It felt oddly nostalgic—like stepping into a misplaced memory from childhood—as I found myself seated in Arthur’s tent. Not just any tent, but a luxurious shelter that defied the very concept of “temporary.” If it hadn’t been for the faint smell of leather and metal still clinging to the fabric walls, I might have mistaken it for a noble’s drawing room.

  The furniture alone was enough to spark questions. A solid round table occupied the centre, polished to a soft gleam despite the dust outside. Around it, four carved chairs stood like loyal sentinels, each one unnecessarily ornate, with curved legs and cushioned seats. Why four? I only knew of two allies Arthur kept close—Markus and the dead maid. Unless he was planning ghostly tea parties or expected his enemies to sit politely before battle, the extra seating was a mystery. A useless excess, typical of someone trying too hard to prove control in chaos.

  But the real gem was the bed.

  My eyes lingered a little too long on it—raised off the ground, draped in thick quilts and plush pillows, entirely too inviting for a military camp. I fought the sudden and almost childish urge to dive into it face-first. I knew exactly why he had it. The carriage ground was unforgiving, and Arthur was never one to endure discomfort willingly. His idea of wartime hardship was probably running low on wine.

  Candles dotted the room—real wax candles, not the military-issue oil lamps—and cast a gentle golden hue over everything. It would’ve been relaxing, even romantic, had our conversation not been anything but.

  “Do you have any idea how damaging this is to the morale of the army?” Arthur’s voice cracked like a whip across the calm. “Stop acting like you can do whatever you want. I’m fed up with it!”

  The hysteria in his voice drew my eyes back to him. His posture was stiff, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. He didn’t just sound angry—he sounded betrayed.

  I blinked slowly. What was his problem? If this minor incident already sent him into a tailspin, how was he going to react when the bodies really started to pile up? I had much more planned—so many humans to kill, in and out of his jurisdiction. He was going to have to learn to keep his heart from bleeding all over my shoes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I said with mock incredulity, keeping my tone soft but laced with irritation. “I already told you—it wasn’t me. So stop blaming me!”

  Naturally, I had no intention of taking responsibility. That was why I’d come here in the first place—to deflect, to confuse, to insert doubt. Blame was like a cloak: it kept me warm when thrown over someone else’s shoulders.

  Arthur wasn’t buying it. Not yet.

  “And you want me to believe you? Just like that?” His eyes narrowed. There it was—the classic human suspicion. That simmering distrust they always carried like a second skin.

  “Yes,” I said simply, standing up with slow grace. “I do.”

  I took a step back and spun once, deliberately theatrical. My dress fanned out in a neat arc, elegant and unstained. “Look,” I gestured, “there’s no blood on me. No cuts, no marks. My face is clean. And tell me—what kind of idiot would kill someone and stay at the scene?”

  That made him pause. I watched his eyes scan me, flicking over every inch of visible skin and fabric. I could see the shift in his gaze—a brief moment of doubt piercing through the wall of certainty. Good. But not enough. Not yet.

  “In that case,” he said slowly, “did you see anyone else?”

  Ah. Now came the improvisation.

  I let my brows furrow thoughtfully, then tilted my head slightly. “Yes. A man. Around your height. He wore a helmet—face obscured—and he was already walking away as I approached the flames.”

  There. The first stroke of the portrait. My invented killer. A soldier, deliberately vague in detail. Perfect for stirring paranoia, for planting suspicion in the ranks. It could be anyone.

  “And you didn’t follow him?” Arthur’s voice dropped into a dangerous calm. His gaze pinned me in place like a dagger through silk.

  I held his eyes, annoyed that I had to explain what should’ve been obvious. “Am I a detective now? Should I interrogate every suspicious man in armour while a fire’s spreading? Please.”

  It was a weak point in my story—I knew it, and so did he. My voice rose slightly, not from fear but frustration. He was poking too hard. I would have to offer proof the next time I acted out, or he’d keep coming back with more and more inconvenient questions.

  He studied me in silence for a beat longer, then leaned back slightly, the tension in his shoulders loosening—barely. He wasn’t convinced. But he wasn’t accusing anymore, either.

  We were drifting in that uncertain grey space, and for now, that was exactly where I wanted him. Distrustful. Guarded. Watching me with narrowed eyes but unable to turn away. That’s when people made mistakes. That’s when doors opened.

  “For what reason were you even strolling around there?” Arthur asked sharply.

  Perfect. Just what I needed.

  His question gave me the perfect opening to steer the conversation away from my earlier emotional slip. I tilted my head, letting a half-smile curl on my lips. The easiest lies were the ones closest to the truth.

