My lord!" The hurried voice of the butler rang down the long corridor, echoing against the high, vaulted ceilings. His footsteps followed, uneven and panicked. "My lord, it's—it's a disaster!"
The Baron slammed his goblet against the armrest of his chair, crimson wine spilling onto the rug. His temper flared at once. "What nonsense are you spouting, Edward? Speak clearly!"
The butler stopped at the threshold of the study, head bowed low, hands trembling. His breath came quickly, chest rising and falling. "The knights, my lord. The ones you dispatched after the academy brats… they—they have been killed."
The Baron shot to his feet, his chair scraping harshly against the floor. "What?" His voice cracked like a whip, cold fury laced with disbelief. "That's impossible. It hasn't even been a few hours since they left. Are you telling me those children slaughtered twenty of my knights?"
Edward flinched under the weight of his master's gaze. "We… we cannot say for certain, my lord." His voice dropped, thin as parchment. "But the bodies were found… not in the direction they were sent to pursue. They were… scattered… in the town square."
The Baron's face darkened. He clenched his fist so tightly his rings bit into his skin. "Then who? Who in hell's name could have done this?" He paced across the chamber, his heavy boots pounding against the polished floor, his mind reeling. "Twenty men. Twenty armed knights, cut down like livestock. And in my own territory…"
"My lord—" Edward tried, but the Baron whirled on him, eyes blazing.
"Enough!" he thundered. "I don't want excuses. I don't want your trembling reports. Get out!" He jabbed a finger toward the door, his voice low now, seething with fury and a flicker of fear he could not suppress. "Leave me. Leave me at once."
Edward bowed so quickly he nearly stumbled, retreating down the hall as if chased by shadows.
When the chamber door slammed shut, silence swallowed the room.
The Baron stood there alone, chest heaving, the firelight flickering over his face. For the first time in years, his heart pounded with something dangerously close to dread.
"Who…?" he whispered to himself, staring out into the night beyond his window. "It's not night yet."
He gripped the edge of his desk until his knuckles whitened, staring down into the reflection of the wine spilled across the wood. His pulse thundered, dread prickling at the back of his neck.
And then, slowly, his thoughts turned.
The students. Two highborn nobles and their companion from the Imperial Academy—so conveniently present in his territory, asking their polite little questions, watching him with those too-sharp eyes.
It can't be a coincidence. No. It has to be.
The next morning, the sun rose pale and reluctant over Baron Derian's lands, its light unable to chase away the weight of the day before.
We sat at a small table in the inn, untouched bread and tea set before us. Cassian's hands hovered over the meal but never reached for it. His gaze remained fixed on the table, jaw tight, as though one wrong move might shatter the fragile silence between us.
Vivian shifted once, twice, her fingers brushing against the hem of her sleeve. She stole glances at me, quick and sharp, as if to measure something she could not put into words. Every time my eyes flicked her way, she looked away instantly, like prey too frightened to meet the predator's gaze.
I sipped my tea, calm, unbothered. The clink of the porcelain cup against the saucer rang too loudly in the stillness.
They hadn't said a word to me since yesterday. Not a question. Not a protest. Not even anger. Only silence with the image of frost-pierced bodies lying in crimson pools.
I let it linger.
If silence carved fear into their bones, then silence was my ally.
"Eat." My voice finally broke through, cool and sharp. "We have work to do."
Neither argued. Neither looked at me. They obeyed silently, like children who had seen a monster in the dark but were too afraid to admit it.
I don't think either of them could kill, not after how shaken they are after yesterday event. It seems… impossible.
A sigh escaped me as I set my teacup down with deliberate calm. My gaze lingered on them, sharp and unyielding. "Do you truly believe Instructor Cael would have sent us here without knowing the kind of danger waiting? He chose me to lead because I don't restrain or hesitate when it comes to survival." My voice cooled, the words dropping like blades. "And yet—just because I killed those who came for our lives, you avoid me like a plague. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have allowed either of you on this mission. You're not ready to carry this kind of weight."
Silence answered me. Cassian's jaw clenched, Vivian's hands tightened against her skirt, but neither spoke because they knew I was right.
"There may be times when you two can claim the higher ground," I continued, colder now, "but this isn't one of them. Not here."
I reached into my cloak and pulled out the sealed document Cael had pressed into my hand before we left. Without another word, I tossed it onto the table between us. The parchment slid across the wood, coming to rest before them with a heavy finality.
"Read it."
Cassian broke the seal with stiff fingers, unfolding the parchment. His eyes scanned the lines, lips tightening as he read aloud:
"CASSIAN AND VIVIAN ARE TO BE SENT BACK IF THEY PROVE A HINDRANCE, OR IF THEY CANNOT KILL WHEN THE SITUATION DEMANDS IT."
The words hung in the air like a blade. That document wasn't some grand writ of authority, nor a mission order of noble importance; it was nothing more than a test, a measure of worth. Until now, I had no intention of showing it to them. But the way they had been looking at me, recoiling as if I were something foul, was unacceptable.
