“No,” Robert said in a firm voice that broached no argument. “There is nothing to discuss. You will stay here until your marriage is concluded. I am not letting you risk your life again this time.”

Sena stood before Robert’s work desk with her back straight, looking forward with unwavering determination. After Laurania informed the whole house of her waking up, nearly an entire day had passed until she had the chance to meet with father, and converse with him.

“I am a knight first and foremost, father,” she said. “And also a warrior noble. We are duty-bound to risk our lives for the sake of a just cause.“

“For the sake of a just cause, yes. But not for some adventure and excitement.”

Sena frowned, burning with impatience. “I have already told you, father. It’s not some adventure or excitement I am seeking.” Her fist balled up, voice fervent with a hope. “I have found it, father. The opportunity that would lead me to Sara’s killer! Finally, I will know—”

“Enough!” Robert roared as he stood up. He stalked forward, his larger form hulking over Sena with all the pressure and intensity of his position. “Sara’s death is a matter of the past. Stop dwelling on it. Your marriage has been decided with Arakan Sergel. It will bring a brighter future to the house and to you.”

Sena clenched her teeth. The marriage. And with Arakan Sergel, of all people. She’d been hearing about it from almost everyone she met since she woke up. Though she didn’t like it at all, since the decision was made in consideration of the trouble the house was facing, she would have at least given it some consideration, but she had no time for that now. “Please listen—”

“There will be no further discussion on this matter. And you are to stay in the castle until it is concluded.” he looked into Sena’s eyes. “Am I understood?”

The disbelief in Sena’s eyes turned into defiance. “No,” she said.

Robert’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

“I said,” Sena began, letting each word out in a slow, deliberate fashion. “I do not understand you. I don’t understand how you can be so indifferent to her death. She was your daughter!”

Robert scowled at his daughter. Indifferent? Did he have any other choice at that time? He gritted his teeth, seeping in a hint of threat into his voice. “You are crossing your limit, Sena,”

Sena grit her teeth, taking a step closer to her father as she growled at him, “I don’t care! Just like you don’t care. Maybe you can think of it as the past, but I can’t!” she paused, her chest heaving as if she had been sprinting for miles. “No matter how many days have passed, that day has never left me. Because she was my sister and she died. Because. Of. Me!”

Robert looked at his daughter in amazement. In all these years, Sena had never raised her voice against him. But what had happened to her now?

“I have been trying,” Sena whispered. “You always valued Sara more than me. And why shouldn’t you? Studying, fighting, riding; she was better than me at everything. So since that day I’ve been trying to compensate, to be more than just me! But I never saw you show any kind of appreciation for my effort. When you put me in the position of the heir of the house, I knew you did it not because of my efforts, but to please Her Majesty, a woman ruler, but I still thought that maybe, just maybe I could prove myself to you with that opportunity. But no.”

Sena’s eyes carried a strange look of sadness and loneliness as she looked up at him. “All that matters to you is the house, doesn’t it? You don’t want me to risk my life, yet you could sell me off for the house. You valued Sara so much, but you still never tried to seek the killer of your daughter. Never tried to take revenge. Was it also for the house?”

The back of Robert’s hand struck Sena’s cheek like the crack of a whip, snapping her head back. Blood trickled down her lips, but Sena shrugged it off. A slap like that might have been a painful and humiliating thing to her before, but in front of the hellish days she had spent trapped within her memories, it was nothing. She looked back at her father with eyes full of cold disappointment.

“So it was for the house.” She sighed. If her father was unfeeling towards Sara’s death, she would have felt disheartened. But no. The slap was proof that he cared. Then why?

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” she said as she turned around. “I will find that assassin and whoever is behind her. And I will avenge Sara.”

Why her father did what he did. The answer to that hardly mattered to her now. She knew what she had to do, and nothing was going to stop her.

“GUARDS!” Robert’s roar halted Sena’s steps. She bit her lips, feeling a sense of betrayal press down on her heart, and continued forward once again.

The door to the study swung open and the two soldiers standing guard in front of it rushed in.

