I stared at the window, at the man coming inside my chamber. I lay still, watching him. He was not so tall, but not short either. He was wearing a cloak, perhaps dark green or red. I could not tell in the dark. But I could see the outline of him as he came near the bed towards me.My heart was calm. It was not thundering inside my ribcage like it did when I was anxious.The man bent over my body. I felt his musky breath on my face. I felt his fingers wrap around my throat. It grew tighter with each moment.I raised my hand from my side and stabbed the man in the neck with a dagger. It all happened very fast. He let out a small groan, clutching the side of his neck where I stabbed him. I pulled the dagger out and let him bleed out.It was amusing watching him bleed out on the ground. I sat on the bed, my feet dangling from the side, and watching him. There was blood on my right arm, but I did not care.I watched the life go out of his eyes and thought, not for the first time, who I was
Sully was talking animatedly to my mother. She had gotten close to Mother. There was nothing common between her and Rosalia. Sully was everything Rosalia was not. The only thing common between them was the fact that both of them were beautiful. Mother liked her despite the differences.Sully giggled at something Mother said. Her eyes met mine for a second. She gave me a smile and returned her attention to Mother.I heard about the intruder that came into Sully’s room to kill her two nights ago. I did not have to hear about it to know the particulars.Because I sent that man.I wanted to see the real Sully. The one behind the veil. I wanted to see her being herself. For once, I wanted to glimpse at the person behind the face of the weak woman who was afraid of everything. I wanted to see the genius alchemist who made illegal potions, danced at brothels and was planning something dangerous behind everyone’s back.He was not supposed to kill her. He was going to frighten her a bit. If sh
Demian had been watching me in an odd way. He usually looked at me a lot. But now, he was blatantly staring at me regardless of the place we were in.“Who do you think it is?” I asked, not for the first time. “Is it Luke? But I don’t understand why he would do that. He might want to… you know, he might be attracted to my body, but I don’t see the point of his sending someone to kill me.”“I don’t know anything, Sully. I’m looking into it,” Demian said. He said the same thing every time I asked. It was getting tiresome. He was acting differently. I could barely recognize my husband.“What’s wrong?” I asked, placing my hand on his arm. His arm was strong and hard. “Did something happen?”He shook his head. “Nothing. I just have a lot of things on my mind.”I could not ask him what they were since he looked like he did not want to share.I lay my head on his lap. His whole body was like it was made with steel. It was not comfortable to lay on his lap, but I was in peace when I did it.“T
As usual, Theodore and I were at the library. Instead of his chamber, we spent our time at the library, reading books. Sometimes we both would read different books, sometimes he would listen and I read. I liked to read in silence, but Theodore sometimes insisted that I read to him. I did not want to disappoint him since he came to be library with me. I did not want to come to the library alone.In the afternoon most days, I would meet Rose. Rose said everything was going according to plan. She did not reveal the entire plan to me, although she acted like she did.“First, you need to gain the support of the wives,” Rose told me. “Dela and my mother already like you. Spend time with Clarissa. They live in three different part of the residence. In that way, no one will suspect anything if you go to that parts of the house.”She had a point. I had invited Clarissa to have tea with me and she accepted. I would have tea with her the next day. To be honest, I was rather nervous. How would we
The tea was nice. Not too sweet. Clarissa did not like sweet things, Rose told me. So, I had the maids prepare salty cookies and tea. Clarissa arrived just in time. She nodded at me when she arrived.Rose told me to treat Clarissa like I would treat a normal person, so that was what I tried to do.“I hope you are doing well, Lady Clarissa,” I said as I gave a small bow. It was a sign of respect to bow to elders.She nodded.Even at dinner tables, she only drank blood, wine and tea with a metal straw through a small gap between her lips. She drank tea the same way with me. I tried not to stare too hard. That would seem rude.I told her about my life with Demian. She nodded along, rather kindly. She communicated with me in sign language. Rose had not told me that she knew sign language. As it turned out, I knew sign language as well. I learned it at the academy.“You look like your mother,” she said in sign language.“I do,” I said. I tried to do sign language as well, but Clarissa said
My arms shook, the books almost falling down the stairs. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. It would be a disaster if I dropped the holy books.My head had not been working straight since coming back from home. Father showed me and other family members another package he received from House Silverclaw. It contained a light brown finger- a man’s middle finger. Jace’s finger.Mother had wailed over it while Father cursed House Silverclaw and every member of the family. I had checked the finger. I checked every part of it.“It has a message,” I said, holding the severed finger in my hand.“What?” Father walked over to where I was sitting. He bent over my shoulder to take a look.“Inside the finger. There is something written on the other side of the skin,” I said. “Look, you can see from the bottom here. It’s not a real finger.”Father took it from me. Indeed, there was a message engraved inside.“Third moon, it says,” Father said.“Tonight is a full moon,” I said. We prayed all n
