The beast’s burning eyes held hers for another agonizing beat, a silent, weighty question in their depths. The bloodied pastry, still giving off faint tendrils of warmth, lay like an offering at her feet. It smelled faintly of roasted almonds, something savory, and iron. Its heavy form turned, not with the languid grace of a housecat, but with the coiled power of a storm-wind. It stepped over the ruined doorframe, dissolving into the deeper shadows of the corridor. The growl receded, swallowed by the manor’s oppressive silence, leaving only the sound of her own ragged breathing and the faint, unsettling drip of something wet in the distance. Fellira waited, muscles locked, until the last echo had completely vanished. Then, with a practiced slowness, she bent and picked up the pastry. It was a savory tart, dense with meat, and sticky with blood – not its own. The beast had warned her of watchers, of killers, and had left her a piece of a body. She didn’t know if it was a threat, a twisted gift, or simply proof. Her fingers, stained crimson, trembled only slightly. She considered the mangled door, the broken promise of security, and a spark of something exhilarating flared in her chest. This was not the expected, quiet execution. This was... interesting. Dawn broke behind dense fog, heralded not by sunlight but by the heavy brass toll of a valley clocktower. Fellira dressed with meticulous care, selecting a gown of deep emerald velvet that contrasted sharply with her pale hair, its high collar a subtle shield. She applied kohl to her eyes, perhaps a little too liberally, to mask the lingering shadows beneath them. The pastry was gone, disposed of in the room’s cold hearth, but the metallic tang of its blood seemed to cling to her skin. Stepping into the corridor, she found the answer to the beast’s offering. A dark, slumped form lay sprawled across the polished floorboards, not quite obscuring the intricate spiral pattern. It was a man, or what remained of one, his uniform—a dark, unadorned tunic—ripped to shreds. Claws, or teeth, had done a thorough job. A small, wickedly curved dagger lay clutched in a stiff hand. An assassin, then. Just as the beast had said. The manor, she realized, was a very lively place indeed. “Good day, my lady! Did you sleep well?” The voice, smooth as polished obsidian, belonged to Tavish. He emerged from a side corridor, his linen coat slightly askew, a smudge of coal-dust on his cheekbone. He carried a small, silver-bound notebook and a quill, looking every inch the diligent steward. His gaze flickered from the mauled body to Fellira, a subtle tension in his posture. Fellira, however, merely beamed. Her smile, wide and utterly vacant, usually disarmed even the most hardened household spies. “Oh, perfectly, thank you, Master Tavish! Though it seems there was an energetic dust-up during the night.” She gestured vaguely at the corpse with a delicate hand, as if pointing out a stray crumb. “Perhaps the cook’s mice have grown quite ambitious?” Tavish’s dark eyes narrowed, though his lips remained politely curved. “Indeed, my lady. A formidable mouse, it would seem. You were not disturbed by the commotion?” “Disturbed?” Fellira tilted her head, her expression one of innocent confusion. “Oh, was there commotion? I sleep deeply, especially after such a… *full* day of travel and nuptials. The Duke, of course, is a soothing presence, isn’t he? Though my door seems to have developed an unfortunate splintering issue.” She poked at a remaining shard with the toe of her slipper. “Such a shame. It was quite a sturdy door.” Tavish’s gaze lingered on her for a moment longer, a calculating glint in his eyes. He was searching, she knew, for fear, for a slip, for any indication that she wasn't the vacant-headed doll her mother had groomed. He would find none. “I shall have the carpenters attend to it immediately, my lady. Perhaps you would care to take breakfast in the Grand Solarium? The Duke often takes his tea there, limited as the gray sky is.” “Oh, how delightful!” Fellira chirped, stepping daintily over the assassin’s leg without a pause. “Lead the way, Master Tavish. I do love a good solarium, even one that sees very little sun. It sounds terribly poetic, doesn’t it?” As Tavish led her away, Fellira’s mind raced. He was a creature of sharp edges and sharper intellect, yet she felt a peculiar dissonance. His questions were too precise, his observation of her ‘performance’ too keen for a mere steward. The Duke, she mused, was certainly a complicated man to surround himself with such figures. After a brief and equally performative breakfast with Rukhan—who offered only a soft, almost melancholy smile and a few murmured courtesies, his hands resting inertly in his lap—Fellira excused herself to the library. She claimed a sudden yearning for medieval poetry, a suitably vapid pursuit for a new duchess. The library was a labyrinth of towering shelves and shadowed alcoves. Dust motes danced in the sparse light filtering through leaded windows. Her purpose, however, was not to read. She ran her fingers along the spines, not for titles, but for a hidden catch, a secret latch. The estate's architecture had begun to reveal its contours. Fortifications designed to *contain*, not just protect. And where there were secrets, there were hidden ways. Behind a particularly dense section on Vyr-Taint pathology, her fingers found a cold, smooth mechanism. A soft click, and a section of the bookshelf slid inward, revealing a narrow, dust-choked conduit. The air within was still, heavy with the scent of aged paper and something metallic. She slipped inside, the masonry pivoting shut behind her. A faint, rhythmic scratching sound drew her deeper, a whisper of activity. She followed it, her senses heightened, until she found a narrow grate, barely visible in the dim light, offering a view into a small, sparsely furnished chamber below. Tavish sat there, hunched over a desk, scribbling furiously on a sheet of parchment. His earlier soot smudge was gone, replaced by a fresh ink stain on his thumb. He wasn’t reading; he was writing. And not just any letter. The script was tight, precise, filled with odd symbols and seemingly random conjunctions of letters. A coded message. She watched as he sealed it with a wax stamp bearing the Ystrad sigil. He was sending reports directly to Syrena. But as Tavish began to write another letter, muttering under his breath, a chilling realization blossomed. “The Duke remains… incapacitated,” he mumbled, dipping his quill. “The beast appears… dormant. The new Duchess… an empty-headed thing. Utterly oblivious to the estate’s… peculiarities. No threat.” Fellira froze. *Incapacitated*. *Dormant*. *Simpleton*. He was feeding the matriarch *false* information. Not just information, but carefully crafted reassurances of Rukhan’s vulnerability and her own harmlessness. Tavish wasn't merely a spy for Syrena; he was a spy *against* her, working to protect Rukhan, feeding a narrative designed to keep the Ystrads away. The full implication of this hit her with the force of a physical blow. Syrena's sharpest weapon was being blunted, turned against her. And Tavish, the seemingly loyal steward, was the architect. A floorboard creaked behind her. Not the hollow conduit floorboard, but the solid flagstones behind the bookstack. Too close. She spun, but it was already too late. A shadow detached itself from the gloom. Rukhan. He stood perfectly upright, his posture straight, his eyes, in this dim light, like chips of obsidian. In his hand, a thin, silver blade glinted, its point pressing firmly against the soft hollow of her throat. The space tightened down to nothing. “Tell me, Fellira Ystrad,” he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous rumble, stripped clean of the day's gentle courtesies. “Which Ystrad faction do you truly serve?”

Blood on the Floorboards