Her brother's blight, that creeping decay of flesh to bark, left a hollow ache behind her ribs. She had focused entirely on the restorative draught, then on outmaneuvering Kazimir. Faced with his hollowed stare, that direction vanished. “I don’t know,” she finally said, her voice a dry rasp. “I don’t know how to help you if you don’t even know what you need.” She turned from his gaze, needing distance, needing clarity that this room, steeped in his defeat, could not offer. Her steps carried her from the observatory, through the quiet halls, until she reached the familiar comfort of the manor's grand archive. It was a place of order, of facts, a stark contrast to the emotional chaos she’d just witnessed. The archive, a cavernous space with soaring, vaulted ceilings, stretched before her. Dust motes danced in the slivers of morning light filtering through high, arched windows. Rows of ancient tomes, their leather bindings cracked and faded, lined the towering shelves. If answers existed, they would be here. Not in the calculated performance of a lord, nor in the frantic plea of a beast, but in the brittle pages of forgotten knowledge. She spent the next few hours in a haze of focused intensity, pulling down treatises on ancient curses, tales of transformation, and records of the Volkov lineage. Her hands, usually nimble with lockpicks and hidden pouches, now moved with unusual precision, brushing away centuries of dust. The more she read, the more convoluted the lore became. Some spoke of blood sacrifices, others of sacred relics, but none mentioned a kiss of 'true love' explicitly. Kazimir found her amidst a precarious stack of scrolls and grimoires, a faint tremor in his hands as he set down a tray with a steaming mug and a plate of dried fruit. He looked less defeated now, more subdued, his posture still slumped but his eyes holding a flicker of introspection. “Anja said you were here.” “I’m looking for something useful,” Zorya replied, not looking up from a faded diagram of a snarling, horned creature. “Your mother’s diary mentions ‘unconditional love.’ I need to know where that idea came from. Is it even real?” He watched her for a moment, then sat on the edge of a heavy oak table, his gaze falling upon a tattered Volkov family history she’d discarded. “It was my father’s obsession. He read it in some old text, believed it to be the key. He tried… many times.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, a weary gesture. “He failed, of course. Just as I did.” “So your ‘true love’ theory was just recycled panic?” she asked, a bite in her tone. “And you expected me to believe it?” Kazimir flinched. “It was the only path I knew. The curse… it gnaws at me. The fear of losing my mind, of becoming a monster for Borislav to display. It drives you to any glimmer of hope.” He paused. “But you’re right. It was a crude deception, unworthy of… of you.” The apology, however grudging, was unexpected. It softened something in Zorya, a tiny fraction of the anger that had solidified within her. “Tell me about your mother’s notebook,” she prompted, gesturing to the small leather-bound volume she'd found. “She seemed to take another perspective.” He retrieved it, his thumbs tracing the worn cover. “My mother, Miroslava… she was a scholar. More than my father. She believed the answer lay not in force or manipulation, but in understanding the curse itself. She spent years researching.” He opened it to a page marked with a pressed dried flower. “She wrote of a ‘readied heart given freely.’ Not ‘true love,’ but something… simpler. A choice.” Zorya's head snapped up. “A heart offered of its own accord? That alters things entirely.” She snatched the notebook, studying the elegant script. “It shifts the entire problem. It’s not about intense feeling, but about agency. About a conscious decision.” For the first time since his breakdown, a spark of something akin to hope, fragile but real, appeared in Kazimir’s eyes. “A choice,” he echoed softly. “Yes. That’s what she wrote.” He rose, approaching the scattered scrolls. “Perhaps we should look for what that truly entails in these texts.” And so, a strange, tense alliance was forged. The lord and the thief sat hunched over ancient texts, their shoulders nearly touching as they turned brittle leaves. They spoke little beyond the brittle words of the long-dead, but a shared purpose, an urgent search for answers, bound them together in the quiet hum of the archive. Hours later, Anja entered, her face drawn, a thick, iron-bound tome clutched in her hands. “My lord,” she said, her voice hushed, “I have found something. A ritual recorded in the Volkov grimoires, passed down through generations. A way to sever the curse entirely.” Kazimir and Zorya looked up, the air hitching between them. “What is it?” Kazimir demanded, his voice tight with a sudden, terrible hope. Anja’s gaze was grave. “It requires a great sacrifice. A life, freely given, at the moment of the beast’s transformation. A life offered to the spirits of the Szarvas, binding the curse to the land itself, never to return.” A chilling silence descended. Zorya exchanged a glance with Kazimir, the implication stark and immediate. Someone had to die. An uncoerced offering. The thought struck like iron, followed at once by the memory of Mischa's petrifying arm. She turned back to the notebook, unsettled by Anja’s discovery. Miroslava's words took on a darker, heavier meaning now. She flipped through the remaining leaves, her thumb brushing against a loose, almost imperceptible fold near the back cover. Tucked away within the binding, a hidden page, unnumbered, revealed itself. It was a charcoal sketch, finely detailed, depicting a man’s profile. But it wasn’t just any man. It was Kazimir, clearly younger, his features softer, yet unmistakable. And etched across his cheek, catching the imagined moonlight of the drawing, was a single, undeniable mark—the exact same intricate, flowing scar that marred Kazimir’s face now, a scar that had appeared only after his curse manifested. His mother had drawn it years before it appeared on him, proving she knew.

The Scholar and the Thief