Hazelle can’t be away from Dr. Silas for more than an hour."

"I’m aware of that, Your Majesty," Raven said with a nod. "That’s why all the slaves whose seals I’ve managed to break were ones without that kind of restriction."

She explained that every slave seal had its own conditions and limitations, depending on the master who created it.

That’s why she could only crack certain types, like the ones that didn’t have a time limit on how long the slave could be separated from their master.

"Or ... it could still be done," Raven added, "If Hazelle can handle the pain that comes from being away from her master for that long ... I could do it."

"But Your Majesty," she added seriously, "only beast slaves have ever survived that kind of pain."

"A human like Hazelle ... she might lose her mind completely after suffering like that for a whole month." Raven spoke each word carefully and clearly. "It wouldn’t be worth it."

If Hazelle lost her mind after being freed from the slave seal, then all of it would’ve been for nothing. In the end, she still wouldn’t be truly free.

It would be kinder to let her die than to force her to live as a broken shell of herself, like a puppet with no soul left inside.

But Primrose had made a promise, and she wasn’t the kind of person who would ever break it, no matter how difficult it became.

"What if I manage to find out the secret words?" Primrose asked. "Would you be able to break the slave seal in under an hour?"

Raven’s eyes widened slightly, surprised by what Primrose had just said because it sounded nearly impossible.

"Yes." Raven said after a brief pause. "I could certainly do that. But, Your Majesty, the person who created the seal can’t speak the secret words out loud. It’s part of the magic. Their mouths will lock up the moment they try."

"They can only think of the words in their mind. That’s why questioning or torturing them won’t work, it’s completely useless."

"Slave seals aren’t meant to be undone," Raven explained. "Even the creator can’t break it on their own. The only way is to pass the secret words to someone else using a ritual that connects both of their thoughts."

"But that kind of mind-linking ritual is incredibly dangerous," she added. "It lets the other person freely wander through your mind. I would never allow someone like Silas to get inside someone’s head like that."

Whoever created a slave seal that strong and cruel absolutely deserved to burn in hell for a million years.

Seriously, how could someone wake up one day and think, ’What a lovely morning, let me invent some magical torture for slaves!’

Primrose would never understand how people could be so eager to keep slavery alive. It was horrifying and it made her sick just thinking about it.