The Baroness Misbehaves

"I got better the minute we agreed to do his bidding. Elijah felt thankful, he was critically close to the point of breaking down when he thought I was going to die, only to be saved at the last minute, but I felt anything but thankful since I knew we’d be getting ourselves into deeper trouble. It felt like we had made a deal with the devil"

He rose from his seat when it became uncomfortable to keep sitting on it, and he walked up to his window, staring out with his gaze distant.

"We were trained harshly. Day and night, we were forced to participate in life-threatening scenarios, he made us get accustomed to the sight of death, and we dared not bat an eye or look away if we wanted to have good food. People dying, human lives being tortured till they no longer breathed, he made us watch the collision of two carriages on a dreadful night, he brainwashed Elijah and I into believing those people where the enemies, but after Elijah escorted him to some place and ordered me to stay put till they returned, I watched the carriage for a while, and when I couldn’t stand the sight of innocent souls dying, I decided to help."

The image of the broken carriage flashed in his mind when he stepped out of the shadows where he hid himself.

"A man and a woman lay dead in the destroyed carriage, there was no sign of life, and their pulse dropped. I wanted to walk away since there was nothing I could do to help, but in the middle of it, that’s when I saw this little girl who had been sheltered by both the dead bodies. I knew immediately that she was someone special ascribe to how they sacrificed their bodies to save her, and she was the only one alive. I chose to save her instead by bringing her out of the carriage before anymore woods could fall and crush her. I hid her somewhere safe, somewhere I knew people would easily find her, and that’s when I ran into him on a carriage."

"Who?"

"Your uncle William." Elian simply said, turning around to look at Inna who had risen from the bed out of impulse on hearing her late uncle’s name being mentioned.

"Uncle William?? You saw him??"

"He saw me actually," Elian corrected, "I was afraid he’d misunderstand my actions cause I carried an unconscious girl in the middle of the night, but, although it was strange, he offered me help instead. Thanks to his Coachman, we were able to alert the people nearby about the accident that took place, and he offered to take me with him, like he already knew what I was. I couldn’t go with him because I couldn’t leave Elijah behind, I wanted to escape, but I wanted to escape with Elijah by my side, he was my only family at that time. Your uncle William didn’t force me, but in return for my kindness, he gave me this tattooed scar on my arm."

Raising his right sleeve up to his elbow, he showed Inna the tattooed scar her Uncle William’s had carved onto his skin using a knife. When Inna inspected it closely, her eyes widened in disbelief, and her brows shot up.

"This...This looks exactly like the scar he gave Cassian!"