Aurelia's chest convulsed , she felt as if she was drowning, her palms clamped over her ears, but nothing could block the echoes of Matrona's screams. They lived inside the walls now, inside her bones, dragging across her skin like claws.
The floor glistened red where the hand had been severed. Blood seeped into the cracks of the marble, thick and dark, spreading like a stain that would never die. Even the torchlight seemed dimmer for it, swallowed by the dark sheen of fresh violence.
The door creaked. Aurelia's head jerked up in fear.
Fira walked in slowly, moving like a shadow, her eyes lowered, a wooden bucket balanced on her hip. She set it down soundlessly, dipped her rag into the water, and knelt in the blood.
No hesitation. No trembling.
As though she had done this before.
The rag pressed to the stone with a wet sound. It smeared the red in wide arcs before lifting it away. Again, and again. Each stroke slow, patient, deliberate. She rinsed the cloth, twisted it until crimson water streamed between her knuckles, then pressed it back to the marble.
Aurelia pressed her fist to her mouth, gagging, but her eyes would not obey her. They were shackled to the sight, chained to the horror.
The water in the bucket changed with every wring. First pale pink. Then thicker, muddier, a dark scarlet that clung to the wood. By the third rinse, the bucket looked less like water than another severed vein—another life emptied into it.
Drip. Drip.
The sound echoed, each drop falling like a heartbeat slowing, stopping.
The smell was worse. Sharp, metallic, suffocating. Aurelia felt it coat her tongue, her throat, her very breath. She coughed, bile scorching her chest, but it was useless. The air itself was blood.
She tried to look away, to fix her gaze on the torchlight or the carved vanity or even the edge of her own gown. But her eyes betrayed her. Always back to Fira's hands. The steady rhythm of cloth against stone. The raw skin of her fingers, rubbed to pink as she worked. The way her shoulders hunched, never shaking, never faltering.
Aurelia realized, with a terrible weight, that this was not Fira's first time scrubbing away screams.
When at last the blood was gone, only a faint, ghostly shadow remained on the stone. Proof that no scrubbing, no fire, no passing of time could erase what had happened there.
Fira wrung the cloth one final time. Her hands were red now too, streaked and raw. She whispered without lifting her eyes, so soft it was almost nothing:
"Don't cry loud, my lady. He might hear."
The rag dripped scarlet into the bucket, and Aurelia's heart broke with it.
Her sobs caught in her throat, trapped, strangled. Even her weeping no longer belonged to her.
The last of the blood was gone, but Aurelia still saw it—still heard it. Every heartbeat was a scream. Every breath was a knife.
Tenebrarum had not left. He stood in the corner, silent, watching as if the spectacle had been nothing more than a passing amusement. His eyes glowed faint in the dim light, unreadable, endless.
Aurelia's body shook. Her fingers clawed at her gown, desperate for something to hold. She could still feel the heat of Matrona's blood against her skin, though it had never touched her.
She lifted her face, streaked with tears, and for the first time her fear cracked wide open into fury.
Her voice was hoarse, jagged, but every word tore free like broken glass.
"You are a monster."
The words rang out, reckless, dangerous.
Her breath shuddered, but she did not stop. Her eyes locked at where his eyes should be , wet with rage.
"If I were given a chance—" she spat, her lips trembling, "you would be dead. All you demons "
The chamber stilled, as if even the air had frozen at her audacity.
Fira's hands froze over the bucket, her head bowing lower, as if to make herself invisible.
Tenebrarum did not move. Not at first.
Then slowly, terribly, his mouth curved—not in anger, not in surprise—but in something worse. A smile, faint and merciless.
He stepped closer, his boots striking the blood-stained stone with deliberate weight.
Until he stood over her, his shadow swallowing her whole.
"Such fire," he murmured, as though her hatred amused him. His hand lifted, brushing just beneath her chin—not gently, but with enough force to make her tilt her face up, to trap her gaze in his.
"You speak of killing me…" His voice was a low, dangerous whisper. "But you can barely lift your eyes without shaking."
His thumb pressed against the line of her jaw.
"little rabbit, do not speak too much , do not say what you can't do" His eyes burned into hers, endless, cruel.
His smile sharpened.
" As long as you breath you are to remain silent Aurelia. Because I own every piece of you. And you won't want to know what I do to people that disobey me"
Aurelia started shaking, her nails digging into the fabric of her skirt as if the thin cloth could anchor her. Her breath came shallow, uneven, every inhale scraping like glass against her lungs.
"Julius will be back," Tenebrarum said as he turned and left.
After the door was shut.
Aurelia's body stiffened.
The name alone clawed at her, not because she longed for him, but because she despised him. She didn't like Julius a bit— To her , he was just another human betrayer, a man who cloaked his ambition in soft words, who smiled with lips sharp enough to cut.
He betrayed humans to serve Tenebrarum .
Her breath shuddered. The silence between her and Fira thickened, broken only by the pounding of her heart.
And for the first time, Aurelia wished the blood on the floor had not been scrubbed away—because at least then she would not feel so utterly, helplessly clean for him to stain again.
---
To be continued...