Seraphine straightened, her shadow falling over him like a shroud.
She moved to the table in the corner, her fingers gliding over the neatly arranged objects there a wine glass, a silver spoon, a small box no larger than her palm.
She picked up the box and opened it slowly, deliberately, letting the man's curiosity spark through his fear. Inside was nothing but a single silver key.
She held it up between two fingers, letting the dim light catch on the metal.
"This," she said, voice smooth as silk, "opens your chains. All you have to do is take it from my hand."
The man blinked, confusion warring with the desperate hope in his eyes. He reached or tried to. His bound arms strained, the shackles rattling. The key dangled, just out of reach.
Seraphine stepped closer, then closer still, until the cold metal brushed his fingertips… before she pulled it away again.
"Ah," she sighed. "Not quite. Tell me something, steward… which of the kitchen girls screamed the loudest?"
His face went pale, lips trembling.
"I I don't "
"Don't lie to me," she whispered. "We both know you remember. Names. Faces. Every. Last. One."
She set the key on the floor between them.
"All you must do to be free is speak the truth. But here's the catch… if you do, I'll let you go exactly as you are now."
The man stared at her, dread dawning slowly.
"You mean… still chained?"
"Oh no," Seraphine smiled. "I'll set you free… outside… with them."
Her gaze flicked toward the heap of lifeless bodies in the corner.
Elric's expression didn't change, but in his eyes was the faintest glint of Fear he had seen her do this before.
She never had to lay a hand on her victims to break them.
The man began to shake, torn between the unbearable present and the terror of what "freedom" meant in her mouth.
Seraphine waited.
The silence stretched, each heartbeat sounding like a drum in the dark.
Seraphine didn't move for a moment. She simply crouched there, her eyes locked on his trembling form, as though she could see every thought clawing inside his mind.
"You know," she began softly, "pain fades… the body forgets after a while. But shame? Humiliation? That lingers. It stains."
The man's breath hitched, his gaze darting to the shadows in the corners of the room anywhere but her face.
She leaned closer, her voice a whisper meant only for him. "I could let you go right now. I could walk away, and you'd limp into the world again. People would look at you, wondering… what happened to him? They'd see the way your hands shake, the way you can't stand the sound of laughter anymore."
He shook his head frantically, as though trying to drive the words out of his skull.
Her smile deepened, not out of joy, but precision as if she was sculpting his mind into the shape she wanted. "Or maybe," she continued, "I'll give you back to the kitchen girls. Let them decide what to do with the steward who sold them. You'd hear their voices in your sleep for years, wouldn't you? That's worse than anything I could invent."
The man whimpered again, his knees quivering beneath him.
Seraphine finally straightened, her shadow stretching long across the stone floor. "The problem with men like you," she said almost lazily, "is that you think monsters only have claws and teeth. But the worst ones?" She tapped a finger to her temple. "They live up here."
Then she stepped back, leaving the silence to gnaw at him. Elric's gaze stayed on the man coldly, but in the quiet Fear of Seraphine, that Seraphine's words would fester far longer than chains ever could.
Seraphine plucked a small, needle-thin blade from the table, its tip catching the dim light.
The steward strained against the shackles, his wrists raw and bloodied, breath hitching as fear swallowed his voice.
Seraphine stepped closer, her heels clicking softly on the stone floor. In her hand, the small, needle-thin blade gleamed faintly under the lantern light.
She tilted her head, golden hair spilling over her shoulder, the strands catching the glow. Her sharp red eyes fixed on him, and a slow, unsettling smile spread across her lips.
She pressed it to the steward's stomach and began to carve, her movements deliberate. Each slow stroke formed a letter, the skin parting under the blade.
A laugh escaped her soft, melodic, but carrying a creeping chill that made the air heavy.
Without breaking eye contact, she pressed the blade against his stomach.
Slowly. Deliberately.
The steward's voice broke into a desperate scream.
"P-Please please forgive me! I'll do anything anything!"
Seraphine's hand did not falter. The tip of the blade carved the first letter, then the next, each stroke drawing another cry of pain. Blood welled up in thin lines, shaping the words:
I am a sinner.
The steward's screams shattered the stale air, ragged and raw, bouncing off the damp stone walls. Whatever Seraphine was doing, it didn't need to be seen to be understood the sound alone clawed into the bones.
Elric's jaw tightened, his gaze fixed on the far corner of the room. His fists clenched at his sides, tendons straining against his skin. He'd seen worse he told himself that but the way she drew the agony out, shaping it like an artist at her canvas, gnawed at something deep in him.
