The pink lines across Cassandra's back faded over the few days. She would get irritated when Viktora fussed over them, but Viktora wasn't going to let her scar if it could be helped. Every m and every evening, Viktora applied a poultice to the healing cuts, and they gradually disappeared. She was certain that Ronak would be furious when he saw his new "masterpiece" had been erased, but she didn't care.

  When the lines finally disappeared, Viktora showed Cassandra, and the e broke down in tears. She hugged her handmaiden tightly, and the two of them iserated deeply for several minutes. When they pulled apart again, Viktora helped her dy into a dress and the two of them departed for the fields of grain.

  Ever since Viktora had gotten access to a full boratory, she had started w on a potion that she and her mother had been trying to perfect before they'd been arrested. It was meant to improve the yield of all growing things, and they'd been attempting to increase the yield of their herbs. Now, Viktora was trying to plete it for the sake of her dy. If she could get the potiht, it would prove that Cassandra was a wise leader, evidenced by the increase in the fiefdom's food supply.

  So, she had applied different versions of the potion to several different farms, a a supply of the co with the farmers, along with instrus for its application. Now that it was nearly time for a harvest, they were heading out to see how the differences iions affected the crops.

  The first farm they arrived at romising, but not quite as good as Viktora was hoping for. The farmer reported that he'd had to harvest early, as the grain had matured faster, but the stalks hadn't had the time to grow very tall, so their stalks were rather flimsy. The sed farm was eveer. They were getting ready to harvest when the carriage arrived, and the farmer eagerly showed them how the grain was taller than it had ever been, though the grains themselves were only slightly more bountiful tha year.

  The third farm, however, was where disaster struck. The crop was diseased and lifeless, ying limp and brown in the field. When the farmer there saw them ing, he ran out and began cursing them for destroying his livelihood. He was angry and scared, not knowing how he was going to feed his wife, let alone pay the taxes that Lord Ronak demanded of them. Cassandra mao calm him down with her unique people skills, and promised him that they would not be left to starve or be imprisoned for non-payment.

  Wued the rest of their iions, though none of the farms had the trouble that the third one did. When they made it back to the castle, Viktora followed Cassandra to the throne room, where they found Lord Ronak in a heated discussion with one of his cilors. They waited in the back for him to finish and, when he had dismissed the other man, he smiled at his favorite e, motioning her forward.

  "Yrace." Cassandra curtsied, and Viktora followed suit. "We have e to report on the grain harvest."

  "Ah, yes, how are the girl's experiments going?" He g Viktora, but his gaze cked the hatred she had e to expect.

  "Very well, for the most part." Cassandra replied. His eyebrow rose, and she tinued. "The farm or Halfsao disease. We don't know what caused it yet, but Viktora took samples to try and figure out what went wrong. It is, of course, possible that the potion caused the disease, but we believe that to be unlikely given the success of the other farms."

  Ronak observed them imperiously. "Leave us, Viktora."

  Viktora bowed her way out of the throne room and waited in the hall. She winced as she heard Ronak begin yelling, but the heavy door and thick walls muted enough of it that she wasn't able to make out the exact words. She did, however, kly what he'd done when she heard Cassandra cry out in pain moments ter. There was a tearing sound, more yelling, and another scream. Then another, and another, and another. For several minutes, Viktora only heard the screams of her Lady until they died down to whimpers.

  The door to the throne room ened violently, and Lord Ronak strode out with murder in his eyes. He poi Viktora. "You. Take care of your dy." Then he walked stiffly out of sight.

  Viktora ehe throne room, trembling with rage and apprehension. Cassandra was on the floor, her dress torn from the upper half of her body. Blood spattered the dress and the floor from the dozens of cuts Ronak had made across her back. Viktned in her emotions and helped her weeping dy up, holding the dress up arouo preserve her modesty as they made their way back to her bedchambers.

  Once sequestered, Viktora removed the dress pletely and had Cassandra y face-down on her bed. She hurried to her own chambers and withdrew the jar of poultice she had hoped not to need again, along with a numbing salve. She applied the salve gently, while Cassandra's piteous moans turo whimpers. When she had finished numbing her dy's wounds, Viktora applied the poultid fetched a rge, sheet. She had Cassandra stand up, and ed the sheet around her upper body tightly, binding it io keep anything from getting in the wounds.

  Vampires healed quickly, but these gashes would least a day to properly close, and even vampires were vulnerable to iion. Cassandra's whimpers had died away now, but Vikthe dead look in her eyes. It was the same look that stared back out of her refle for seven years. The will to fight had left her, and she didn't uand why she was being treated the way she was.

