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The darkness was comfortable.
It was the first time I had been truly warm, the first time I had felt safe, since I'd woken up in this world. My body, which had been a screaming chorus of pain, cold, and hunger, was finally silent. The darkness was soft, like black velvet. It was rest. The kind of profound, deep rest I hadn't even had in my first life. I wanted to stay here forever.
A familiar, unpleasant ping chimed in my mind.
[SYSTEM ALERT: 'HYPOTHERMIA' STABILIZED.] ['STAMINA' RISING: 15%] ['MALNUTRITION' STATUS: CRITICAL. ...Recommendation: EAT.]
My eyes, which felt like they were glued shut with sand, flickered.
Wait—that last line. [...Recommendation: EAT.] It wasn't just a stat. It was a command. It felt... different.
[...SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE. ANOMALY 'ELARA' HAS BEEN... ...PROCESSED.] [NEW PROTOCOL: 'SURVIVAL-AT-ALL-COSTS' - INITIATED.] [...Welcome back, Player. Previous logical contradictions compromised system integrity. Recalibrating.]
My body ached, but it was a different ache. It wasn't the sharp, icy agony of the tower. It was a dull, bruised, post-battle ache. My knees, where I had knelt and collapsed on the marble, felt like two raw, tender bruises. My throat was sandpaper.
And I was warm. Impossibly, luxuriously, divinely warm.
I was also soft. I wasn't on a stone floor or a straw mattress. I was sinking into something. A mattress that felt like a cloud. My head was on a pillow that actually felt like a pillow. My entire, weak body was enveloped in the thick, plush weight of a downy comforter.
My eyes snapped open.
The first thing I saw was fire. A real fire. Not the pathetic, smoking thing I had built, but a huge, roaring, beautiful, golden fire, crackling merrily in a fireplace so large I could have stood in it. The hearth alone was carved from a single piece of black marble.
The second thing I saw was the room.
It was not my attic cell. It was not Kaelen's prison nursery.
It was a bedroom so large and opulent that it was practically a cathedral. The ceiling was vaulted, at least thirty feet high, carved with dark, rich wood. The walls were covered in deep burgundy tapestries that probably cost more than my first life's entire student debt, depicting... were those... dragons? A massive, four-poster bed, the one I was in, dominated the room, draped in heavy, wine-red velvet curtains. A thick, priceless-looking wool rug covered the floor.
"Where... where in the hell...?" I croaked, my voice a dry, papery-thin rasp.
"Ah. You are awake."
My heart, which had been slowly, sluggishly beating, stopped.
The voice was not a rumble. It was not a blade. It was just... a voice— a deep, cold, baritone, coming from the corner of the room.
I tried to sit up. It was a terrible mistake.
A wave of dizziness, so profound it felt like the entire, cathedral-sized room was tilting, slammed into me. The world went gray. I fell back against the cloud-like pillows, a pathetic groan escaping my lips. My body was weak and useless.
[STAMINA: 16%. ...Nice try, champ. Stay down.]
'Champ'?!
My mind, sluggish and confused, snagged on the word. What an... odd... choice of vocabulary for a cold, logical system.
"I would not recommend moving," the voice said, utterly monotone.
My eyes, wide and panicked, darted across the room, and I saw him. He was sitting in a large, throne-like, high-backed chair near the fireplace, a book open in his lap. It was the Duke. Zander Voronoff.
He was... different.
He was not the terrifying, shadow-clad god of the Great Hall. He was just a man. A very, very large, terrifying man, but... a man.
He was still in his pristine white shirt sleeves, the ones he'd been wearing after he gave me his coat. The firelight caught the silver embroidery on his black waistcoat. His black hair was slightly, imperceptibly rumpled, as if he'd run his hands through it. His legs were crossed, and he looked... he looked tired. Exhausted, even. There were faint, dark circles under his eyes that hadn't been there in the hall.
He was not looking at me. He was looking at the book in his lap. "You...?" I stammered, my mind a blank, panicked void. "What...? Where...?"
"You are in a guest chamber. In the main wing," he said, his voice a flat, non-committal monotone, he turned a page. The soft crackle of the paper was the only sound in the room, besides the fire.
"I collapsed," I whispered, the memory rushing back. The hall. The staff. His... coat.
My hands, which were resting outside the thick, downy blankets, flew to my shoulders. I was... I was not in my disgusting, gruel-stained, smoke-stinking rag of a dress.
I was in... a nightgown. A... a clean, white, cotton nightgown. It was... it was warm. And soft. And... slightly... too large.
My face... burned. A flush so hot, so complete, I thought I might actually spontaneously combust.
"Who... who...?" I choked out, my voice a squeak, my hands clutching the nightgown to my throat as if he were a villain about to pounce.
The Duke sighed. It was a long, slow, weary sound. He sounded like I used to, at 3 AM, when I looked at the server-failure email I got. Just two put-upon managers, really. This world, with its dysfunctional system, just had more dungeons than mine.
