If I wanted to survive in this world, I had to match their madness, no, outmatch it.
My first act?
I authored a scandal.
I had to cut it from the roots before it sprouted, to ensure that the wolfsbane never bloomed.
That evening, as twilight spilled violet ink across the sky and painted the stone spires of House Wolfhard in melancholy hues, I summoned a maid to my chambers.
Not one with pride in her posture or lineage in her name, no. I needed the quiet kind. The forgettable kind. The kind who knew how to keep a secret, to bite her tongue.
"Deliver this to Lady Nike's quarters," I said, slipping the letter into a black envelope, sealing it with a wax imprint of the ancient Wolfhard sigil. The red wax bearing a dragon coiled around a sword, its tail curling the blade's edge, claws gripping the guard, wings spread wide as if ready to ascend.
"At midnight. When the halls are asleep. No one sees you. No one hears you. Tell no one."
I dropped ten gold coins into her palm, and they clinked softly as they landed, enough to provide a comfortable life for a commoner family of five for at least a year. With that kind of money, a commoner could pay off debts, buy a home, start a small business, even escape serfdom entirely. It was more than a bribe, it was enough to bury a guilt that might otherwise claw at her conscience.
On Earth, it would've been worth over five thousand dollars. I used to dream of money like that. Now, I wielded it at will.
She bowed, wordless, and disappeared into the dusk.
It didn't need to be love.
It only needed to look like it, like betrayal, just them exchanging letters would be enough.
Even a letter, just ink on paper, could ruin kingdoms.
Days passed. Nothing happened.
I began to think the plan had failed. I nearly abandoned the scheme.
Then, on the seventh night.
As I was preparing for sleep.
A knock came upon my door.
The maid had returned, cloaked in silence. In her hand, a letter. Her face betrayed nothing, but her eyes flickered like a candle in wind.
The letter was Nike's. I broke the seal and read the words that would set fire to hearts:
[To the one I should not write to—
I don't know what compels me tonight.
I tore this up three times before writing it again and again.
Perhaps it's the wine. Perhaps it's the full moon haloed by too many stars, all watching us.
Or maybe it's the silence—the kind I've grown used to as a wife, as a woman of duty, as something less than alive.
Tonight, I choose to be myself. And myself… wants to know you more.
Is it foolish to write this? To let ink bleed where blood should not?
But someone loved me—in silence, in ink. And in that letter… I saw myself for the first time.
I was never brave enough to say your name.
But tonight, I will.
Dante van Wolfhard.
You made my name sound like poetry.
Let me return the favor.
I have loved you—quietly, impossibly, wrongfully—since I first read your words.
And still… beautifully.
What we are, what we can never be, lives between the lines.
But if this is sin,
Let the stars be our witnesses.
Let this be my first letter.
Let it be my last.
Let it be everything I never dared say—
And finally did.
—Nike van Wolfhard ]
I smiled.
It was a slow, dangerous smile, the kind that meant someone, somewhere, had just signed their own ruin.
It was such...a beautiful lie, born of a planted seed.
I resealed it once more and handed it back to the maid with another ten gold coins.
"To Dante," I said.
The storm began slowly, as it always does.
What started as a shared glance across the dining hall. A subtle smirk from Dante. A flicker of hesitation in Nike's eyes. At first, no one noticed. But I did.
Soon turned into, Dante slipping from his quarters like a shadow shedding its source. He moved like a thief through familiar corridors, always to the same door: the eastern wing, third floor. Past the tapestry of the founder. Nike's room.
They were like children who had fallen in love for the first time, reckless, breathless, and utterly unable to control themselves.
She would be waiting, bathed in moonlight and indecision, her robe always half-loosened, like a confession caught mid-thought. Their nights together were fleeting bursts of stolen pleasure, whispered secrets, and the kind of danger that only made it more thrilling.
And so it went on, night after night to the point I had studied their routine, memorized their rhythm.
Mapped their lust like a strategist at war.
Sometimes it was Dante's bed that remained untouched.
Sometimes Nike's.
And then, on a night when the stars blinked like guilty eyes, I made my move.
Dante crept toward her chamber as he always did.
And I entered his.
Every drawer torn open. Every false panel probed.
And then, beneath his bed, behind a hidden slat, I found it, swaddled in cloth:
The Grimoire.
The moment my fingers brushed its cover, the air shifted, I felt goosebumps on my skin as if my body was giving me a warning and the room seemed cold, not the temperature cold but cold as an emotion, it throbbed in my fingertips, as though it had a life of its own.
Even without a mana core, I felt its hunger. Its power in my grip.
I stole away to my room.
By dawn, Dante tore through his quarters like a man hunted by ghosts. He upturned tables. Ripped open drawers. Servants exchanged glances. Knights whispered.
One of them dared to ask, "What are you searching for, my lord?"
Dante looked up, smiled too widely, and lied.
"Nothing," he lied.
Days passed.
Grey remained unaware.
He spent more time behind closed doors, summits with nobles, treaties over land, grain routes, diplomacy.
Let him.
While he built his gates,
I was gutting the palace from the inside.
And then, the night that ended everything.
Grey couldn't sleep. His paperwork done, he wandered the palace, not like a noble walking for his health, but like a child retracing footsteps of a life that no longer fit.
As he neared the eastern wing, he paused.
Voices. A whisper. A soft laugh.
The soft creak of a door.
Nike peeked out, her sapphire robe undone just enough to hint at intimacy. She glanced both ways, nervous, foolish. Then Dante stepped into view and kissed her. Not the kind of kiss that begins something.
The kind that's already happened.
Grey turned the corner. From the shadowed colonnade, he watched.
Watched the door close.
Watched Dante emerge. Relaxed. Fulfilled.
Watched and said nothing.
I had been spending a lot of time in the garden lately, casually tossing stones into the koi pond, always around midnight, the same hour Dante slipped into Nike's chambers. You could call it a strategy. The sound of stone meeting water was subtle, but distinct, just enough to wake a light sleeper. Just enough to make someone curious.
Grey appeared beside me. "Can't sleep either?"
"I had nightmares," I said with a yawn, "Figured I'd walk."
He smiled softly, yet there was no emotion behind it. "I forget you're still a kid sometimes."
I tossed another stone.
The koi didn't ripple that night.
But Grey's heart did.
At breakfast, the air was thick with silence. Knives on porcelain. Cold bread. Colder glances.
Grey sat at the head of the table, eyes unreadable.
"Strange," he said, slicing into his breakfast, never lifting his eyes. "How things done in the dark always seem to find the light."
Nike dropped her spoon.
Dante froze.
With a touch of etiquette, I lifted the teacup from its saucer and took a sip, doing my best to hide the smile tugging at my lips.