Rose helped me send the message. On the third moon, we would send Jace back. I would go later.“I can’t go before Demian goes somewhere far,” I said. “He keeps an eye on me all the time. He knows about everywhere I go and everything I do. Sometimes he can tell word for word of the conversations I had with other people.”“Does he not have work? He keeps giving Father the reports. How does he do that?” Rose asked.I shook my head. “I don’t know.”“Is he watching us right now?” Rose looked around.“No. He is in our chamber, taking a bath,” I said. “It is more dangerous when he says he is out. Because those times, I never know when he is watching me.”“Are you sure he is not watching us right now?”“He is not,” I said, although it felt wrong somehow to be so sure about it. Because, what if he was watching us? Demian could be anywhere. He could walk alongside you without you knowing anything about it. You could not hear him. Demian walked silently. Sometimes it was like he did not even bre
Sully brushed her fingers on the wound and took them back just as quickly.“Does it hurt a lot?” she asked.To be honest, it did not hurt much. It was a small wound. But according to Sully, even a scratch mattered.“It can lead to infection if left untreated. A wound might be small, but you should treat it just the same way you would treat a serious wound,” she said knowingly. “I could make you a healing potion if I had the ingredients at hand.”“There is ointment in my chamber, Sully.”I told her where it was. While she went to get it, I relaxed in the hot water. The water was hotter than I preferred. Sully said it was perfect. I should have realized by now that the water she called perfect was scalding hot.Sully had the maids prepare the bath for herself. But when I came with a small injury from a knife on my arm, Sully told me to get in the tub instead.After brining the ointment, she first cleaned the wound with practiced hands. She dried the area, put a little ointment on it and
I had been imagining this for so long. I had imagined doing so many things when I would meet Kyle again under the circumstances when I could finally take my revenge.Kyle was inside the tent, his men said. They stopped short when they noticed me. Well, they had not seen me in a while. A little surprise was bound to show on their faces.“Is anyone else inside?” I asked.“Yes. It is an alchemist. His name is…”“Leo,” I said. “I know him. Tell Kyle that I want to talk to him. The alchemist can stay though.”My brother’s personal guard bowed to me and went inside the tent. I knew that man. His name was Ezra Walsh. He had been my brother’s personal guard for the last five years. He was bald and tough looking with a scar on his right eye. I had the suspicion that he was blind in that eye, but never knew the truth.“What do you want to talk about with him?” Rezef asked.“Many things. Do you want to see?” I asked.“If you want me to.”“No, it depends on you. You can watch if you want to. But
There were no ships here. Not a single one. I could not even take a carriage either. The roads were blocked.I was out of the estate of House Star, at least. Currently, I was staying at a brothel. I gave some money and some of my pieces of jewelry to the brothel owner and she gave me a place to stay.It was nasty here and I felt disgusted the whole time, but at least, it was safe. Not for long though. At some point, the brothel owner might want to sell me to his nasty customers. I needed to leave soon.I did not know what was going on with the war. I could not care less about that. What I hated about it was the fact that I could not stay at House Star anymore, if there remained a House Star after this in the first place.I hated everything and everyone now at this point. I did not deserve this. I did not deserve any of this.I did not want to born in that family where I had to do things that I did not want to do. I had to learn how to seduce people at a very young age. It was called t
Sully escaped. Once again. I did not know exactly how she let Rezef Thorn know about her location, but she did do it somehow and that was without my knowledge.That woman was too cunning. She even fooled me.I was pretty sure she was going to use Rezef Thorn to get to Kyle.I had been gone for a long time because of a complication. I needed to defend the estate because part of Jade Star’s men somehow got inside the estate. It had been bloody.My left eye still hurt. There was a cut right under it. One of the men of House Star almost took my eye out.And now Sully was gone. This woman was driving me crazy in all the ways possible.She was now at the camp of Rezef Star. I could not just go there. It was hard to sneak in there. I could get as near as possible, but it would be hard to meet her there.I did not doubt Sully’s loyalty. It lay with me. She did not care about Rezef Thorn romantically. She was just using him to gain her objective.I just hated that she escaped from me again aft