“Escort my daughter to the southern wing,” Robert instructed the two

“The southern wing!” both guards glanced at each other. Unlike the dungeon underground that hosted the criminals, the southern wing of the castle was where the members of house Moras, who had done something wrong would be kept in isolation. That was why most castle dwellers called it the punishment hall.

Watching Sena walk towards them, an awkward look coloured their faces. “Please come with us, young lady.” They gestured towards the door.

Sena didn’t answer them. She turned around to face her father instead. “So you are forcing me?”

Robert stared at her with eyes as hard and cold as stone. “You are to stay in confinement until the day of your marriage.”

The guards stood on both sides of Sena. “Young lady—”

“GET OUT OF MY WAY!” The air of command in Sena’s voice made the two guards take an involuntary step back. Both of them stared at Sena in shock. They had been veterans of the battlefield, experienced in hundreds of wars. The only reason they were working as guards was that they have grown too old to be on the fields of war anymore. But with their experience, for a moment Sena’s command overpowered Robert’s.

“Apprehend her!” Robert sounded equally astonished.

“Please forgive us, young lady,” the guards said, taking a deep breath as they stepped forward. Sena swayed, dodging their outstretched hands in with an eerie, ethereal movement like a wisp of mist floating in the air.

Left flabbergasted, the guards turned around once again and faced Sena, who looked equally surprised by her movement. In all her years of training, she had never learned such skills before. But now, her body almost moved on its own. And this ethereal, almost mist-like movement…

A hand fell on her wrist, yanking her out of her thoughts. One of the guards tried to hold her down, but she twisted her hand and slipped it out from his grasp like a slippery eel. Instinctively, she felt another guard coming from her back, but she ducked her head and sent her elbow up, smashing into his chin.

The more she moved, the nimbler her body became. But the nimbler her body became, the more she could feel herself losing control of her body. But the guards were veterans. They began predicting their movement, stepping in, constraining her more and more. They were cornering her, and Sena grew more frustrated.

Why were they stopping her from reaching Sara’s killer? Who were they to stop her?

Flashes of thoughts and questions made her thoughts chaotic, turning them into a blind rage. She bared her teeth, eyes turning redder and redder as her strikes became more brutal, more animalistic. Watching the fight from afar, her changes were not lost to Robert, but the behaviour of the guards alarmed him more. They too should have noticed the abnormality of Sena. Then why were they not stopping? Why were they throwing caution in the wind and recklessly charging in?

“Guards, stop!” He shouted, but his orders fell on deaf years. The three ahead of her remained locked in a trance, falling into a dangerous battle frenzy bit by bit. They were beginning to get injured, even his daughter! Only because of the guard’s experience and Sena’s bizarre movement did they prevent themselves from getting seriously injured till now.

One of the guards finally took out his sword and thrust it at the weaponless Sena. she tried to dodge, but the other guard stood in her way. The weapon slashed the side of her arm, drawing blood and dying her white shirt sleeve red.

Robert’s heart skipped a bit. “Stop,” he cried out, hurrying towards the battlefield, but as soon as he took a step, the world around him changed.

The darkest of black and the drabbest grey had laid like a curtain over the room, consuming all colour and life from the world. The shadows of every object flickered, swaying, wafting over the ground like a dense layer of smoke, taking the shape of beasts… wolves, tens of them. Some clung like clumps of mud on Sena’s body. And the more she fought, the more they invaded her, devouring her bit by bit. And above everything was the only source of colour. Two all-encompassing golden eyes. Eyes not of men but a predator, observing everything with blithe disinterest.

As soon as Robert saw those eyes, his desire to rescue Sena became volatile, turning into a desire for battle. It overpowered nearly all of his senses and his hand touched the hilt of his sword. His mind struggled, fighting against the desire as with an immense effort of willpower, he took a step back, stepping out of that grey world.

His mind regained clarity, pushing away the crave of battle. But a hint of dread still lingered in his eyes as he stared at his daughter, whose movements had become more frenzied than before. Against those two veterans, she wasn’t falling behind anymore. But her strikes were now aimed to kill. She was aiming to kill the guards.

