(From Sera's Perspective)
As I hammered the last nail into the barn roof, I watched our Master milking the cows down below. Sweat dripped from his forehead. His shirt sleeves were rolled up. His fingers were confident, gripping the teats not like a mage holding a staff, but like a peasant holding the earth. There was only one thing I was certain of: He was not the same person.
His face was the same. His voice was the same. Even that thin line that formed between his brows when he got angry was the same. But his soul... His soul had changed. The old Clarean, the man who burned his own future to save my life, seemed to have given up on living. Every breath he took was a reluctant gasp, taken only to delay death. But this man... This "new" Clarean... He wanted to live. And he wanted to live so violently, so stubbornly, that this desire for life infected everything around him; me, Lysa, Mirel, even those damned cows.
Maybe it was ingratitude. Maybe it was betrayal. But a voice inside me screamed that this "new" man was better than my old, broken lover. And this thought forced me to confront my own past, that bloody and shameful history.
My mind drifted back nine years. I was just thirteen. I was on the execution platform in the square. My father's severed head had fallen into the basket. I was trembling amidst cries of "The traitor's daughter must die too!" That day, eighteen-year-old Clarean Elyuneth Faryel, the "Golden Child of the Capital," stopped the executioner's axe. He cut his palm, smeared his blood on my forehead, and took me under the "Protection of the Holy Blood." He had saved me. But he paid the price with his reputation.
After that day, the whispers began. "Traitor lover." "Disloyal to the Queen." But the real breaking point happened a few months after that event, at a noble gathering. Master never let me leave his side. He protected me. But for the other nobles, I was just a "stain." At a moment when I was left alone in the corridor, Baron Kaelen blocked my path. He was drunk, and his eyes held that disgusting glint. He cornered me. "Traitor's spawn..." he said, his breath smelling of wine. He reached for my dress, squeezed my chest. "Your father paid his penalty, but you haven't. You can't go anywhere without paying that debt!"
"Take your hand off!" I screamed, but I was thirteen, my strength wasn't enough. "Scream," he grinned. "No one cares about a traitor girl." Just then, a shadow fell over us. Clarean. He said nothing. He didn't say "Stop." He didn't say "Don't." He just placed the wine goblet in his hand on the floor. And he drew the ceremonial sword at his waist. The sword descended on the Baron's neck. A single stroke. Sharp, precise, and deadly. When the Baron's head separated from his body and hit the floor, a deathly silence fell over the banquet hall. Clarean turned to me, covered in blood. The light in his eyes was still there back then, but it was flickering. He wrapped me in his cloak. "No one..." he said, his voice echoing through the hall. "No one can touch what is under my protection."
A lawsuit was filed. The Temple and the Court found Clarean justified. He had prevented harassment, prevented a rape. A verdict of "Justified Defense" was given. He received no punishment. But society... Society did not forgive him. "He killed a Baron for a traitor's daughter," they said. "He bloodied his hands because of that girl. That girl is cursed." His fiancée Veyra's family fell silent. Friends stopped greeting him. Clarean had won the case but lost his life.
When we returned home, he didn't speak at all that night. He didn't kick me out. He didn't yell at me. He just sat in front of the fireplace and started drinking. That was the first night he drank that much. I looked at him. He had become a murderer because of me. He was left alone because of me. And the Baron's last words echoed in my ears: "You haven't paid your penalty. You haven't paid your debt."
At that moment, with my child's mind and that deep sense of guilt, I made a decision. Clarean wasn't kicking me out, but I felt indebted to him. If he was "soiled" because of me, I had to share his filth, his loneliness. I entered his room. I was thirteen then, but desperation had aged me. "Master..." I said, trembling. He looked at me. His eyes were glazed. "Go to sleep, Sera," he said wearily. "You've been through a lot today." I didn't go. I approached him. "The Baron was right," I said, crying. "I must pay a penalty. I must lighten your burden." I didn't fully remember what happened that night. He was drunk, I was desperate. He didn't push me away, but he didn't embrace me either. He just held on to my existence. And after that day, this became our dark ritual. Every time he drank, every time he was ostracized, I offered myself to him. I thought this was a "duty." I thought it was loyalty.
But now... I climbed down from the barn roof. Our "new" Master was feeding rabbits and playing with those orphan wolf pups. I had tested him this week. With the old methods. I climbed to his window at night. I got soaked in the rain. I wanted to say, "Let me in, use me, punish me." Just like wanting to pay that "debt" the Baron spoke of. What did he do? He let me in. But not into his bed. He gave me a towel. Told me to dry off. "You'll get sick, stupid woman," he said. His voice was harsh, but his eyes... That old exhaustion wasn't there. There was concern.
Even when he said "Punishment" to me, he wasn't doing it to humiliate me, but to direct me towards a mission, a purpose. "Selling this bag is your punishment," he would say. What kind of punishment was this? He trusted me. He gave me responsibility.
Mirel came to my side, a bucket of milk in her hand. "Sister Sera," she whispered. "Master... He is very strange. He doesn't touch me, but he smiles at me. He says 'Well done' to me. This... this is frightening." "I know," I said, gripping the hilt of my sword. "He's not like before," Mirel said. "Does he not love us anymore?" I looked at her. "No, Mirel," I said. "I think for the first time, he truly loves us. He loves us with mercy, not guilt."
My gaze drifted back to Clarean (I still called him Master, but inside I wanted to say Clarean). He was feeding the wolf pups whose mother he had killed. Just like he saved me, whose father was killed, in that square nine years ago. But this time, he wasn't drowning us in his own darkness, he was bringing us into the light.
I sheathed my sword. That masochistic part of me inside, waiting to be punished, still ached. Habits of years wouldn't be erased in a week. That Baron's voice still sometimes said "Pay your debt" in my dreams. But at that moment, on the roof, with the wind hitting my face, I made a decision. If he was trying to build a fortress from this wreckage... I would be the wall of that fortress. Even if not in his bed. I would be at his door. And Veyra... When that ice witch comes... My hand went to my sword. I wouldn't let her fade Master's "new" smile. If necessary, this time, I would kill someone to protect him. And this time, I wouldn't ask anyone for forgiveness.