"The remaining... household staff," he said, his voice clipped, "is now under the command of... well... no one, at the moment. As my Head Butler is in my dungeon."
He said it as if it were a personal inconvenience.
"I... had a chambermaid, one who was not on duty this morning and therefore not... 'complicit'... brought in," he continued, his voice bored. "She bathed you and dressed you."
He said it with all the enthusiasm of a man reading a quarterly tax report. He... he was... was he embarrassed?!
"And... my..." I looked around, my eyes wide. "My... your... your coat...?"
"Is being... incinerated," he said, his voice flat. "Along with your... 'former'... garments. The... smell... was... 'pervasive.'"
He... He burned my clothes?! And his own... impossibly expensive coat?!
"You... you..." I stamDmered, "You burned your own coat?!"
The Duke, Zander Voronoff, the Ice Duke of the North... pinched the bridge of his nose.
He actually... pinched... the bridge... of his nose.
"It was," he said, his eyes closed, "a 'necessary' sacrifice. It was 'compromised.'"
[SYSTEM NOTE: ...Reputation (Zander Voronoff): 11 / 100. ...Analysis: Subject 'Zander Voronoff' is justifying a 'kindness' action with 'logic' terms. This is a statistical deviation from the base profile. ...Anomaly.]
My mind was reeling. T-this man... who had been a creature of pure, cold logic... was awkward?
I swallowed, my throat dry. "I-I see. Thank... thank you. For the... room. And the... nightgown. And the... fire."
"It was... a logical... solution," he said, his voice still flat, as if logic was the only refuge he had left. "You... collapsed. You were 'medically'... compromised. You required... 'remediation.' It was... efficient... to place you here."
"Right. Efficient." I whispered. I had been 'remediated.' I was a problem... that had been solved.
A new, cold thought hit me. "How... how long... was I asleep?"
The Duke glanced at the large, ornate clock on the mantelpiece. "It is... almost... seven in the evening. You have been unconscious for... approximately... eight hours."
Eight... hours? I had been asleep... in a coma... for eight hours? I had... I had... left Kaelen alone... for eight... hours?
My mind, which had been foggy with sleep and warmth, suddenly cleared—the warmth, the fire, the soft bed. Wait.
My head snapped up. "Kaelen," I said, my voice suddenly sharp, clear, and terrified.
The Duke, who had been about to turn a page... froze. His hand hovered over the book.
"Kae... Kaelen," I said, my voice stronger. "Your... your nephew. How's the young master?"
Zander Voronoff's hand closed. He crumpled the corner of the page he had been about to turn.
He did not look at me. He just stared at his book. He... didn't... know?
"He is... in the East Tower," Zander said, his voice a low, cold, clipped thing.
"You... you left him there?!" I shrieked, and I... I sat up. The world tilted violently, but I didn't care. I grabbed the carved bedpost, my knuckles white, my entire, weak body shaking. "You left him... in that... cell?!"
"He is not in a cell," Zander hissed, his head snapping up, his black eyes flashing with a cold, defensive fire.
"He has 'provisions.' He has guards outside the door. He is safe."
"He's alone!" I cried, my voice cracking. "He's five! He's terrified! And he's alone, in a dark tower... after all of that?! After eight hours?! Does he have food? Is the fire still lit?!"
I was screaming at the Ice Duke... from a bed... wearing a nightgown—the insanity... of my life.
The last word echoed in the vast, silent, opulent room, and then... nothing. My words just... hung there.
Zander Voronoff was staring at me. His mouth was open. Just slightly. He was... baffled. He was utterly, completely dumbfounded.
My blood ran ice-cold. My rage, fueled by adrenaline and weakness, evaporated in an instant, replaced by a stomach-dropping, "what-have-I-done" terror.
He had just faced down his entire mutinous household with the composure of a glacier. And now, this... this shrill, hysterical screaming from a soot-covered waif... was the one thing that had finally gotten a visible reaction?
I had just screamed at the man who held my life in his hands. I had accused him. I had... I had... My breath hitched, and I couldn't speak. The silence in the room was absolute. He wasn't moving. He wasn't yelling. He was just... staring.
His face... was... unreadable. Was this it? Was this the final straw? Had I survived the judgment of the entire household, only to get myself executed for insubordination while sitting in his guest bed?
My mind raced as I tried to understand his cold, logical solution. Posting guards at the tower... it was negligent. It was the act of a man who didn't understand a child. Had he... had he just... forgotten about him? Had he dealt with the "problem" of the staff and then moved on, leaving Kaelen to starve in the dark all over again?
The horror of that thought—that I had been his only advocate, and I had been asleep for eight hours—hit me harder than the dizziness.
And then, his eyes... narrowed.
A new emotion crossed his face. One I hadn't seen before. It wasn't anger. It wasn't coldness. It wasn't the confusion of a moment ago. It was... a smirk? No. Not a smirk. It was... the ghost... of a thought... of a smirk.
"Governess," he said, his voice a low, dangerous, velvet purr. "...You... are... fascinating."
(End of Chapter 11)
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