Robert gritted his teeth. Did what he saw just now have anything to do with her previous mental state? What… had happened to his daughter? What had she experienced? And those golden eyes, whose eyes were they?

The only one who could answer her question, Sena, suddenly stopped her fist just before one of the guard’s throat. A strike that could’ve injured him seriously if it hit. “NO!” she growled, pulling herself back from the fight. And in an instant, the guards also snapped out of their trance. Sena saw the horror clear in their eyes. Her body screamed for battle, claws… hands itched to tear those two apart, but she clenched her teeth and held herself back, refusing to move even as a heavy strike landed on the back of her head. Darkness filled her vision.

Robert put the crook of his hand behind Sena’s shoulder, stopping her fall, and gently laid her down on a chair. He gazed at her unconscious face with worry and a hint of fear.

“Sire…” one of the guards called out, wanting to say something, but Robert raised his hand and stopped them and stared them directly in the eyes.

“Whatever you saw or experienced, must not go out of this room,” he said.

“As you command, sire.” both guards bowed towards him.

Robert sighed. “Inform Hubrik to come and see me,” he said before looking at his daughter. “Then carry her to the Southern wing and guard her. No one is allowed to visit her without my permission.”

“What happened to her?” Laureen stopped the two guards carrying Sena on a carrier through the corridor and inquired anxiously. She had seen the other girl, not more than a few hours ago, but right now her body was full of small cuts and bruises. And the large gash at the side of her hand, it looked especially serious. This pitiful girl! She had been bedridden for so long, but now someone injured her?

Once again she met the eyes of the two guards. “Who did this?” she asked angrily.

The guards both looked at each other with guilt-ridden eyes. “It was… us,” one of them said, much to the other guard’s dismay.

“You?” Laureen frowned. “What do you mean? Why would you do this to her?”

“We are not at liberty to answer your question, Lady Laureen. You should seek out our lord for that,” the other guard said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Lord Robert? You mean...” Laureen asked, pointing at Sena, “her father?”

“Yes,” the guard nodded. “Now if you will excuse me. We have to take her away.”

Laureen’s eyebrows scrunched up further. What could her father have to do with Sena getting injured? Gritting her teeth, she looked around at the corridor. “Wait.” she ran ahead of them and spread her arms in a futile attempt to block the corridor. “Where are you taking her? This is not the way to her room.”

“We are taking her to the south wing.”

Her eyes widened. As curious as she was, she had explored the castle extensively since she had been here. Most of the time, no one had stopped her, even helping her out by explaining the purpose of constructions such as portcullis, guardhouses, machicolations and others. They had even shown her some secret passageways out of the castle for amusement. But there were a few places that she was forbidden from entering. The southern wing was one such place.

“Why?” she asked. “What has she done?”

“As we said, we are not at liberty to tell you,” the guard said. “Now please step aside, my lady.”

Laureen firmed her jaw and shook her head. “No, I won’t! Not until you tell me the reason.”

The guards smiled helplessly. Sena was by no means heavy, but they were not in their primes either. Even though they both distributed the weight, carrying her too long would be strenuous at best. The first guard looked at her with pleading eyes. “Listen, my lady—”

“Lady laurania!” the three of them turned their heads, watching Hubrik approach from the direction of Robert’s study. His face grim and bitter, he regarded her carefully before bowing. “Please step aside and let them through, my lady.”

“Even you…” Laureen furrowed her brows. The steward had been one of the people most glad when Sena woke up. “Why? At least, tell me—”

“Please do not interfere, my lady,” Hubrik’s tone was gentle yet unyielding. “This is a private matter of house Moras. You interfering in it does not look good for house Sergel.”

“House Sergel…” Laureen muttered, her face souring. Right. She is not only here as herself, but as a representative of house Sergel, and most importantly, Arakan. She couldn’t tarnish their names due to some thoughtless action.

A defeated sigh escaped Lauree. She hung her head, stepping aside to let the guards through. Hubrik was right. It was house Moras’s private affair. She has no right to meddle, does she?

Does she?