It had been a long winter in the Oblon County Estate.

After Silika’s disappearance, there had been a lot of movement in the household.

At first, the Marquess had been dismissive of the entire affair, seeing it as one less problem to deal with, but despite his best attempts, it had been impossible to keep rumors from spreading like wildfire.

Some rumors claimed Silika had been kidnapped or assassinated by a rival house or by the church, while other rumors were closer to the truth believing that her own family had killed her.

It was an awkward situation.

On one hand the household wished to find Silika to maintain their standing amongst their peers, but on the other, if her excommunication was discovered, they would also lose their standing.

The investigation was slow for these reasons, but they eventually picked up the breadcrumbs I had laid. A fallen tree just before a bridge crossing the Alenia river and track veering off. They found the wreckage of a coach and the corpses of horses and a driver.

The same coach that just happened to have been observed speeding by the estate the night of Silika’s disappearance.

They never found her of course, but it was assumed that her body was swept by the current before the scene was discovered.

The investigation was called off under the guise of not wanting to incite political unrest over the ‘accidental death’ of one of the younger children of the household. After all, Silika would have been third in line to inherit the house, there was nothing tragic about her death from a dynastic point of view. The truth was, whoever might have committed the crime, had actually rendered the Marquess a service.

Of course, the entirety of the setup had been planned. It had cost me quite the expense to make the coach look like the one of a rival noble house along with finding a ‘willing’ corpse… Even more so drivers willing to do the job. No one had actually died, save the two horses. The corpse had simply been an unclaimed body I had bought from a morgue on that night which the morgue attendant had been more than willing to part with in exchange of a bit of lining for his pockets.

After the incident and Silika’s removal from the picture, one might have expected the situation to improve, but that was far from the truth.Something had changed that day.

It was as if the flame that had once kept the estate warm and lively had been extinguished. It wasn’t only the members of the household. The servants and staff also looked tired and weary.

I picked up a tray with a bottle of wine and cheese from the kitchen and started walking down the hallway.

At some point or another, my house arrest had been lifted, unfortunately, the events had brought unwarranted attention to me from the entire household. It was no longer possible for me to get away with doing minimal work, and therefore, I was often put on the evening service shift where I would bother the least amount of people.

I carried the tray through the cool marble hallways from the core wing, to the living quarters of the family. As I walked toward my destination, I stopped in the hallway. I looked at the wall and observed the strange creases in the walls.

Once this had been her room.

Silika’s.

After her disappearance, the lord would allow none to enter the room and so, it was eventually decided that it should be sealed permanently. They removed the handles and covered the entire section of the wall with wallpaper.

Rumors amongst the staff claiming Silika had been a witch had never run dry and it had been called the witch's room for a time. Now it was just an impression on the wall where the hastily applied wallpaper bumped and rolled.

I looked on the opposite side, at the window beyond which the garden stood. Spring had arrived for a few months already, yet the garden had not flowered. As if some divine punishment had been thrown at the entire estate.

I still think about Silika every day. I had sent her away to a place I had only heard in passing letters. A small little orphanage in a quaint little district of Evergreen.

Somewhere no one would ever think of looking for her and I prayed every night for her to be well. I had wished to join her right away, but I couldn’t. My disappearance would have been suspicious, someone might have caught on.

I shook my head, clearing my thoughts and continued walking down the hallway. Eventually I reached my destination.

I opened the door and entered the study. It was messy. Books and clothes were strewn across the floor and the desk was stacked full with unopened invitation letters. On the balcony, sitting at a small table, was Merilia Everest. My sister.

I approached her and placed the tray on the table, but she didn’t look at me. Her bright blue eyes stared at the long wavy grasses far in the hills outside the estate. The evening wind blew softly on her face making her unkempt yet somehow dignified silvery-salmon hair bounce on her shoulders.

I poured her a glass and placed it by her side before bowing silently and excusing myself. Just as I was leaving the balcony, I heard a voice.

“Do you think I’m evil?”

I looked back at Merilia. Her head had not moved, but her lips were frozen on the last syllable of the word. Her expression was indecipherable.

“Mistress?”

I asked her in a professional tone.

She shook her head. She took the glass of wine and gulped it down before serving herself another glass.

“No, I’m not asking you. I’m speaking to Jace Miller… Or maybe I should call you the name they never allowed you to use; Jace Fauger. My sister.”

She turned her head and looked at me.

“So I’m asking you. Sister to sister. Do you think I’m evil?”

I looked at her for a moment. Unsure what to do.

Ah…. What the hell!

I placed the tray on the pile of letters on the desk and ripped off the bonnet they forced me to wear while doing service.

Seeir knows how much I hated that bonnet.

I walked to the balcony and sat down on the chair opposite her and poured myself a glass of wine. I gulped it down and felt it’s refreshing yet bitter taste trickle down my throat. True quality. It would be hard to find anything better in the whole of Salland.

I didn’t look at my sister. Instead, I looked at the windswept fields far in the horizon.

“I think you are the most repulsive human being I have ever met.”

I simply said.

I didn’t let my emotions leak into my voice, lest I accidentally start screaming at her. She simply nodded and looked at the same horizon as I did.

“Yes. I think so too.”

She chuckled, but there was no happiness in her tone.

“It’s funny, you know? Even now I think of her. I worry about her health. I wonder where she might be. With whom she might live with, or what she might be do...-”

“It’s none of your concern anymore.”

I cut her off dryly.

I knew it was a dangerous way of speaking to her, but I couldn’t bear listening to these kinds of self-deprecating lines. Especially coming from her.

“You’re right.”

She cleared her throat. Something in her tone slipped a bit.

