Olivia stared at the parchnts, her vision blurring as the letters danced before her eyes. Ti was a luxury she didn’t possess; she could not risk being discovered in Isabella’s sanctuary.
Clutching the letters to her chest, she retreated to her own chambers, her heart hamring a frantic rhythm against her ribs. One of the envelopes bore a seal she knew all too well—the Butterfly crest.
"What in the na of hell is happening?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "How could she still be in correspondence with him? Was she playing both sides all along?"
As she broke the seal, the handwriting struck her like a physical blow. There was no mistaking the elegant, rhythmic script of Edward Norman. The words were lyrical, drenched in an aching tenderness—the very sa words Olivia had heard, long ago, in a place of shadows and iron.
mory surged forward, unbidden and violent, dragging her back to that damp, suffocating cell where she had been caged with Edward. She could still see him, a broken silhouette against the stone, subjected daily to every form of agony devised by man.
They wanted these letters. They wanted that voice captured in the sound-stone. They wanted a tether to control his daughter.
Despite the relentless onslaught of their cruelty, he remained an immovable fortress. Olivia, her eyes already deadened by the world’s brutality, had looked at him through the bars and asked, "Why do you refuse? Just record the ssage. Write the letter. Your daughter will not die if you comply, and this torture will cease. Just surrender."
Edward had smiled then—a haunting, beautiful thing amidst the gore that stained his skin. His body was a map of scars and fresh wounds, yet his spirit remained untouched.
"I would endure a thousand lifetis of this to preserve the purity of her smile," he had rasped, his voice thick with blood. "I will not make her a slave to these monsters. I will write no more."
Olivia had stared at him, utterly uncomprehending. He spoke of the highest form of fatherly devotion, while she had never known even the simplest rcy of kin. To her, his sacrifice was not noble; it was a terrifying, incomprehensible naivety—a language she didn’t speak.
Days bled into a week, and the week stretched into a grueling month. Not a single sunrise passed without the rhythmic sound of the lash or the searing scent of burning flesh. Every imaginable humiliation—starvation, branding, and cold iron—was inflicted upon Edward while Olivia watched from the shadows of the cell, a silent, hollow witness.
And every ti, Edward t his torntors with the sa unbreakable will and the sa defiant words.
The lead executioner stood back, wiping sweat and gore from his brow as he glanced at his comrade. "If we cannot find a way to break him—to make him pen that letter and record that voice—the Duke will have our heads before dawn. What is there left to do?"
His partner tilted his head, a predatory glint flickering in his eyes as they landed on the corner of the cell. "What about her?"
"Who? The girl, Olivia?"
"Yes. Look at her—she looks half-mad already. But I must admit," he whispered, a twisted smirk forming on his lips, "she is quite the beauty, isn’t she?"
The other man chuckled darkly. "Forget that old fool for a mont. Why don’t we enjoy ourselves? What do you say?"
"Have you lost your mind?" the first replied, though his voice lacked conviction. "The Duke would kill us."
The second man began to unbutton his tunic, his gaze dripping with a sickening, lecherous intent. "Don’t fret. The Duke couldn’t care less what happens to her. We can lay the bla on the old man; after all, they share the cell. Co, let’s take what is offered."
After a mont of fearful hesitation, the first executioner scanned the corridor for guards, then followed his companion into the darkness of the cell.
Olivia was staring blankly at the aged Edward when the grating screech of the iron door tore through the silence. Usually, that sound was the death knell for Edward’s next session of agony. But this ti, the heavy, mud-stained boots did not stop at the rack.
They marched toward Olivia.
Now, it was Edward’s turn to endure the ultimate torture: the sight of another’s suffering.
One of the n seized Olivia by the chin, wrenching her face upward to et his gaze. He grinned with a repulsive, intoxicated ecstasy. "Hello, sweet thing. How about we have a little fun to pass the ti?"
The blood froze in Edward’s veins. A primal, suffocating terror seized him as he realized their intent. Dragging his broken body across the cold stone, unable to stand, he clawed at the floor, gasping through the pain.
"Leave her be!" he wheezed, his voice cracking with desperation. "Get away from her, you bastards!"
He reached out with a trembling, mangled hand, grasping at the executioner’s boot and pulling with the last of his strength. "Olivia, run!" he cried out, a ragged sob breaking from his chest. "Go! Run now!"