  "I'll kill him." Viktora hissed quietly.

  "No." Cassandra's voice was numbed, but firm. "He wasn't in trol of his anger. We just o help him deal with it in a more healthy manner."

  "If he 't trol his anger, he's er than a wild beast." Viktora replied, fury c through her.

  SLAP!

  Viktora's cheek stung with the force of Cassandra's palm impag with it. She touched her cheek and looked up at her dy, finding grief and sorrow all over her face.

  "Leave me." Cassandra said quietly. Viktora didn't argue. She retreated into her chambers and id down on her bed. She couldn't uand what good Cassandra saw in Ronak. She didn't know why her dy would strike her when she was the one helping her and he was the one hurtiears that had nothing to do with the stinging feeling filled her eyes, and she closed them to weep silently.

  ***

  Viktora's retionship with Cassandra became quite plex following that i. She still waited on her dy hand and foot, and she kept applying the poultiight and day until the new lines disappeared. Cassandra had no further retaliation beyond the sp, but something had brokeweewo of them. Their words were no longer so carefree. They spent less and less free time in each others' pany, and Cassandra began visiting the farms on her own, leaving Viktora with a list of chores at the castle.

  The ime Cassandra came back to her bedchambers, her back bloodied by one of Ronak's rages, it was the final straw for Viktora. Her dy would not listen to reason, only defehe man who was abusing her, and simply ordered Viktora to care for the wounds. She treated Cassandra to the best of her abilities, and began plotting i.

  Ronak owerful vampire lord. She knew precious little of his actual abilities, as his reputation was usually enough to keep people in line. She khat he could transform into a bck cloud. She khat he could move faster than sight when he o, but that this left him gasping for several seds. She knew his strength was far beyond anyone else she had ever seen, but she couldn't seem to find a way for a level oh no bat experieo ever trump him.

  So, rather than looking at force of arms, she examined forind. Ronak was an impulsive, aggressive, hedonistic glutton. His favorite way to blow off stress, other than t outsiders they had caught or vampires who earned his ire, was haviensive ies with his various es. If Cassandra was willing to work on this with Viktora, those would be the perfect time to make a move. When he had exhausted himself and his guard was down, it would be quite easy to slip a poisoned bde between his ribs.

  Instead, Viktora would have to find a way to make him i a poison. His food was always tested before he ate it. Any wine she poisoned would be likely to end up in several others' stomachs as well, and she had no desire for is to be affected. What could she... yes, yes that might work. If she could induce symptoms of a disease or poison, he would ght to the castle's alchemist for an antidote. An antidote that Viktora would happily supply. A co that would permaly alleviate his pain.

  How to ihose symptoms, though... She faced the same issues. Unless she gave everyone a mildly irritating symptom that he would want alleviated... As it turned out, she had the perfect, unassuming little pnt sitting down in the courtyard, growing amongst her other herbs.

  Cat's ear, a flower with triangur, two-toals colored in imitation of feline ears, was normally stewed and then fermented for two months before it could be used as a fertility draught. However, if ied without proper preparation, it would cause the opposite rea; women would be rendered iile for several days, and men would be uo "perform".

  She would o pn this carefully. She only had one shot, and she would likely be bur the stake, whether she succeeded or not. She'd need a lethal poison, with no ce of recovery. To that end, she would be forced to find nightshade and dwarfbeard. Two purple flowers which, when bined and boiled, would create Mortussi, a potion as clear as crystal and pletely colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It was the friend of assassins across their fiefdom, and it would be the best way to take Ronak down.

  She would o poison the well in the courtyard, from which water for the whole castle was drawn. She'd o pn it around a celebration, so that Ronak would have a reason to get drunk and take his es to bed. When he wasn't able to get it up, he would certainly e to her for an enha potion. Viktora took a oo-small amount of pleasure in the fact that his st moments would be full of doubts about his own masity.

  ***

  Viktora spent the hree weeks plotting, brewing, and waiting. The anniversary of Lord Ronak's ast to power was the occasion she would use to enact her revenge, when all the vampires in the nd would be gathered at the castle. During those three weeks, however, the abuse inflicted on her dy oed. She was cut apart six more times, each the day that Viktora was able to get the previous lio disappear. Despite the mistreatment, Cassandra still insisted that Ronak was a good man, and she refused to hear a wainst him.

