KRISTIE MCCARTY POV:
I was in my modest chamber, placing a few simple garments and my mother's yellowed herbal notes into a worn leather traveling trunk. My handmaid, Phoebe, watched me from the side, her eyes red-rimmed and filled with helpless worry.
Bang!
The heavy oak door was kicked open, slamming violently against the stone wall.
Kandace swept into the room, draped in vibrant silk, flanked by two arrogant, sneering maids.
She scanned my sparse, threadbare room with undisguised contempt, her golden fan fluttering softly. "Tsk, tsk. My dear sister, are you truly dragging this pathetic rubbish with you to that living corpse’s tomb?"
I didn't answer. I didn't even lift my head, continuing to fold a simple wool dress with methodical, rhythmic grace. To me, she was nothing more than empty air.
My utter indifference clearly infuriated her. With a harsh step forward, she snatched the bound leather notes right out of my hands.
It was my mother's journal.
"What is this nonsense?" Kandace mocked, flipping through the delicate, aging parchment with careless, rough fingers. "Ah, the useless junk left behind by your low-born herbalist mother?"
My hands froze.
The ambient temperature in the room seemed to drop into sub-zero darkness.
"She and her worthless weeds both ended up rotting in the dirt," Kandace sneered, her voice dropping into a sharp, cruel purr, her fingers intentionally catching on a frail page, threatening to tear it. "Leaving absolutely nothing behind... except you. An equally useless, disgraced daughter."
My mother, Elara Ainsworth, was the one line in this world no one was permitted to cross.
Before Kandace’s maid could even blink, I moved.
It was a speed no delicate noblewoman should have possessed—sharp, lethal, and born of absolute anatomical precision.
My left hand shot out, snatching my mother's journal back before a single thread could tear.
At the exact same instant, my right hand slammed forward like an iron clamp, locking firmly around Kandace's throat.
Thud!
I drove her backward, slamming her violently against the stone wall. The air exploded from her lungs in a choked scream.
Her two maids shrieked in horror, but a single, arctic glance from my eyes froze them dead in their tracks, their feet glued to the floor in sheer terror.
"You... you dare..." Kandace gasped, clutching desperately at my arm, her face rapidly flushing a dangerous purple.
I didn't just strangle her. My thumb pressed with agonizing accuracy directly into the cervical nerve ganglia beneath her jaw—a precise pressure point that sent a paralyzing, fiery agony shooting through her entire nervous system. She couldn't draw breath, nor could her body summon a single ounce of strength to fight back.
I leaned in close, my face inches from hers. My voice was a soft, icy whisper, carrying the chilling calm of a demon from the abyss.
"I warned you in the garden, Kandace," I murmured, my grip tightening just enough to keep her on the precipice of suffocation. "Now... apologize to my mother."
Tears of instinctual panic welled in her wide, terrified eyes. "Why... why should I..." she wheezed out.
"Very well."
A faint, cold smile touched my lips. I released her neck.
Kandace crumpled to the floor like a sack of wet rags, coughing violently, gasping for precious oxygen.
I gave her no time to breathe.
I picked up a sharp, silver letter opener from my dressing table. Kneeling down, I pressed the icy, pointed tip directly against her flushed, delicate cheek.
At the same time, as my other hand lightly stroked her trembling jawline, my fingertips worked a microscopic trace of dormant botanical irritant—concealed beneath my fingernails—directly into her wide-open pores.
"You know, sister," I whispered, lightly tapping the blade against her porcelain skin, "as an herbalist's daughter, I know a great deal about the human body. I know a hundred distinct ways to make a person's flesh fester, rot, and give off a stench so vile that no imperial doctor could ever diagnose it."
Her eyes dilated in absolute, primitive horror. Her body began to shake uncontrollably under the cold metal of the blade.
"Or..." My voice dropped lower, the tip of the blade slowly gliding down from her cheek to rest lightly against her trembling lips. "...I could simply slice the tendon beneath your tongue, so you never speak another insult again."
"No! Stop! Don't!" Kandace finally broke completely. Tears and mascara smeared down her face in a pathetic mess. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I apologize to Lady Elara! I was wrong! Please!"
Her voice was high-pitched, distorted with utter terror, sounding both wretched and utterly laughable.
I looked down at her pathetic, trembling form. The cold disgust in my chest settled into a quiet, absolute disdain.
"Get out," I commanded softly, withdrawing the silver blade.
Kandace didn't hesitate for a single second. She scrambled backward on her hands and knees as if granted a divine pardon from the executioner's block. Her two maids caught her shivering frame, and together they fled my courtyard as though the devil himself was snapping at their heels.
Silence reclaimed the room.
Only Phoebe remained, standing frozen in the corner, her face pale with shock as she stared at me with an overwhelming mixture of awe, fear, and newfound reverence.
I walked over to the window, watching Kandace’s disheveled figure fleeing down the gravel path. A cold, razor-thin smile formed on my lips.
I gently smoothed down the cover of my mother's journal, its yellowed pages safe in my hands.
Mother, do you see? I swore silently into the quiet evening breeze. I will never let them trample on us again.
This little farce was merely the opening note in the symphony of my retribution.