A brutal kick landed squarely in the old man’s chest, throwing him back against the cold stone. He gasped for air as the guard lood over him. "Stay back, old fool! Touch again and your life is forfeit."
But Edward, his body broken but his spirit an unyielding fortress, began to crawl toward them once more. His voice was a ragged, desperate rasp. "I said... leave her... be."
Olivia watched him with a fractured sense of wonder. Her mind, long accustod to the darkness, could not grasp the logic of his sacrifice. She was a creature her own father viewed as a defect—a monster to be used and discarded—yet here was a stranger enduring blow after blow to shield her. Each ti a boot found his ribs, drawing a pained groan, he remained resolute.
He would not stop.
Suddenly, Olivia rose. She moved with a chilling, chanical stillness, her body a vessel of cold air. She walked toward the guard and extended her arms in a slow, phantom gesture of an embrace.
The guard stopped his assault, his features splitting into a foul, triumphant grin. "Oho! Look at this, old man. It seems she’s quite eager for it herself!"
His companion, however, took a wary step back, the shadows of the cell dancing across his pale face. "I don’t like this," he muttered. "There is sothing wrong with the way she looks at us. Sothing... unnatural."
"Don’t be a coward," the first snapped, his lust overriding his survival instinct. "If you’re too afraid, I’ll take all the pleasure for myself."
He moved in, pulling Olivia into a rough, suffocating hold. As he began to touch her, his senses dulled by his own filth, Olivia’s hand snaked downward with the lethal precision of a viper, finding the hilt of the dagger at his hip. She reached up, wrapping her arms around his head as if to draw him into a kiss.
The guard surrendered completely, closing his eyes—until, with a violent, lightning-fast wrench, Olivia twisted.
A sickening crack shattered the silence.
The guard’s body went limp instantly, the life extinguished from his eyes before he hit the ground.
Olivia stepped over his corpse with a dry, hollow detachnt. She raised the dagger high, her eyes burning with a cold light that sent a primal shiver through the very stones of the dungeon. She turned her gaze to the remaining guard.
"Co now," she whispered, her voice a silk-wrapped blade. "Don’t you want to have your fun, too?"
The guard trembled, his face turning ashen as he stumbled back toward the iron door. "You... you truly are a monster!" he shrieked.
Olivia did not hesitate. With a fluid flick of her wrist, she launched the dagger. It whistled through the air and buried itself deep in the center of the man’s forehead. He collapsed into a growing pool of crimson without a sound.
Edward watched it all. He did not blink; he did not recoil from the carnage.
Olivia returned to her corner, sinking back into the shadows as if she were rely reclaiming her seat at a funeral. She pulled her knees to her chest and whispered to him, her voice devoid of soul:
"I hope you understand now why they call a monster. There is no need for your useless kindness, old man. I am nothing more than a beast."
She waited for his fear. She waited for the condemnation she felt she deserved. Instead, she felt a soft, calloused hand rest gently upon her matted hair. She looked up to find Edward gazing at her—not with horror, but with a profound, aching tenderness.
"You are not a monster, my child," he murmured, his voice a soothing balm in the dark. "They are the monsters. They are the ones who wounded you. Never, ever bla yourself for surviving."
The words she had hungered for her entire life—words that should have been her birthright—were falling from the lips of a stranger who owed her nothing. She felt as though she were weeping, yet no tears fell; it was as if the sheer weight of her suffering had caused her eyes to forget the chanics of grief. But the mont was fragile and fleeting, shattered by the approach of rhythmic, chilling footsteps until a pair of familiar, cruel eyes appeared at the iron bars.
He whistled sharply, a sound of mock admiration. "Oho... truly magnificent. It seems my little monster has caused quite a ss in my absence. Exquisite."
The sound of his voice sent a primal tremor through her body. She watched in frozen silence as he wrenched the dagger from the guard’s skull and stepped into the cell. He seized her by the hair with a brutal tug, forcing a sharp whimper from her throat. He traced the flat of the blade along her cheek, the cold steel descending toward her jugular.
"Killing my guards? Finding kinship with this senile old fool?" he whispered, his breath a foul mist. "Have you grown weary of having a neck, my dear? Do you require another lesson in discipline? You failed to kill that wretch Luceron, yet here you slaughter my n with such ease, how lovely?"
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