The breakthrough came nearly three weeks into her treatment, buried deep within a text Clara had nearly overlooked entirely during her long nights in the Citadel's library.
She had been cross referencing symptoms for what felt like the hundredth time, comparing Alaric's fever patterns against every remedy Mira had ever taught her, when a passage describing a rare toxin derived from moonflower root caught her attention. The description matched too precisely to dismiss as coincidence, the slow accumulation in Lycan blood specifically, the way it mimicked natural illness rather than obvious poisoning, the delayed but escalating symptoms that had confounded every physician who examined him.
She read the passage three times, checking and rechecking each detail against her own careful notes fr