  Viktora, surprised by her own genius, also cocted a pn to flee the castle after poisoning Ronak. She'd thought it would be impossible, and it likely would be pletely up to ce, but there was a ce. She wouldn't be able to fight her way through the guards, but she didn't o go out the front door if she had her natural abilities back. Her preternatural strength and speed as a vampire would allow her a more... innovative means of egress.

  To that end, Viktora also cocted a very acidic solution in her boratory. It was strong enough to eat through metal, specifically the silver bracelet she'd been stuck with. If she melted the bracelet off, she'd be able to jump from the window in Cassandra's chambers onto the ramparts of the castle walls, and from there to the ground. She would be gone before anyone knew Ronak was dead.

  She also wrote a letter, fessing to the crime and absolving Cassandra of any knowledge or involvement of what she was about to do. She didn't want to kill that bastard just for his sons to execute the e who had give the "freak" the leeway necessary to pull this off. With any luck, Viktora would be able to end his cruel reigly on the day it began, fifty years ago.

  ***

  Two days before the celebration, Viktora was called to the lord's bedchambers in the early hours of the m. Ronak emerged, somehow still drunk, and slurred something that would have surely been obse if he'd been able to speak clearly. He pointed into his room before shambling off down the hall.

  Viktora entered, expeg to see her dy's bloodied body once again. What she found was far mruesome. The corpses of his es littered the room. He had abused each of them so thhly that even their enhanced durability given to them of Aczotz was not enough to protect them from his predations. One of the bodies was missing an arm, though Viktora could not see where it had been relocated to. She would have thrown up on the spot if not for the years she'd spent ing up the dungeons which held the bloodtithe cages.

  She carefully picked her way through the room, dread growing within her with each step. Finally, she found Cassandra. Or, what was left of her. Her dy was not breathing, not moving. Every inch of her body, not just her back, had been fyed open. It looked like he had tried to cut her skin until there was no more skin to cut. Viktora cried out in anguish and fled the room. She couldn't bear it. How could anyone have done something like that?

  She retreated to her chambers, where she screamed to the heavens, demanding justice from the gods that had been ign her for so long. How could they sit idly by and allow this moo tinue destroyiiful, i lives? She cried until she couldn't move and fell, unscious, upon the floor.

  When she woke, she panicked. Ronak had likely been tellio up the room, and she had ighe direct order in her grief. She couldn't bring herself to imagine going ba there, but she forced her legs to walk in that dire. When she arrived, the door en and there were three servants scrubbing the stains from the floor. She left before anyone could question her presence, and spent the rest of the day sequestered in her room, not leaving until the m, wheomach demahat she eat.

  ***

  The day of the celebration came, and Viktora rose slowly. She slipped on one of her w dresses, put on her shoes, then strode from the room, halfway expeg to see Cassandra sleeping in her own bed. It felt like a pun the gut to realize she'd never see her dy again.

  She stopped in Cassandra's bedchambers, looking without feeling at the untouched bed. Her pn was in ruins. He had no more es; the idiotiiac had killed them all. How was he going to celebrate the fiftieth year of his reign now? Viktora was pting the abhorrent idea to seduce the man herself when she heard a carriage pulling into the castle courtyard. She hurried to a window in the hall and looked down upon the arrivals.

  They were more women. More es. He'd simply repced them, like a dull knife or a broken arrow. Viktora was flicted between disgust for the man and joy that he was so incible that he'd simply rounded up more vilge girls to abuse. Then she caught the eye of one of the women.

  She was young. Viktuessed that she'd only just unlocked her css. Her silver eyes and blonde hair would have been more than enough evidence, but the striking resembnce she bore to Cassandra was more than enough to vince Viktora that this was her younger sister. Amottia, if Viktora was remembering correctly. She looked scared, and jumped when someohin the keep called for them to enter.

  Don't worry. He won't touch you. He won't touy of you.

  Viktora was able to enact the first step of her pn fwlessly. In the mass of bodies p into the castle walls, filling the courtyard, and the preparations taking pce, she was able to surreptitiously drop nearly a full basket of powdered cat's ear into the well. She made sure to raise and lower the bucket a few feet several times, to make sure it mixed into the whole water supply and not just what was in the bucket when she'd dropped it.

  After that, it was a waiting game and a test against the knot of fury and apprehension in her gut. She forced herself to go about her chores and to help with the preparations with a smile pstered on her face. As she passed the other servants, she thought she reized the same pstered-on smile there. What had happened in the lord's bedchambers seemed to have gotten passed around.