I rose from my chair, my voice as sharp and merciless as steel. "You see? That paper doesn't shield you, doesn't excuse you. It says one thing only: if you cannot kill, you are useless to this mission. And if you are useless, I am to leave you behind."
Their silence was thick, almost brittle. Cassian's jaw tightened, Vivian's hands trembled faintly in her lap.
"I'm going to end this tonight," I continued, stepping past them with quiet, deliberate finality. "If you still think you can't kill, then don't follow me. Stay here. Don't drag me down."
They exchanged a glance—hesitation, fear, and then… something steadier. Resolve sparked, fragile but growing, burning into their expressions as they turned their gazes back to me.
Good. At last, their hesitation was giving way to something useful.
The forest swallowed us whole as we pressed deeper, branches curling overhead like a cage. The silence was unnatural, heavy, absolute. No birds. No insects. Just the crunch of our boots and the whisper of our breaths.
Cassian's hand hovered near his blade, Vivian's gaze sharp as she scanned the treeline. They were tense, their steps careful, but my stride was steady, unhurried. I had already scented the rot in the air, faint yet undeniable—death had marked this place.
We pressed deeper until the faint outline of a house emerged between the trees. Old timber sagged under the weight of decay, its shutters half broken, its roof scarred with moss and neglect. Yet the house was not abandoned. The ground around it was too clean, the path leading to it recently trodden.
"This place…" Vivian whispered, her voice faltering. "Why is there a house all the way out here?"
"Because monsters prefer to work away from prying eyes."
Inside, the air was stale, laced with the metallic tang of blood hidden beneath layers of dust. The furniture was sparse, as though no one truly lived here.
Cassian's boot caught on something beneath the rug—wood, uneven. A trapdoor.
We exchanged no words. The faintest nod from me was all it took before Cassian wrenched it open.
The stench surged out like a living thing—thick, wet, suffocating. Rot. Burnt marrow. Blood.
The staircase was narrow and steep, stone slick beneath our steps. Torches sputtered on the walls, casting long shadows until at last the passage widened… and the truth revealed itself.
A laboratory.
Rusting cages clung to the walls like broken ribs, their bars torn open as if something had exploded outward. The metal was slick with a greasy film, rust mingling with old blood. Chains lay snapped in coils across the floor, some links fused with scraps of flesh that had never been cleaned away.
The tables in the center were nightmares in steel and leather. Straps cracked with dried gore still bore fragments of skin and hair, while the wood beneath sagged with deep stains, layers of blood baked into it so thoroughly it seemed to breathe its own rot.
Shelves bowed under the weight of swollen jars, their contents shifting like things that refused to die. Inside, floating lumps twitched—half-formed bodies sprouting limbs at wrong angles, spines that arched and cracked against the glass, clusters of teeth grinding together in ceaseless hunger. One jar contained nothing but a mound of flesh that pulsed like a heart, tiny fingers sprouting and curling along its surface before retracting again. Another held a head with no jaw, its throat stretching wide in silent screams, the eyes snapping open and closed in a frantic rhythm.
In the far corner, a vat gurgled thick with chemicals and blood. A monstrous shape half-risen from its broth convulsed, its stitched hide splitting open to reveal a writhing nest of worms feasting on the muscle beneath. Tubes ran into its body like veins, pumping black fluid that made its twitching accelerate in jerks, as though every pulse was agony.
The air was unbearable—soaked in iron, bile, and something sweetly rotten. The stone walls wept with condensation, but when touched, it wasn't water at all—it was warm, sticky, and red.
And beneath it all, faintly, came the low chorus of whispers. Some sounded like voices. Some… did not.
Vivian staggered back, her hand clamped over her mouth as a strangled gasp slipped through her fingers. Her eyes were wide, glassy, fixed on the grotesque display as if tearing her gaze away might make it worse.
Cassian's face drained of all color, his breath hitching in his throat. His grip on his sword hilt was trembling, the leather biting into his palm as though it was the only thing anchoring him.
"This… this is madness," he whispered, voice cracking under the weight of the horror pressing down on them.
I walked forward. Unhurried. My boots echoed sharply against the stone, slicing through the silence. My gaze traced the cages, the bones scattered in corners, the crude scalpels discarded like children's toys. Where they saw horror, I saw order. Method.
"It isn't monstrous," I said, voice calm, cold. "It's deliberate. Someone is making something here."
From the shadows of a broken cage came a guttural growl. Something stirred—a body half-patched together, flesh stretched with stitches, eyes glowing with mismatched hunger. Its malformed skull pressed to the bars, teeth gnashing, a wet hiss rattling through the chamber.
"What… what are they making here?" one of them whispered, their voice thin, almost swallowed by the stillness.