  “I wanted to find you,” I replied with a touch of warmth, just enough to hint at sincerity. It wasn’t even a fabrication—if he insisted, I could drag him to that boy I met earlier as proof. But there was no need. Facts rarely mattered more than performance.

  “Why?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

  Good. He was unbalanced. I didn’t wait for his footing to return. Instead, I seized the reins from his hands and gave the conversation a little tug in the direction I preferred.

  “You seem to have a… fun hobby,” I said, rising to my feet and casually strolling toward a curtained-off section of the tent. “I thought I’d join you.”

  That simple phrase made him tense. I heard the faint shift in his stance, felt the weight of his gaze pinning me down.

  “Join me?” he repeated. “In doing what?”

  His voice cracked with both confusion and alarm. As I reached for the curtain, he grabbed my shoulders to stop me. I let him, at first. I stood still under his hands—not out of obedience, but calculation. Whatever the dead man’s hands had touched, whatever filth clung to him, was now on Arthur. The thought made me smirk involuntarily. It was poetic. And perhaps, poetic justice.

  But after three seconds—long enough to indulge in the symbolism—I shrugged him off with ease.

  Then, I pulled the cloth aside.

  What greeted me should have been horrifying to any decent person. And yet… I wasn’t shocked. I was intrigued.

  A woman lay sprawled across a low table in the center of the makeshift room. Bound in place by worn leather straps, her body was limp—unconscious or hovering on the edge of it. Several of her fingernails had been ripped out and discarded unceremoniously onto a blood-smeared tray. A few teeth, small and white and obscene in their placement, lay beside them like discarded dice from a cruel game.

  Her arms and legs were riddled with cuts—some precise, others ragged—and her back bore the unmistakable markings of a whip. The wounds were still weeping blood, slowly and rhythmically, as if her body hadn’t yet decided whether it wanted to keep living.

  For a long second, Arthur said nothing.

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  He was waiting for a reaction. For a gasp, maybe. A step back. Revulsion. Fear.

  He got none of that.

  Instead, I stood in quiet amusement. Fascinated, not horrified. This was unexpected—from him, at least. I’d always seen Arthur as a man of control. A power-hungry tactician, yes. Ruthless, certainly. But this? This bordered on personal obsession. Obsession and cruelty mixed in a way that made the air feel heavy.

  Still, I shouldn’t have been surprised. He had once ordered the poisoning of Mary. He was willing to use others like pawns. This was simply another mask he wore.

  “I must say…” I said softly, “this makes everything much easier.”

  My voice was calm, eerily so. I watched the flicker in his eyes—something between defensiveness and dread. He didn’t know what I’d do with this discovery. That was good. That uncertainty gave me leverage.

  The truth was, I didn’t feel any pity for the woman. Death and suffering were part of my life, etched into my bones and seared into my soul. I had died. I had killed. I had suffered and inflicted suffering a thousandfold. The world was a wheel of blood and pain that turned beneath my feet. I merely adapted to its rhythm.

  So no, I didn’t flinch.

  Instead, I evaluated. This woman’s suffering didn’t matter. Her pain was a detail. The greater picture was Arthur. Arthur, and the twisted little secret he kept hidden behind cloth and candlelight. The discovery gave me something priceless: control.

  “How amateurish,” I murmured as I stepped closer to the woman sprawled on the table, her body limp, bruised, and broken. I examined her wounds like a disappointed mentor inspecting a failed project. There was no elegance in the violence—no art. Just brute force.

  The whip marks were passable, if crude—any fool could swing a lash and leave damage behind. But the stab wounds? Sloppy. Uneven. Uncontrolled. They lacked finesse, lacked intent. This wasn’t torture; it was tantrum.

  “What?” Arthur asked, rounding the table to stand opposite me, a flicker of defensiveness in his voice.

  I gestured toward her mangled fingers. “If you're going to remove nails, do it slowly. One twist at a time. You don’t just yank them out like a rabid ape in heat. And using a regular dagger for stab wounds?” I clicked my tongue and shook my head in mock disappointment. “You didn’t even cauterise the wounds. No wonder she passed out so quickly. You’re wasting perfectly good suffering.”

  He stared at me for a beat too long. “And you know that because…?”

  Ah. That was the question, wasn’t it? How did I know these things? What would I say—because I’ve walked with death through purgatory, whispered secrets to the corpses of saints and monsters alike, and learned pain like others learn prayer?

  No. That would sound insane.

  So instead, I lied with a smile.

  “It’s all written down, you know. In books. Ancient ones. Methods, strategies, what works, what doesn’t. You’d be surprised what you can learn if you stop reading poetry and pick up a few manuals.”

  I didn’t wait for him to challenge me again. I looked at the woman—barely clothed, bruised, and discarded—and tilted my head.

