After saying those words to Master, he leaves me in the custody of Uncle Dietrich for further interrogation. I've been locked in the cellar below the main hall since.

After learning of Alvena's disappearance, the Elders were furious about losing the possibility of producing more Purebloods. They want my family and I dead to atone for my sins. Luckily for my family, they disowned me long ago.

Uncle Dietrich wants the same because he's afraid I'd say anything about his assassination plans that triggered the escape in the first place.

Today, someone will come to deliver the verdict. I am a bit delighted that it's Adrian. If it was Morwenna or London, it'll be less light-hearted. Anyone else besides those three would be boring.

"They decided. You are to be burned on a stake for all to see," Adrian says gravely with his baby face.

I take a bite out of the red apple and sip blood from the glass he snuck in while he continues.

"It's to take place the start of next month."

I nod.

"How can you be so calm?" Adrian breaks. "You're going to die in less than a week!!!!"

I put down the food he so generously brought to me and stare into his genuinely concerned eyes.

"Has Master said anything?"

Adrian's face lights up at my question.

"Master is extremely upset these past few days. However, he's not like the Elders. He is willing to forgive all that you've done. All you need to do is tell him something, anything is fine really, about Alvena and where he could find her. "

His face pleads a response from me.

"Adrian, I already told Master all that I know. There isn't anything else that will help find her."

"Then make up something," he whispers to me while looking around to make sure no one is eavesdropping. "Anything will do."

"I will never lie to Master."

He already knew my answer from the start. I wonder why he even bothered to come.

.......

On the day of the execution, I remember it not taking place.

Instead, I am returned to Argid where I am summoned before Master.

"Maste-"

"A guard stationed at Rosehold came forward," he says haggardly. "He reported seeing a woman run to the Border. She was being chased..." Master paused some time before finishing, "...and lost her footing by the cliff."

I stay silent, unsure of what to say or rather, if I had a right to say anything.

"For the past week, I've spent my days and nights searching the Border."

No wonder Master looks so fatigued.

"But no matter how much I search, all I see besides the endless river are boundless heaps of snow. Snow and more snow," Master says more to himself as he looks out into the distance.

Right now, Master is beyond angry with me. But he also knows that I am the only one who can offer slight ease from the pain tormenting him.

I may be the last person he wants to be with, but I am also the only one who understands him.

No one else truly recognizes Master's agony. They mourn the lost of a still useable human. They mourn the lost of another Pureblood. They don't understand. They can't understand. They don't realize what Master has lost.

But I am able to understand because we both loved Alvena.

Like this, we stay within each other's presence, quietly mourning the mere human that changed our lives forever.

..........

After that day, Master disowned me.

He wishes not to see me nor hear from me. I am to stay away and not ever approach him on my own. Keep out of his life as if I've never existed.

Still, at the end, Master is kind.

That's why I worry about him.

I worry that he will not return to himself. I worry that no one will ever love him the way he remembers Alvena doing so. I worry that no one will try to understand him.

When I tell this to Morwenna, she cries. She scolds me for being so dense. "Have I not learned anything here?" she asks. I should worry about myself first.

Master granted Valerie the responsibility of removing me from the Dietrich household.

"Disabled."

I don't know when I learned to respond to the name so quickly, but I look in Valerie's direction as she wriggles her forefinger at me. I approach on her signal.

"Drink," she orders and Irina, with her head down and hands trembling, brings a tray with a glass of black liquid.

I obey.

The burning sensation of the scorching venom trickling down my throat lasted only briefly before my knees went weak and my vision blanked.

When I regained consciousness, my hands were bound behind my back while my ankles were shackled together. An uncomfortable muzzle was fitted over my face, making it difficult to breathe and close to impossible to even lick my cracked lips.

I was no longer in Argid. In fact, I'm somewhere very far away.

Judging by my faint heartbeat, I must have been out for days and in desperate need of blood. If I don't get some soon, I might just become a living corpse.

But none of that scares me more than one thing—Master no longer wants me.