“Welcome to the world of Solaris, where the elves in the east of the Landria continent are constantly fighting with the humans in the west. Welcome, Lucinda. Freaking welcome.” I did not mind the differences between the humans and the elves at all, but I did mind that I would be pulled into this war, no matter what. The very few remaining vampires, if there were even any left, were hunted by the humans and elves alike, so there was not any place I could be safe except at the mansion. And if I stayed there … I was obviously asked to participate in the battle. I did not fear the fight per se, but I did hate the possibility of death, even when I would be resurrected afterwards.

“What should I do, Aska?” I knew that I would not get any answer from him as I already tried talking to him a few times with no success. I sighed and put my book away while watching the waning sunlight beneath the thick curtain. I was at a fork road in my life and did not exactly know where my actions would get me to. I knew that complying with the lord would give me a laid back life with security, but it would also mean that I was not free at all. Hesitantly, I opened the curtain as the sun finally setted and looked into the lavishly decorated garden. True to Arthur´s words, a gallow was build in the centre of it, ready to be used. There were already quite a few servants who awaited the spectacle but apparently clueless about what was going on as some seemed to question the guards who stood nearby.

A few minutes later, Arthur approached the gallow with a sober Markus and a chained maid in tow. The uproar was immense as the other servants spotted the maid. She was either quite popular or they were all sure of her innocence. Suddenly, I knew exactly what I had to do. I decided to play with them, to use all the figures on the chessboard until only I and my allies, whoever they would be, were left.

I put on the boots that were brought to me during the day and stormed out of the room. The mansion was obviously empty, so it did take me some time to find the exit into the garden. Still, I found it soon enough and sneaked out of the mansion into the garden.

It was … how should I put it? Overwhelming. I have never seen so many different colours in my life and the scent of each and every one of them was truly incomparable to the flowers I had in purgatory. And yet, I was also kind of disappointed. None of these flowers stung as I touched them, I wasn’t poisoned in any way and they certainly didn’t taste good. In the distance, the gallow stood tall in the middle and the crowd already encircled it. As I sneaked near them and listened to the strange sounds of nature for the first time with one ear, I finally began to hear what they were saying.

“… maid was caught in my workroom. There was no reason for her to be in that room during the night and as such, I have to suspect the worst.” The crowd was in an uproar as if they could not believe what was happening. This maid who worked for their master for so long betrayed them? Some of them probably suspected that something was up, but they were all dangerously loyal to their lord. “And as such, I hereby sentence her to death.”

The maid was soon dragged to the gallow where the sling was put around her neck. The crowd played their part in this play perfectly through pleading for her life. Even Arthur had a rather acceptable performance because he looked rather grim. But the girl on the gallow … did not look like someone who was about to die. The play was progressing perfectly and just waited for the arrival of the lead role.

Satisfied about the set-up, I dashed around the bush I was hiding behind and rammed my elbow into the back of an unsuspecting guard. The attention obviously turned to me while I unsheathed his sword that was still in its scabbard. Astonished gazed followed me as I leisurely walked towards the gallow, ignoring the guard who protested behind me. Markus obviously positioned himself in front of his lord while I smiled in return. The maid was a mere metre away from me as I finally stopped.

“Why is she sentenced to death?” Questioningly, I tilted my head and stared at Arthur who was half-hidden by Markus´ body.

“For spying on a duke. There is definite proof that she did it.” He said it with such vigour that I didn’t doubt one second that he could present such proof.

“Indeed. Spying on someone is a grave crime, but there is always another way to punish her.” I smiled and turned to the crowd. They couldn’t believe that a vampire was defending a maid and as such, only astonished gazed met me.

“It is not that I am a cruel lord though … Lucinda, do you want to save her?” said he while pushing Markus out of his way.

“Hmm.” He interpreted the sounds I made as approval while in reality, they absolutely weren’t.

“In that case … as long as you are doing more good than she does harm, I will promise you her safety.” I raised my eyebrow ever so slightly. The crowd hoped for the best and pleaded for me to accept his proposal.

I smiled as I lifted up the sword and swung it high above my head, striking at the rope that was connected to the gallow. I sliced it cleanly apart and looked at the maid who breathed out heavily as she stepped down from the stool. The crowd cheered at my actions and for her benevolent lord.

It was a great ploy. By showing me how easy it was for him to bring the maid to the gallow, he indirectly threatened me with the same. We were both inside his working room at the same time and as such, every evidence that pointed to her could point to me as well. I mean, I had his sofa in my room which should be proof enough.

Additionally, just by having her around me a bit, he suspected that I grew fond of her for some reason. That I didn’t kill Markus when I had the chance and my atypical behaviour for a vampire may be the reason for that.

By giving me a simple solution at hand, he could show himself as a benevolent lord while being able to threaten me whenever he wanted. I mean, the maid could basically destroy the whole mansion in the future and he could push the blame on me and make me do things I didn’t want to do to save her life.

And yet, there were two problems with this approach. His wife was the first one. By telling me that this was just a set-up, it kind of ruined the slim advantage he had. Even if she didn’t, I would have suspected something as soon as I looked at the maid from a closer distance. There was no panic in her eyes, nor fear, but rather a satisfaction for tricking a vampire like me even before I saved her.

The second and more relevant problem was bluntly speaking that I just didn’t care. As I already said, spying on someone is a grave crime in my opinion and she was certainly guilty of that. Her life had no real value for me in the first place and as such, his ploy which was based on the assumption that I wanted to save her life just didn’t work.

While she turned around to her lord, I simply lifted up my sword again and swung at the rest of the rope. The blade cleanly sliced the rope apart just like previously, but it didn’t stop there. Instead, it raced straight through her neck, beheading her nearly instantly. The head fell near Arthur’s feet while the rest of the body simply slumped together. While a sweet scent filled my nostrils while the crowd fell deadly silent and a lot of blood spewed out of the maids neck.

“As I said, I can understand that you sentenced her to death because she spied upon you. I would have done the same in your shoes and as such, you don’t have to take me into consideration, just because she and I became friends within a day. It just pains me that she did such a thing …” Tears streamed down my face as I stabbed the bloody sword into the ground and knelt down with my forehead touching the knob. “I am so sorry … but what she did was unacceptable …” I was sure I didn’t convince many people with my play, but I didn’t need to. All I wanted for them was to know my face and to know that dealing with me would cause problems for them.

Still sobbing, I stood up after a minute and looked at Arthur for a second. He was incredibly furious, although he tried to hide it to the best of his abilities. Instead, he tried to look disinterested and a bit sad, but I could still see his burning eyes. The crowd on the other hand didn’t know exactly what to do. They went from joy to just sadness. I cried as long as I could for the sake of convincing them that I only was the henchman and Arthur did sentence her to death, which seemed to have worked at least a bit.

The play ended, the curtain dropped and I went back to the mansion while wiping the tears out of my eyes. In the corner of my vision, I noticed a woman with white hair on the second floor, looking at the spectacle. I couldn’t discern her emotions due to the distance, but I did know that she was burning to speak with me. And yet, I shot her down. I didn’t go upstairs, but rather directly into my room and started reading again. The message should have been clear.

I was neither on Arthur´s nor on her side. I was neither a pigeon nor a canary. I was free.