“I’ve carried these scars since the moment I was born,” Odelliana finally said. “Do you understand now? Can you even begin to grasp the weight I’ve borne all this time?”
A cold gleam flickered in her lifeless eyes, the same bitterness still lingering.
Odelliana smirked, her gaze sharp and calculating. As Adela’s trembling hands shot toward her collar, she met her with an icy smile.
“And to think,” Odelliana murmured with a hint of cruelty, “I only tore your mouth. You deserved to have all your limbs ripped apart, too.”
“You should have! You should’ve torn me to pieces instead! Ha! Ha! Ha! Or killed me outright!” Adela’s voice rose in frantic hysteria. “How could you leave someone’s face in such a monstrous state? You vile witch! You dog! You wretched demon!”
Odelliana’s gaze remained cold as she raised an eyebrow. “Done with your little self-introduction?”
She had no intention of indulging this absurd tirade any longer. With a swift motion, she leveled the tip of her dagger against Adela’s hand, which still gripped her collar.
“Let go, unless you’re eager to lose both hands.” Her voice was a chilling whisper. “My patience is at its limit, and I won’t tolerate any more insolence.”
The blade’s cold, gleaming tip pressed lightly against Adela’s trembling hand. The contact made Adela convulse violently. Her eyes rolled back, and foam began to form at her lips.
Odelliana, unfazed, reached for the small bell beside her bedside and rang it. It was connected to the annex where the servants stayed—surely, someone would come.
But Adela merely sneered, her expression twisted in deranged amusement.
“No one’s coming, my lady,” she taunted, her voice dripping with malice. “Everyone’s in a deep, deep sleep!”
“…What?” Odelliana’s brow furrowed in confusion.
Adela’s laughter echoed through the room, cracking like splintering wood. The sound was unnervingly grotesque.
“Hahaha!” Adela staggered, her laugh morphing into something more sinister. “You! You, you, you! You deserve to suffer even more!”
With a sudden, crazed burst of strength, Adela lunged at Odelliana, knocking her off balance. Though Adela wasn’t large, the weight pressing down on Odelliana was enough to steal the air from her lungs. Her frail, weakened body—poison coursing through her veins—left her utterly defenseless.
Odelliana struggled, her hands trembling as she tried to push Adela off, but the half-mad woman proved shockingly strong. Cackling like a lunatic, Adela bent down, her teeth sinking into Odelliana’s neck with brutal force.
“Argh!” Odelliana cried out in pain as flesh tore, blood spilling freely from the wound.
Adela, her face smeared with blood, grinned wickedly, her eyes alight with madness.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she hissed, her voice venomous. “Feels awful, doesn’t it?”
Odelliana’s vision blurred as she fought to stay conscious, but Adela’s deranged laugh echoed in her ears, a sound more nightmarish than any pain. She had become the embodiment of madness itself.
Adella’s attacks were frantic, focused on Odelliana’s face, as if she were determined to ruin her as thoroughly as her own face had been destroyed.
Odelliana raised her arms, desperately shielding her face from the onslaught. A chilling thought flickered through her mind: at this rate, she might actually be torn apart alive. Fortunately, Adella’s lack of combat training made her attacks clumsy and uncoordinated.
But Odelliana knew exactly where to strike to end a life. She bided her time, each moment waiting for the right opportunity to land a decisive blow.
When she finally saw her chance, Odelliana gathered all her strength and drove her dagger toward Adella’s neck. But in the blink of an eye, Adella wrenched the weapon from her grasp, her unexpected surge of strength taking Odelliana by surprise.
The shock that coursed through Odelliana wasn’t just from Adella’s strength, but from her own weakness. How could she, poisoned and frail, fail to overpower a mere maid?
Both of them had been exposed to the same poison, yet Adella seemed utterly unfazed.
“You need to suffer,” Adella hissed, her voice dripping with venom. “You need to be far more miserable than I ever was. Do you understand?”
Odelliana’s fingers closed around the dagger, desperately trying to wrest it from Adella’s unyielding grip.
Thud.
The sudden, sharp pain made Odelliana’s vision blur. Adella’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she shoved the blade deep into Odelliana’s thigh.
“If I make your other leg useless,” Adella sneered, “you’ll be even more wretched, won’t you? Hm?”
As she pulled the blade free, blood spurted from the wound, drenching both women in the crimson tide. But Adella wasn’t finished. She raised the dagger again, her eyes wild with madness, this time aiming for Odelliana’s calf.
Just then, the door burst open with a deafening crash.
A figure rushed in, and in a single, powerful motion, sent Adella flying into the wall with a heavy blow, leaving her crumpled on the floor.
“…My lady!”
Odelliana’s breath caught as she recognized the voice.
It was Malena.
