Felix was pleased when he found out that the Lord had accepted his request, even if it wouldn’t be straight away. He was disappointed at this, but he somewhat understood that he wasn’t yet at the level of coordination required for strenuous exercise.

Naturally, he was wary of giving himself a shoddy foundation even if he did feel pressured by future worries, and simply decided to continue pushing himself as often as he could without burning himself out.

Like this, several months passed until the manor was greeted with the shocking revelation that the Duchess had given birth to another heir, and a son at that. Unfortunately, coupled with this, it seemed as if Felix’s valuation in the servants’ eyes had dropped quite a bit.

As a noble scion, one would think Felix would be relatively fawned over by the house help but even before the birth of his younger brother the relationship was rather rigid, considering he wasn’t really in his mother’s favour. However now, the situation was even worse, not to the point of naked spite but he and Isabella were a lot more isolated in the house.

Outside of Isabella’s position in the house’s chain of command, which came from the Lord himself, few servants would find a reason to interact with her or Felix, but Felix wasn’t really too fussed anyway since he already had prior experience of people distancing themselves from him when things went left.

It seemed as if things were a bit more difficult for Isabella, sadly, as she sometimes would look a bit lonely whenever Felix glanced at her. The servants she was relatively closer to had ended up pushing her away as if they were fleeing a sinking ship.

Fortunately, there was one maid that disregarded how others were staying away from the duo and still made time to casually interact with Isabella. Felix remembered her as the maid who had notified him of his mother’s presence the first time they met.

The maid, named Matilda, was a cheerful young girl with a short blonde bob and a cute face that made her look more adolescent than adult. Felix remembered hearing from Isabella how when she had first moved to this house, she had ended up sticking up for the girl and taking her under her wing, and this had probably sewn a seed of gratitude in Matilda. Thus, the two played a big part in keeping the ennui out of Isabella’s day to day life, and Matilda came through big with the manor’s gossip as she was still on the in with a few other servants.

Following the revelation of Felix’s brother’s birth, the second house was abuzz with noise again at the rumour that Felix’s mother was showing early signs of pregnancy. Gossip started floating around that she had been suffering from morning sickness for a while, and recently she had been ‘showing’ whenever any of the house help encountered her on her sporadic garden walks.

A tense environment descended upon the house as there was a particularly deadly rumour floating around. Many in the manor were initially confused by the rumours, as the duke hadn’t made a ‘visit’ to the second house ever since the lady first arrived (which gave the house Felix), so who was the father?

Naturally, fingers began to point at the new addition to the household, who had proved himself inseparable from Giselle. The man wasn’t a particularly popular figure in the house, as he often looked at most he encountered as a potential enemy, which wasn’t necessarily a ludicrous notion given they were living in a foreign land that didn’t particularly care for them.

From this conclusion, the tension in the house reached a feverish level, as many were unsure how quickly and how far the lord’s wrath would spread. However, surprisingly, over the next few months, the duke publicly held his silence on this matter, and even Emerson’s courtesy visits went by with limited fuss.

Eventually, the gossip settled on two possibilities that either the duke knew and didn’t care/had other plans in mind or given that he was a powerful mage with his own mystical ways, he could’ve made undisclosed visits where nobody was the wiser. Naturally, Giselle and her entourage kept their silence on the matter, and none of the help was foolish enough to broach the topic. However, public opinion was primarily in favour of the first possibility.

As all this drama continued to unfold within the household, Felix continued to focus on improving his foundations more and more. His figure was far removed from the average nearly 3-year-old child, swapping a lot of the normal baby fat for a more toned visage. Far from being a beefhead or a muscle freak, instead, his appearance was a lot more toned, with the first vestiges of defined muscle showing through his fair skin. Felix was pleased with his overall progress and was looking forward to how the next phase of his growth would shape him.

*

Felix was stirred from his slumber by the soft clatter of books hitting the floor. As his eyes adjusted to the room’s darkness, he turned his head towards the source of the sound. His heart got caught in his throat as he noticed a shadowed figure awkwardly standing frozen in place as if afraid of getting caught. Felix didn’t know who it was, but he was sure they were there for nefarious purposes, so mustering up his courage he began to shout.