"Chimera," I answered flat, without hesitation. "An abomination stitched together from the living, forced to keep breathing when they should have been allowed to die."
The silence broke with a sound low, guttural, thick as blood. From the darkness of a shattered cage, something shifted. Chains scraped against stone. Then it stepped forward, dragging itself into the torchlight.
It was a body only vaguely human—stitched flesh bulging where the seams strained, blackened veins threading through pale skin. One arm was grotesquely elongated, ending in hooked, talon-like claws that dripped with old blood, while the other withered to brittle bone, twitching uselessly. Its skull was malformed, jaw split too wide, teeth sprouting at wrong angles like shards of glass. But its eyes—two mismatched, glowing orbs—burned with something between hunger and despair.
The chimera pressed its ruined face against the bars. The sound it made was worse than its form—first a hiss, wet and rattling, like breath through punctured lungs. Then, slowly, the noise warped. Twisted. Until it spoke.
"Hu… man…" The word gurgled from its throat, every syllable strangled and broken. "He…elp… me…"
The plea collapsed into a shrill, distorted laugh, jagged like knives screeching across iron.
Vivian staggered back, her hands trembling, the horror plain in her voice. "No—no… these were people."
Cassian's sword arm quivered, his face drained to ash, as if the weight of what he saw hollowed him out. "This… this isn't real. It can't be real…"
The chimera's lips peeled back, exposing rows of jagged teeth that should not fit inside a human mouth. Its glowing eyes darted between them, fixing with sudden, unnatural clarity. Then, in a childlike whisper—so soft it made the air turn to ice—it breathed a single word.
"Mother…"
The bars screamed as it hurled itself forward, its body splitting along the seams, flesh writhing, tearing open as if something inside clawed to escape. The stench of rot and blood filled the chamber.
Vivian screamed and pressed a hand to her mouth. Cassian froze, paralyzed, every muscle locked in terror.
And I? I stood in the center, still as stone, watching it with cold detachment. My eyes followed every twitch, every tear of its seams. Where they saw a nightmare, I saw the truth. The inevitable result of human greed and cruelty laid bare.
I tilted my head, though the sight churned something deep in me. I hated this—hated it more than anything. To fashion a chimera, one must first steal a human life. Not a corpse, not remnants of the dead—the living. It was monstrous. Vile. And suddenly the silence of this territory made sense. The empty homes, the shuttered windows, the absence of laughter in the streets. No wonder there were no children. No wonder the people looked hollow. They had been taken, piece by piece, to feed this atrocity.
No matter how many of these abominations I had destroyed in the past, they always surfaced again, festering in the shadows like a plague that refused to die. I wanted to free the wretched thing in front of us, to put an end to its suffering. But I couldn't—not here, not now. Not when Vivian and Cassian's lives were at stake.
My voice cut through the suffocating silence, sharp and unyielding.
"Cassian. Vivian. From this moment forward, everything you've seen and heard dies with us. Speak of it to no one."
They looked at me, pale and shaken, but I didn't soften. "Steel yourselves. The dead aren't the only ones hiding in this place. Company will be here soon…and they will not be merciful."
The reek of blood and alchemy was suffocating, clinging to our throats like ash. Vivian and Cassian stood frozen, their blades trembling in their hands, still haunted by the chimera's pitiful whispers. I remained still, waiting.
The sound of boots thundered through the corridor—dozens of them, steady, relentless. Torches spilled jagged shadows across the stone as the doors at the far end of the chamber groaned open.
Baron Derian stormed in, his cloak snapping behind him, fury carved deep into his face. "You dare," he spat, voice reverberating through the chamber. "You dare defile my sanctum!"
He stepped forward, men in armor flanking him like a wall of steel, blades glinting under the flickering light. His rage was palpable, but then his gaze slid past us, falling upon the caged creature. And in that moment, his fury melted into reverence.
The chimera pressed itself against the bars, its seams tearing, its glowing mismatched eyes wild.
"Beautiful…" the Baron whispered. His lips twisted into a smile that made the air colder. "Even incomplete, it lives. It breathes. Proof of my genius. Do you see? Flesh transcending flesh, life reforged into something greater."
His eyes snapped back to us, sharp and venomous. "And you… vermin. Crawling into my work, threatening to unravel years of sacrifice. Do you know what it cost to make this? How many failures? How many… donors?"
Cassian's grip faltered, his face paling. Vivian staggered a step back, hand clamped to her mouth.
I tilted my head, meeting the Baron's fevered admiration with nothing but ice. "Sacrifice? This is not sacrifice. It's butchery dressed in pride."
The Baron's nostrils flared, fury snapping back into place. He jabbed a finger toward us, his voice a snarl. "Kill them. Every last one—except her." His eyes burned into mine. "I want to see if the purple-eyed witch bleeds as easily as the rest."
The soldiers surged forward, steel shrieking free from scabbards. Behind them, the chimera wailed—a sound caught between agony and hunger.
To be continued.