The estate of Baron Eldric Varnes was a marvel of quiet nobility—white stone, ivy-draped balconies, and gold-threaded banners fluttering in the spring breeze. It sat on a hill above a village that bore no walls because it had never needed them. No enemy had ever dared raise steel against the people here.
Because Baron Varnes was a lowly baron without much land and he was also loved by his people.
He and his wife, Lady Caelia, were kind, just, and warm—a rarity in this world. And their daughter, Annilysa, was the jewel of the land. Sixteen years old, raised on poetry, prayer, and philosophy, she sang at festivals and helped the sick in the village without being asked.
Her name was so widely known to those nearby she was called a saint by villagers. Unfortunately, this title drew the gaze of Lenara and Nick.
She believed in goodness. She believed in mercy. She believed in people.
She believed the world, at its core, could be beautiful.
That belief was the first thing Nick and Lenara broke.
She was so pure and beloved that they wanted to break her more and more as they heard about her.
The slaughter began quietly.
Servants, groundskeepers, guards—none screamed. None escaped. Everybody was tucked away like a butcher's private collection, some still warm, others unrecognizable. No blood trailed in the halls. No doors were broken. The estate remained pristine under moonlight.
Annilysa awoke to the sound of silence. That was what felt wrong. The birds outside her window were gone. The fountain no longer trickled. There were no footsteps, no murmurs of the staff preparing breakfast.
Just silence.
And then a whisper.
"Annilysa."
She turned.
Lenara stood in the doorway, pale and perfect, eyes glowing like dusk over a corpse.
Annilysa opened her mouth—but breath froze in her throat. A dark mist seeped from the woman's feet, curling across the room like fog. It kissed her ankles, her calves, her chest—and she collapsed, rigid, unable to scream. Eyes wide. Mind racing.
She was paralyzed.
Lenara tilted her head, expression unreadable. "You were right," she said softly. "The world can be beautiful. But only when it breaks in just the right manner."
Nick entered behind her. He said nothing. He simply tossed something onto the floor.
A severed hand. A servant's. Still twitching.
Annilysa tried to scream. Her mouth would not move.
They dragged her to the grand atrium. Her parents were already there, bound to chairs. Caelia's dress was torn, her face bruised, her eyes wide with raw terror. Eldric was gagged, bleeding from dozens of shallow cuts across his chest and legs—each precise, each still fresh.
They were alive.
Annilysa was dropped between them like a doll, her body still coated in the creeping black of Darkness Lingua.
Nick crouched next to her, running a finger down her face, positioning her head so that she could see the sight. "It's a shame," he murmured. "You're so… untouched. You'd have made such a sweet little priestess. A healer, saint, and future baroness. So talented."
Lenara circled behind her father. "Instead," she said, "you'll be the third fang."
Annilysa's eyes focused on the woman standing behind her parents.
Lenara smiled, fangs showing. "Let's play a game."
She stepped behind Eldric and slowly peeled open a fresh wound with her nail. He thrashed, muffled screams pouring through the cloth in his mouth. Blood soaked his shirt. He didn't pass out—Lenara wouldn't let him. After all, it would be no fun if he didn't scream once or twice.
Nick walked around to face Caelia like a man strolling through a garden—unhurried, savoring each step. Her torn dress barely clung to her body, and her arms trembled where they were bound to the chair's frame.
He crouched beside her, brushing a strand of blood-matted hair behind her ear with mock tenderness. "You must've been beautiful when you were younger," he said, voice gentle, almost reverent. "I bet men bowed just to see you smile."
Her head jerked away. He caught it, fingers threading into her hair. "I said look at me."
He didn't raise his voice, but the power in it made her freeze. Made Annilysa freeze. Even Lenara turned slightly turned on by the situation.
Nick whispered something in Caelia's ear—low, vile, poisonous. Her breath hitched. Her body went rigid.
Then the tears came.
And he smiled.
He unfastened her bindings slowly, not to free her, but to make her feel the vulnerability. To make her think—hope, even—that he might show mercy.
He didn't.
He pulled her from the chair and laid her on the marble floor like she was made of porcelain—careful, precise. Reverent, even. His hands were cold, but his grip was firm as he ripped off the tattered clothes of Caelia's body.
Lenara blocked Annilysa's view at the beginning, only to let glimpses slip through. The sounds told the story better than any image could: Caelia's strangled gasps, her choking sobs, the quiet, awful pleasure in Nick's breathing as he desecrated everything she was.
There was nothing lustful in it—only dominion. A conquest not of body, but of dignity. Of identity.
He wanted her to die knowing she had been nothing in the end.
Lenara whispered in Annilysa's ear while it happened.
"You know she begged us before we brought you," she said softly. "For you. For your life. For the lives of the servants. She even offered herself to us in exchange for you all. That's how much she loved you all."
Lenara then moved and allowed Annilysa to catch a full glimpse of the end as Nick vigorously kept thrusting into a weeping Caelia. Soon he finished off inside of her as she screamed for Annilysa to look away.
Nick finished when there was nothing left of Caelia's pride but broken sobs and a trembling hand that no longer lifted when he moved.
Then he stood, licking a thin line of blood from his thumb.
"She's ready," he said, voice like closing iron.