“HE-MMMMM!”

Before he could even finish off his cry the figure leapt into action and Felix felt a pillow slam down tightly on his face. A shiver ran down Felix’s spine as he realised the figure was trying to suffocate him, and he began to thrash wildly, struggling to get the figure off him.

Flailing blindly, he finally found purchase in the figure’s forearms and began to scratch and pinch to the best of his ability. “Argh!” Felix was rewarded in his efforts by a low shout of pain from his assassin before the pressure on the pillow came down even harder.

It was quickly becoming more and more difficult to breathe as he felt his heart struggling to beat in his chest, and he was slowly losing the ability to fight back. ‘Somebody, anybody, please help me!’ As his muffled cries for help were slowly getting extinguished, Felix heard the door to his room open.

“Young master, is everything ok-? AAAHHHH.”

A blood-curdling scream rang throughout the room as Felix’s stifled senses felt the pressure on the pillow loosen and give him some breathing room. He heard footsteps rushing towards his bed, accompanied by the sound of a collision and the subsequent scuffle on the ground.

Weakly pushing the pillow off himself with little resistance, Felix was finally completely free from the suffocating pressure, and gathering his breath, he quickly scrambled up to see what was going on beneath him. The lamp that Felix’s helper had brought into the room helped shine some light on the situation, and Felix was shocked to see Matilda wrestling with an unknown man.

Felix quickly screamed “HEWP!” which caused the man to flinch and then become more aggressive in his struggle. He quickly found purchase above Matilda, and both Felix and Matilda’s eyes opened wide as the lamplight gleamed off a menacing dagger the man frantically pulled from his waist.

Felix could hear the commotion of the guards heading towards the room, but he didn’t think they would get there in time! He knew he had to move and help Matilda, but he was frozen at the sight of the weapon. In moments of life-threatening danger like this, there is an instinctive fear of pain and death for anyone, and that triggers not only the fight or flight response but also to ‘freeze’ at the unexpected.

This was one of those situations.

As the dagger travelled towards Matilda’s chest, Felix’s body reacted before his mind could process it, and he jumped from his bed right into the man’s side, just about throwing him off and completely altering the course of the dagger. Felix heard the unfamiliar sound of something being punctured and was worried for Matilda’s safety, but unfortunately, he had bigger problems.

Felix found himself pinned to the ground underneath the assassin as they roughly grabbed his neck and began to strangle him! Fear completely gripped Felix as the chilling feeling of death seemed to encroach upon him, completely different from the numb release of his previous life.

Just as Felix’s vision began to darken, a flash of silver greeted Felix’s fleeting vision. The man shakily removed his hands from Felix’s neck to bring them towards his own as his eyes opened wide at the feel of his dagger in his own neck. The man instinctively pulled the dagger out of his neck, only for a fountain of blood to drench Felix’s face.

As the man was about to squash Felix, Felix noticed him get kicked in the side and fall onto the wooden floor. Trying to recover his breath, Felix broke out into a coughing fit due to the taste of iron in his mouth before painstakingly clearing his throat and sitting up. Felix belatedly realised he hadn’t considered Matilda’s condition and turned to see the girl breathing raggedly, hastily trying to put pressure on a wound in her side with her hands as blood flowed from it unceasingly.

Felix quickly took off his cotton pyjama shirt and began to help apply as much pressure as he could with his stubby hands, just as the guards burst into his room. He hurriedly called out for them, shouting “Kwik, Kwik! She needs hewp!” The head guard quickly shouted for one of his subordinates to come forward, who then proceeded to forcefully remove the two’s hands from the wound.

Felix was behind himself with rage as he didn’t understand what the man was trying to do, but before he could voice his outrage, what he saw next left him wide-eyed with shock. As the man’s hands encountered the wound, a warm yellow light began to glow as the wound seemed to close at a visible rate. As the wound completely closed, the only trace of it remaining was a scar that looked like it had been there for years.

As the warm light persisted, the colour gradually returned to Matilda’s pale face, as her ragged breathing gradually evened out and she closed her eyes to rest. Felix breathed a deep sigh of relief as the man broke the connection with Matilda, only to finally take stock of his circumstances.