“How is Millie?” I asked.Rezef was mostly ignoring me at this point. Well, at least, he was pretending to.“She is okay.”“Treat her nicely, okay? She is a nice girl,” I said. “Do you know Father used to beat her?”Rezef’s face suggested that he had no idea of this incident. Millie did not tell him for sure. It was not like I expected Millie to tell him either. Millie had always acted like she did not deserve anything and kept her thoughts to herself all the time.Their marriage life was not going okay. I knew that from the look on his face. Millie and he were not okay. If they just ended their marriage, then it would be for the best. At least, both of them could find someone new. It would be hard for Millie, but she would get over it. There was no point in suffering when you could get rid of that suffering.Both of them were unhappy in that marriage, I could tell.“Whenever Father was angry, he would take it out on her. We… We always saw but never did anything. I regret it, but what
My plan was simple. I always had the feeling that there was more to the little vacation than Demian let on. That was why- I started to leave trails behind. I kept the window open and threw purple pearls from the window. Demian did not notice because he had been busy trying to keep his legs from cramping and other times, he was massaging my feet.I had to be very cautious so he would not notice. Demian’s eyes were sharp. He noticed everything.That was why I had the feeling that this plan might not work.There were a lot of guessing involved. I was betting on Rezef’s feelings for me on this matter. He had to be the one to find the pearls because only he would recognize them. I had the belief that he was smart enough to know that I would not be at House Silverclaw.Rezef did not disappoint me.Now, I would have to explain everything to him, but that would have to wait for a bit.I told Rezef not to kill the guards that they took captive.We reached their camp on horses. Rezef wanted to
When I kicked the door open and entered the room at the top of the tower, I saw her for the first time in a long while. She was just the way I remembered her. Brown skin, curly hair and red eyes. But she now had a scar on her face. Did her husband did that? That bastard!I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her. I did not care about anything else. I needed to feel her. I needed to know she was real.My men were watching me, but I did not care. All I cared about was her at this moment.“Rezef,” she breathed. “I thought you wouldn’t find me.”“You left those signs for me to find. How could I not?” I said, pulling back from the hug. That was when I noticed what she was wearing. I averted my eyes from her barely covered body.She did not seem to feel any shame as she threw away the cover and got down from the bed. There was a cuff around her ankle attacked to a chain.“Can you do something about it?” she asked.I told all my men to get out. They did not need to see her like this for lo
I had not seen Demian in ten days. I had no way of knowing how things were going. I did not know if he was safe or not.I was anxious all the time. I ate less. I could not digest anything when my husband was out there in danger.Besides, there was still no sign of my plan working. I lost almost all the hope that I had.So, this was going to be the first time I felt defeat. It was an ugly and disgusting feeling. I hated it.When I messed up my potions, I always got very angry. It took me a long time to calm myself before trying to make those potions again. Unlike me, Leo could calm down soon.Our professor said that it was my only weakness. The frustration, the anger that I felt if something went wrong.“You are too fond of winning. Sometimes, you need to know what losing feels like as well. That way, you won’t feel like you lost everything when you finally lose once. You have patience, Sully, but even with this much patience, you cannot always win. When you lose, it is important to pi
I did not talk to anyone. I was all alone on top of the tower. There were guards outside my door, but there might as well be no one. No one talked to me and I did not talk to anyone. Demian told me not to. If I wanted my plan to work, I needed to do as he told me to.The maids brought me my food in time. They helped me bathe and left immediately. When Shea tried to talk to me, I refused to engage in the conversation much. After a while, she would give up and leave me alone with my thoughts.If I was a believer of luck, then I would say that my plan required a lot of luck to work. But since I was not such a person, I believed in possibilities. My plan would work if a certain person noticed certain things. I knew that person well, so I knew that he would notice them.But what if he did not notice them? What would happen then?Then my plan would fail. I did not want to think about it. I never had a plan that failed. I always calculated the risks and made the plans after that. Until now,
The war had started. Jade Star gave a few conditions.1. Sully Star must be returned to House Star without any physical harm.2. Rosalia Star must be returned to House Star without any physical harm.3. House Silverclaw will publicly ask for the forgiveness of House Star.4. Alexander Silverclaw will be stripped down from the position of the Head.5. Demian Silverclaw will annul his marriage with Sully Star.6. A Silverclaw can never marry a Star again.When I read those conditions, I could not help laughing. Without seeing my father’s face, I knew how he would react.First of all, Father would not agree to any of those. He would never give Sully away. I would not give Sully away. He would never hand over his wife. My father would rather eat shit than ask for the forgiveness of House Star. Besides, how could someone ask for forgiveness when they did not think they did anything wrong? My father did not think he did anything wrong. He took what he could. House Silverclaw would never ask