"You're looking away," Seraphine's voice cut through the steward's cries, sharp and commanding.
He didn't answer.
"Don't you dare," she hissed, turning her head toward him. "You will watch, Elric."
Her tone wasn't just an order it was a demand carved from something obsessive, a need to pull him into her world and keep him there.
Elric's cold eyes slid back to the scene, though there was no change in his expression. Only the faintest tightening at the corner of his mouth betrayed the weight pressing on him. The steward's sobs broke into another scream, and the sound cracked through Elric's mind like glass splintering.
Seraphine's lips curled into a dark smile, though her gaze was fixed on Elric, not the man writhing before them. "I want you to see what happens to those who cross me. To us." The last word lingered, heavy and deliberate.
For a long moment, Elric said nothing, his eyes locked on hers instead of the suffering man. And though his stare remained cold, there was a depth in it an unspoken line he was careful not to cross, even as she kept trying to pull him over.
The steward's voice cracked into silence, leaving only the sound of Seraphine's slow, steady breathing.
Elric stood a few steps away, his eyes narrowed, jaw tense. His fists clenched at his sides as if each cut landed on him instead. He turned his gaze aside, unwilling to watch the cruelty unfold.
"Look at me, Elric."
Her voice, sweet yet commanding, pulled his attention back. She didn't pause her carving, the blade still dancing across torn flesh.
"You don't get to look away," she said, her tone dipping into something darker, almost reverent. "Everything I do is for you. You'll see it. You'll remember it. You're mine do you understand?"
She leaned closer to the writhing steward, her lips curling into a cruel smile. "And this… this will happen to any woman or maid in this mansion who dares to get close to you. Even if they so much as speak to you, I'll make sure they pay." Her gaze cut back to him, sharp and unblinking. "And you will watch every single time. Because you belong to me only me."
Her red eyes glimmered with obsession, the cruel beauty of her smile never fading.
Elric's face stayed cold, but deep in his chest, something twisted. He said nothing.
The torchlight in the narrow stone chamber flickered weakly, casting restless shadows along the damp walls. The scent of mildew mixed with something sharper coppery, metallic thickening the air until it was almost suffocating. Somewhere beyond the door, the faint drip of water echoed, each drop a patient reminder that time here crawled.
Seraphine stood in the center of the room like she belonged to it, the pale shimmer of her hair catching the light as if spun from gold. Her red eyes sharp, unblinking were alight with a feverish glimmer, the kind that made lesser men avert their gaze. The beauty in her face was undeniable, but it was the wrong kind of beauty like a rose blooming over a grave.
The steward strained against the shackles, iron biting into raw wrists. His voice cracked as he screamed, the echo bouncing off the stone.
"Please! Forgive me! Please!" His words collapsed into sobs, desperate and broken.
Seraphine didn't answer. Instead, she pressed the tip of the small, gleaming knife against his skin, her touch deceptively delicate. With slow, deliberate strokes, she began carving letters into his stomach. Each line brought another scream, another frantic rattle of chains, another smear of blood on her perfect hands. She didn't blink. She didn't hurry.
His pleas filled the room like a dying hymn. "Please… I'm sorry… please "
Her lips curved slightly, a ghost of a smile, but her gaze was fixed on her work.
When the blade finally stilled, she exhaled a soft, almost weary sigh. Tilting her head, she studied him as though inspecting an unsatisfactory painting. "I'm tired of him," she murmured, her voice smooth but hollow.
The steward froze, his breath quick and shallow. He knew exactly what those words meant. "No please! I'll do anything! Don't !" His chains clanged frantically as he twisted against them, panic turning his voice shrill.
Her expression shifted into something worse a sweet, childlike smile, almost tender, but her eyes… her eyes were shards of red glass. Without a pause, she drove the knife into his skull. The sound was soft, almost anticlimactic, and then he went limp.
The corpse sagged forward, shackles holding it upright like some grotesque marionette. Blood dripped steadily to the floor, spreading into the cracks between the stones. The smell of iron thickened until it coated the tongue.
Seraphine wiped the blade lazily on his torn shirt, then let him drop. Humming a gentle, cheerful tune that had no place here, she crossed the room in a light step, her boots leaving dark prints behind.
In one fluid motion, she leapt into Elric's arms, pressing herself close. Her hands, still warm and slick with blood, stained the fabric of his coat in smeared crimson. She nuzzled against him as though nothing had happened.
"Let's go to the garden," she whispered into his ear, her breath warm.
It was almost playful almost except for the lingering stench of death between them.