  “Anyway, how much did she cost?”

  Arthur blinked. “What?”

  I rolled my eyes. “She’s a prostitute, isn’t she? This isn’t an interrogation. If you were actually trying to get information, one nail would’ve been enough. They either talk immediately, or they never will. Everything past that is just… indulgence.”

  He didn’t respond. Just stared at me.

  I smirked. “So. How much did this particular pleasure set you back?”

  Still silence. No denial. No outrage.

  And then the realization hit me—and it was so painfully obvious that I nearly laughed.

  “You didn’t pay at all, did you?” I said, my voice soft with mock wonder. “She’s not here by choice. You plucked her right off the supply convoy behind the army. No one asks questions if someone vanishes in transit. And once they’re here... well.” I glanced at the unconscious woman again. “They don’t leave, do they?”

  His lips tightened. “Are you threatening me?”

  I turned to him with a look of pure, exaggerated innocence. “What? No! Gods, Arthur, don’t be so defensive.” I walked around the table slowly, deliberately. “It’s a good plan. Efficient. Quiet. Sustainable, assuming you’re careful.”

  Then I paused. Let silence stretch. And smiled.

  “Although,” I added lightly, “you did make a mistake.”

  His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t used to this—someone playing in his shadows, speaking his language so fluently. “What mistake?” he asked slowly, eyes sharp, trying to peer past my smile into the machinery behind it.

  I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I let the silence hang between us like a blade waiting to fall.

  “You’re done if this comes to light,” I said flatly, voice low and devoid of performance. No dramatics were needed—truth, when spoken plainly, carried far more weight. And Arthur knew that. One accusation, one careless whisper from the wrong lips, and his carefully maintained reputation as a nobleman and military leader would collapse into ash.

  He exhaled sharply through his nose. “It never will.”

  I almost laughed. Such confidence. Such delusion. There was no such thing as a flawless plan—especially when it relied on silence from desperate men and loose women. Even steel breaks under enough pressure. All it would take was one mistake, one witness, one loose end.

  And to my knowledge, there already was one.

  “Is that so?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because I’ve already met someone. A soldier who knows prostitutes are being brought into your tent. Regularly.”

  His expression didn’t change—much. Just a slight narrowing of the eyes. A twitch in the jaw. But I saw it. I felt it. That flicker of unease he tried so desperately to hide.

  “If that person starts connecting the dots,” I continued, my tone light, almost conversational, “between missing whores and your nightly guests… well, we might have a problem.”

  “Who is it?” His voice was sharp now. Demanding. Commanding.

  I simply smiled. “I’m not telling you. But don’t worry—I’ll make sure that person never talks. You need to be more careful, Arthur. This is delicate work. You should find a scapegoat, just in case.”

  He folded his arms. “And who would that be?” Suspicion flickered in his gaze—he knew better than to trust me, even if he needed to.

  It was a valid concern. Finding someone to frame for a horror this specific wasn’t easy. The trail of blood was narrow. And yet, we had an edge—we had power. With Arthur’s influence, we could accuse anyone we wanted, stop the killings, and let the rope do the rest. Then resume later, with clean hands and a cleaner conscience.

  “How about an imaginary vampire who somehow infiltrated the army?” I said with a grin, flashing just a bit of fang.

  He stared at me, incredulous. “Why are you proposing this? It would put you in danger.”

  I tilted my head, mock-curious. “Isn’t it obvious by now?” I stepped closer, holding his gaze with quiet intensity. “We need a narrative. One that explains why there’s no blood left in the bodies. Who else could drain someone like that, if not a vampire?”

  I picked up a bloodied dagger from the table, twirling it lightly between my fingers. “And besides…” I murmured, “if we’re going to spin stories, let’s at least make them interesting.”

  Arthur leaned back slightly, visibly weighing the idea. “I thought you were satisfied with animal blood.”

  That made me pause. Had I told him that? Perhaps. Or perhaps he simply assumed. It didn’t matter.

  “It tastes like an old boot and makes me weak,” I replied with theatrical disgust. “Just like this wretched sun. No, I want human blood. And I want to be part of what you’re doing. I want to be there before they die.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, silent. Calculating. I could almost see the gears in his mind grinding against each other—balancing risk against utility, suspicion against opportunity.

  Finally, he said, “All right.”

  The woman on the table stirred slightly, moaning in a soft, broken sound. Not quite awake, but getting there. Her time was almost up.

  I smiled. Slowly. Delicately. “Good.” I turned back toward him. “Would you like me to show you something… interesting?”

  There was curiosity in his eyes now. A sick fascination. A thirst for knowledge that mirrored mine.

  “Then do exactly what I say.”