  When the grand dinner came, Viktora mao sneak a small pte off to her room, where she waited for the iable in front of her smaller alchemy setup. She had the acid in a vial tucked into one of her pockets, and the poison was resting on a shelf with her redients, rather than in the racks of pleted potions. The noise of celebration grated on her; every moment of joy that creature experienced was a blight upon the memory of his victims.

  Eventually the party wound down, and Viktora could have sworn she heard Ronak's voice calling out to the grand hall as he exited. The footsteps of many people wound around the staircase closest to Cassandra's bedchambers, then disappeared down the hall. The knot iomach tightened, aement for her revenge sent adrenaline c through her veins. Any moment now, she would be able to see the life drain from his eyes.

  She heard footsteps. Stumbling, shuffling, leading towards her. The door to her dy's bedchambers opened, and the steps drug across the floor towards her own. The door was yanked open, and there stood Ronak. He was missing a shirt, but otherwise dressed. He leered down at her and spoke, the st of wine and liquor rolling off his tongue in waves.

  "I need your help."

  She stood, f a pleasant look on her face, and curtsied. "What may I assist you with, Lord Ronak?"

  He thought hard for quite a long time. Finally, he looked at her, looked down at his own crotch, and grabbed himself through his trousers, winking at her. She had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes. As if that would be enough of a clue to anyone who didn't know he'd just been dosed with cat's ear. Instead, she adopted a surprised expression.

  "Ah! Um... I should be able to whip something up for you. Just a moment." She turned and gathered a few nonsense ingredients from the shelf, along with the vial of Mortussi, then began faking a potion. He slumped onto her bed as she worked, clearly more drunk than he had been in a while.

  "Y'know, Vikt'ra, I alm'st took you." He slurred quietly.

  She paused, gripping a spoon rather more forcefully than was necessary, then decided not to respond, as if she hadn't heard him.

  "If it washat... extra piece ya got, I coulda kept making my mast'rp' you." He ughed harshly. "Dodged a bull't there, didn' I? Always so... upset, you are. Not like her." He seemed to sober up for a moment, and Viktora ced a gnce over at him. His eyes had bee unfocused, but she saw no love in them. , no remorse. Just longing and desire and vileness.

  She tapped the spoon against the side of the gss she'd been mixing in, and turo hand him the st thing he'd ever drink. "Here you are, Lord Ronak. Make sure to drink it all, or it won't be as effective." She smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. If he hadn't been drunk, she might have given herself away right there. As it was, he swallowed the poison all down and belched loudly.

  Ronak suddenly stiffened, spasmed, then colpsed backwards on the bed, shaking violently. A froth began to build at the ers of his mouth, and Viktora leaned over him in satisfa. She looked into his eyes and saw the prehension e across them, but it was far too te for him.

  "You know, Ronak, if you had only loved her the way she loved you, you wouldn't have been the disgusting pig sitting before me, dying as his innards liquefy themselves." She smiled again, then stood up.

  Viktora withdrew the vial of acid from her pocket and stuffed a piece of leather between her skin and the bracelet. The acid would eventually eat through the leather too, but hopefully not before the bracelet gave way. She began carefully dripping the liquid onto the metal, and it hissed and popped as it began degrading the silver. She had fihe first acid cut and was starting on the sed, to break the bracelet in two and allow her wrist to e free, when she heard it.

  Breathing. Not her own. She looked towards the door, but her eyes slid over Ronak ying on her bed first. He was breathing again. How was he breathing again? The up, coughed violently, and a bck mist emanated from his mouth, dispersing into the air. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and looked up at her, murder in his sober eyes.

  "That wasn't very nice, Viktora. You absolutely killed my buzz." He hissed, even more mist ing from his mouth. "You know, I was very impressed with your salves. Cassandra's back made such a perfect tapestry, it was almost a shame to ruin it. Then you showed me it could be undone, and I could ruin her again, as many times as my heart desired. I suppose I'll have to torture that recipe out of you and teaeone more loyal to make it for me now. 't have anyone around here who-"

  Viktora dumped the rest of the vial onto the bracelet, screaming as it spshed over her hand and begaing her flesh. As soon as the bracelet broke, she threw it, the vial and the leather at Ronak. He seemed to still be rec, bck mist occasionally esg from between his lips, and he wasn't fast enough to dodge the acid-soaked pile. It hit him across the chest and he howled in agony.

  Viktora fled the room and crashed through the window in her dy's bedchambers. She nded in a deft roll on the ramparts and flicked her eyes side to side. There were no guards to her left, and the oht was staring up at the castle, where the cries of his lord were eg out of the broken window. Before he could look around for anything else, Viktora slipped off the rampart and began running, heading south to the mountains.