Chapter 2

"I really don't know what I'm supposed to say to you anymore," she cried, her voice going shrill. "How can you say something like that? How could you do that?"

I rubbed both cheeks. They stung like fire.

I didn't know where she got that kind of strength.

She had plenty of it when she was hitting me. Why couldn't she use it on my father instead?

I looked straight at her. "After everything, the man you love most is still the one who beats you and curses at you, isn't he? Even more than the daughter who shares your blood?"

She froze for a moment, then grew flustered, her eyes darting everywhere but at me. "I-I'm your father's lawful wife. We used to love each other more than anything. He still loves me. It's just—

"It's all those mistresses. Those sluts! They're the ones who drove a wedge between us."

Mistresses. Sluts.

What a convenient excuse.

It wasn't that Father couldn't keep his filthy desire under control. It was all the other women's fault.

They seduced him and tempted him. He was blameless, spotless, the innocent victim in all of it.

How empty must my mother's life have been for her to worship a man like that?

Suddenly, I couldn't be bothered anymore.

I was tired of arguing and fighting.

If she wanted to believe it, fine, and if she wanted to keep lying to herself, that was her choice.

Her world was so small that one useless man was enough to fill the whole thing. There simply wasn't room for anything else.

I smiled through my tears. "Mother, I'm sorry. I'll go apologize to Father right now."

Only then did her expression soften. Her lips parted, as though she had something to say, but whatever it was never came out.

I turned and went downstairs to my father's study.

I bowed deeply. "Father, I was wrong. I shouldn't have attacked you. Please forgive me."

Father glanced at me, said nothing, and waved his hand.

I turned, walked out, and quietly shut the door behind me.

*****

After that, I became soft, quiet, and perfectly well-mannered. I became the perfect Miss Sterling.

My parents were pleased. Even the servants who were always quick to follow whoever held the most power could find nothing to criticize.

On the surface, I studied etiquette, piano, and proper conduct. That was what they saw.

However, in secret, I was picking up all sorts of things they'd never imagine.

Every afternoon at three, I sat in the music room and played Chopin's nocturnes. Every note was as precise as the tolling of a church bell, so precise that I found myself bored.

But I played anyway. The heiress of the Sterling family had to know how to play the piano.

Caelith lessons were no different. I could spend an entire hour discussing poetry with a countess in Caelith.

Afterward, she'd take my mother's hand and say, "Your daughter is a sweet angel."

My watercolors lined the hallway, all proper landscapes and flowers, every stroke neatly within its boundaries.

I rode horses, too, always sidesaddle, my back perfectly straight and my skirt never once out of place.

My mother looked at me with pride in her eyes.

Sword training was for my brothers. Father had always said, "Why would a lady need to learn swordsmanship? It's not like she's going off to war."

I never argued with him.

Every Wednesday afternoon, while the mentor taught my brothers how to block and thrust in the courtyard, I sat by the window of the upstairs study with a book.

From there, I could see every move they made.

At night, after everyone was asleep, I would sneak out to the abandoned stable and practice with a broom handle.

At first, my wrists were sore and swollen for three days, but after a while, I got used to the pain.

After four years, Leon still couldn't figure out why I could dodge every ridiculous move he drunkenly showed off in front of his buddies.

Toxicology was easier.

My mother loved gardening, and there were flowers everywhere on the estate.

She had no clue that oleander sap could interfere with a vampire's heart, or that the castor beans could leave an adult thrall too weak to move within thirty seconds.

All she knew was that her daughter was helpful.

Yeah, I was always happy to help tend the garden, carefully recording the properties of each plant in my notebook.

During all this, I also started digging into everything there was to know about Vampire Hunters.

The Sterling family used to be Vampire Hunters back in the day, but once they got rich from business, they had put down their weapons.

I searched through the dusty old trunks of books in the attic and found several handwritten hunting journals. The handwriting was rough, the pages brittle with age, and every book was filled with strange symbols, diagrams, and illustrations.

I read them one by one. There were parts I couldn't understand, but that didn't matter. I would find a way to figure them out.

That reminded me of Irene.

She was the maid who had secretly gone to tell my grandmother what happened when I was seven. She was killed by a vampire while traveling home to visit her parents.

The day I heard about it, I went to Father's study, hoping he'd bring her justice.

He sat behind his desk without looking up. "She's only a maid. It's not worth making an enemy of Simon Earnhardt over her."

The vampire who killed Irene belonged to the Earnhardt family. They were nobles and business partners of my father's, people who brought him money and influence.

One maid was nothing to him. He could always hire another one.

Besides, the vampires and the nobility had signed a peace treaty by then. Everything looked peaceful on the surface, while people were still disappearing from the slums every few months.

However, to those noblemen, losing a few people from the slums was no different from pulling a few weeds from a garden.

I stood in the doorway for a long time, then finally said, "Yes, Father."

Then I turned and walked away.

That night, I practiced in the stable until well past midnight. I broke two broom handles.

After that, I studied harder than ever.

I had to practice the piano, learn Caelith, paint, and ride. I studied swordsmanship, toxicology, the old vampire-hunting journals, and herbal medicine. I learned all of it.