Elise had always questioned everything Ian did to her, the puzzles and riddles he always gave that had the gears in her mind to work and find an answer to all his questions. Now this time, he had asked her about her emotions regarding the killings he did.

According to the teaching of church, killing had never been seen in a good light and Elise who was brought up by Scott's family knew how hell bent the church was to stop the killing and at many cases she agreed but not all. There were cases that turn Elise to believe otherwise,

Elise's lips that were pressed slowly opened, and she said, "I believe not all killing are to be judge by others. They may be sins but the reason are the decisive factor for one to choose whether it is good or bad." She saw how Ian's eyes were studying her.

"But you believe lesser killing is better, don't you?" Ian asked her, and when his fingers slide down, Elise felt her skin tingle. As much as she wish she could take a step back to calm down her nerves, she didn't want to repeat the accident in the gallery.

Slowly she looked back at his red eyes that had turned darker and bring her head up and down. "Do you have a family, Master Ian?" she asked him, her eyes trained at his expression and she took note how his smile stopped briefly before he pulled it further.

With his lovely girl asking him, Ian wouldn't be able reject her request and the initiative she showed to know about him more. This was a sign of Elise becoming more talkative. As it was just barely a month pass after she moved here and work in the castle, Elise had become accustomed to her surrounding and him. Baby steps were what everyone need in first stage of relationship, thought Ian to himself.

Ian hummed at her and Elise saw how he seemed to be studying something from her expression just as what she was doing now.

"I do. Long ago." He added to gain her curious gaze at him. Elise had never seen any portrait about Ian's family and she wondered how they look like?

"Is your father the previous Lord of Warine?" asked Elise to him and he broke to a small chuckle as if he was hearing a joke for a very long time that was funny.

"There wasn't any Lord in Warine before I became one." He replied, "This land, it is nothing but a plane of wide land with villages and towns, nothing too much to be noted on."

Before Ian become one? Elise wondered how long ago it was, then she questioned in her mind, finally asking herself how old was Ian? From his face that had the unchanging handsome face, he seemed to be a man in his late twenty which was why Elise didn't found him to be a person of an old age; however he was wiser than his peers that she took notice to come from the years he had passed. The portraits in the gallery started thirty years ago but before the land was named Warine, isn't it almost back a hundred years ago?

"You said all killings are not to be judge by anyone. What makes you think so?" He asked when her mind was brought away from the questions whirling in her mind, "Tell me."

Elise looked away from Ian's eyes slightly to his large hand so she could speak without having her mind thrown into confusion, "I have seen a person judged. It was a case of three people, two men and one woman in the village opposite to the town."

Ian quietly listened to her words, tipping his chin to tell her and continue. Elise continue to speak, "The woman was found dead, she was a wife if a woodcutter. When her body was found, people said that the woman was killed by a wild animal from the forest because of the missing limbs from the woman's body."

Elise was still young at that time, twelve years old when the case happened and she drew her brows as she continued, "When everyone convince the woman was killed by the wildlife, she was buried in the local cemetery when the next day, a body of a man was found at the same spot of where the woodcutter's wife died. The man was the neighbor of the woman."

Ian had quietly heard her story that was interesting and piqued him to wang to know the end of the story but with the amounts of years he passed, he could guess the ending of the story but didn't want to spoil it, "Let me take a guess, the woodcutter was the one who killed the man."

Elise's looked at Ian in awe, was the story easy to tell? "Yes, the woman wasn't killed by in the forest by a wild animal but the man. Then the woodcutter was judged to the scaffold." Elise felt sorry for the woodcutter and his wife. The neighbor was killed but somewhere she felt it was what the man deserve for after robbing the small happiness the family had. A loss was what drive others to hatred.

"Do you feel sorry for the man who the woodcutter killed?" asked Ian to see Elise shaking her head.

"I think he deserve the death for killing the woodcutter's wife and I feel sorry for the woodcutter." she whispered her words.

Ian twisted his smile, his steps drawled to get closer to her but if he did, Elise would have her face stick close to his chest and he would rather her face pressed to his face than his chest. "What do you think when I killed the man earlier then? What was his name again?" Ian frowned as if trying to remember the name and Elise replied,

"Mr. Vervor."

"Yes, late Vervor." Ian smiled, "What do you feel when you see the death, Elise? Do you think he deserve the death? I can tell you more if you don't yet, the land late Vervor took from me is now in peril. Drought everywhere, taxes painstakingly increase for no farmer and peasants to be able to live, the death increases."

Elise furrowed her brows at it. She had thought Vervor's greatest mistake was to steal Master Ian's land and claimed it as his own but in truth he had resulted to a great scale of death. "He is a bad person."

Ian crack a chuckle to her innocent words, "He is a bastard, worth of his death, didn't you agree?"

Elise gave him a nod, "Yes, but don't you have to trial the man, Master Ian?" Earlier it seemed like the trial hadn't been hold yet or else Vervor would have known not to come to his death today in the castle.

Ian shrugged his shoulders, "I am the Lord sweetheart, did you forgot? What I did earlier isn't blind killing but execution. A lord doing his execution which is a part of his job, no one would question the show."

A show... thought Elise in silence, knowing Master Ian and his choice of words she didn't feel offended but most people would find him daunting because of the words he said and when Elise's blue eyes shifted at the portrait hanged on the wall behind Ian, he saw her eyes had shifted away from him and also turned his back, to watch the vertical painting of a black pair of wings.

Ian's eyes then shifted toward Elise, to see her expression as she watched the black pair of wings and he twisted his smile. "Is this a portrait you painted too?" asked Elise. She remembered Ian said to her of how he searched and choose his own muse for his painting what about the portrait she gazed now?

"I did, what do you see there?" asked Ian as if he couldn't see the painting when his body had turned to gaze at the painting along with her.

"A pair of black wings." she answered for Ian to hum again and this time his hum was low.

Elise then caught him looking at the wooden clock on the corner of the bedroom, noting the time he then said, "We have plenty of time before the party start, we should go now before it pass."

"It pass?" asked Elise and she saw Ian walking to take the black long coat he placed on the surface of the olive couch.

Ian graced his lips with a wicked grin, "To have you receive your promised reward or should we call it a punishment?" Elise wondered what he meant by that to the slowly remembered he meant the reward and punishment they had spoken of before in the library.

Punishment thought Elise to herself for her slender neck to bob when she gulped.

Noticing the worry look on Elise face, Ian crack a grin, "Do not worry, sweetheart, not all pain is painful, I told you there are some sweet one."

A/N: Don't forget to vote so we reach 1000 powerstone, we could do this together! ^^