He was drenched from head to toe in blood, and his nostrils were assaulted by the overbearing smell of iron and sweat, coupled with a foul stench coming from somewhere further away. Turning his head to the source, he noticed his would-be assassin lying limp, face down in a pool of blood, with his lower regions giving off a horrific smell.

Felix immediately turned from the sight, absolutely mortified, and began to vomit profusely, crying and shaking as he did so. From his hunched over position, he heard the head guard issue some orders, but his mind was filled with the horrifying image of his would-be murderer lying face down in his bodily fluids. After what felt like an eternity of dry heaving, Felix felt himself being pulled into someone’s firm embrace, and with a face covered in vomit, snot, and tears, he felt the freeing pull of sleep.

*

“Wake up, young master, it’s time to get uuppp.”

Felix heard a familiar bright voice calling out to him from the depths of his sleep. Keeping his eyes shut, he responded inquisitively:

“Matiwda, iz dat yu?”

“Why yes, young master, I’m honoured that you remember this lowly one’s name!”

Felix was shocked at the mirth he could hear in Matilda’s voice. Hadn’t she been stabbed? Was that all just one big nightmare? Tentatively opening his eyes to observe his surroundings, Felix noticed his room as orderly as it always was. Nothing had been knocked out of place or damaged by any sort of scuffle. Felix then checked his body to find he was free from any bloodstains or bruises, to which he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He was simultaneously relieved and confused, as the encounter seemed so fresh in his mind, far too vivid to be a dream. Coming out of his befuddlement, he looked around the room as he realised that he forgot to check for Matilda. Despite the first vestiges of sunlight entering his room, Felix couldn’t make out Matilda’s face as it was obscured by darkness.

“Matiwda?”

“Yes, young master?”

As Felix called out to her in confusion, Matilda stepped forward while answering cheerfully in response. What Felix saw sent chills down his spine. An errant ray of sunlight exposed Matilda’s small face, her pretty features, and the trails of fresh blood seeping out of her bloodshot eyes.

She sent Felix a bright smile, which caused two more crimson trails to fall from the corners of her mouth, giving her an even more chilling atmosphere. Horrified, all Felix could do was blink as he was frozen in shock.

In just a millisecond, Matilda seemed to morph into an androgynous figure of pure black, but the bloodshot eyes and trails of blood continued to paint her(?) face. Felix’s eyes were drawn to a new flow of blood cascading down the figure’s torso, and the source was from a puncture in the neck.

“Is anything the matter, young master?”

The voice that reached Felix’s ears was not Matilda’s melodic one, but rather a dirty, metallic one, as if two pieces of steel were scratching against one another. Felix could say nothing in reply as he watched the horrifying figure draw closer to him.

A sharp glint of light forcefully stole Felix’s attention as he noticed the figure’s hand clamped firmly around the hilt of a bloody dagger. The same dagger from last night. As if the figure noticed where he was looking, it followed his gaze to its’ hand, before letting out what Felix assumed to be a chuckle, something that sounded like someone was running their fingernails on a blackboard.

“Don’t worry, young master, I’ll take good care of you!”

As the figure drew closer to Felix, Felix tensed at the feel of bony hands grip his arms and feet as he desperately tried to shake himself free, but it was no use! Eventually, the figure drew so close that Felix could smell the thick scent of iron from the monster’s breath.

Just as the monster opened its maw inhumanely wide to show Felix its bloody, jagged teeth, Felix screamed and woke up with a start.

*

Throwing his head left and right as he breathed heavily, he shakily observed that he was in an unfamiliar room. ‘Don’t worry, you’re fine. It was all a dream.’ As he struggled to catch his breath, he belatedly noticed the warm feeling of being in someone’s arms and the gentle whispers of safety and security in his ears.

“Don’t worry, child, you’re safe now. Don’t worry, nobody can hurt you anymore. It’s okay, It’s okay. Shh, Shh.”

Turning his head towards the unfamiliar voice, he was shocked into silence at the sight of its owner.

He was in his grandmother’s arms.