“It’s none of my concern anymore.”

I felt a tinge of satisfaction at the reaction. She looked defeated and pained and those emotions on her face brought only morbid amusement to my heart. She looked unwilling to fight back, ready to receive her due justice and yet no one could deliver it to her, and so, I was all too willing to be the one.

She said nothing more and simply stared on, biting her lips and sipping on the warm tea. I waited a long time for her to say something. Anything, so I could chastise her over it, make her feel horrible, but she remained quiet. I bent forward and looked at her face.

“Why did you do it?”

I simply asked her.

Her lips parted for a moment but no sound left them. She looked at a loss for words, I could see a hundred excuses forming on her lips, yet none were good enough to even convince herself. She turned toward me. Her eyes glossy, like an animal facing an incoming arrow.

“What else could I do?”

She said, almost expecting an answer, but I wasn’t willing to do the talking for her, so she looked down at her feet.

“It’s not as easy as it looks. I have to love all my children…”

“And yet you couldn’t help the one that actually needed your help?”

I asked her angrily.

“Couldn’t you have visited her? Taken care of her? Fed her? Spent time with her? Loved her for Meiriem’s sake! Isn’t that what you all believe in here? So much for love…”

I felt sick… Sick of this place of these people. Maybe I should have just burnt the place down that night. It would have made just as good an excuse and maybe killed a few of these imbeciles.

“It’s not that simple…”

She whimpered again.

“If… If I had done that. Then my other children would have paid the price for it! Do you know how difficult it was to hide? Hide the reason why Dalton’s hair is slightly too dark. Hide why Ela's eyes glimmer shades of gold when she stares at the fire? They all have it in their blood, in their soul! All corrupted. The only chance for them to ever live past it is to abide by the rules.”

I gritted my teeth. Was this the best she could come up with? Blaming our Scorn blood?

She continued with her shameless excuses.

“How could I stop him? He would have found out! Alfred would have known I was hiding something then! She had to be the scapegoat. The sacrificial lamb for father’s sins. To hide the tainted blood I brought to this family. Any day I could be discovered and it will be OVER. And then what? I’m not just talking about me! Knox, Ela, Dalton… All of us, Disowned and cast away from this tiny little drop in our blood! We’d be cast to the street, forced to starve! ”

“You could have returned to Father.”

Merilia scoffed at my suggestion.

“Right! As if HE would EVER allow a disgrace like me to enter his household after I had brought shame to the family! Look at you! You’re...”

“Here”

I cut her short.

“I’m here because he tried to give me a place, despite my ‘corrupted’ blood.”

She looked away.

“It’s different. I’m a mother, I have children. You wouldn’t understand what that’s like...”

That woman… She dared to call herself a mother!

“I think I can understand just fine.”

I said as I put down the glass on the table and stared straight into her eyes.

“Do you know how much time it was that you left Silika alone? I’m not speaking about after her excommunication or any absurd boohoo story you tell yourself. I’m talking about the time after the incident. It was months before her condition was even discovered. MONTHS! And where were you during those times? Those times when your own daughter couldn’t stand on her own two legs? Couldn’t feed herself? Or when she screamed for your name as she cried herself to sleep? Where were you damn it! I’ll tell you where I was. I was RIGHT THERE WITH HER!”

At some point or another, I had stood up and was now staring down right into her ‘oh so perfect’ blue eyes. She looked down, breaking eye contact.

“You’re right. I failed. As a mother. As a wife. As a creation of the gods…. A complete utter failure.”

She said in despair as she placed her face in her hands.

“You don’t even deserve to feel sad for yourself…”

I said, but somehow I felt as if I said too much.

“You’re right. You’re right.”

She stood up from her seat and headed for a cupboard. She took a bottle of liquor from it and poured herself a glass. She offered me one, but I declined. She sat on the cupboard and sipped on her drink for a moment.

“Look in the drawer.”

I looked at her inquisitively, but her eyes were focused elsewhere. On the bottom of her glass in which she was already pouring another dose of amber coloured liquor. I approached the desk and opened the drawer. Inside were a large pouch and a sealed letter

“Take it.”.

I picked them up to place them on the desk. Immediately I could tell that the pouch was brimming with heavy platinum coins. Enough to buy several houses. The letter on the other hand, was sealed with the Fauger family seal and remained a mystery.

“A deed.”

She said between two large gulps of her drink before she poured herself yet another glass.

“A title and a quaint piece of land in Norland. Far from here. Take it. It’s yours.”

She tried to pour herself another glass but her finger had become slippery from drinking. so much so quickly. She managed to pour just as much of the drink inside as outside of the glass.

“Please just… Just…”

She let herself slip down from the top of the cupboard down to the floor, glass still in hand. Tearing the hem of her dress in the process. She looked at the looping liquid in her hand.

“Please just make sure she’s happy. I know you can do it. Much better than I ever could.”

She poured one more glass from the bottle before stopping herself. She gulped down what was in the glass before going to drink straight from the bottle.

I hesitated for a moment. Is this the right thing to do?

“Don’... Don’t worry about Alfred o-or Father. They won’t even know what happened. I’ll take care of everything… Just… Just leave. Put this life behind you. Be happy with her.”

It was hard to accept, but she was right. There was nothing left for me here. For us here. I took the bag of coins and the letter, and tucked them into the folds of my apron. I walked to the door and placed my hand on the handle and looked back at Merilia.

The shell of a woman. Drinking her guilt away by the bottle. Her usually serene expression was replaced by a wrinkled woeful look.

“Thank you… Merilia.”

I said bitterly.

She simply stopped for a moment and stared at the bottle before taking another swig. She deserved no salvation for her actions... And she knew it.