(CONTENT WARNING - This is perhaps the darkest chapter of the book. I'm sorry, but it's a necessary evil I needed to address if it was to be realistic. If you're under 18, this book is rated mature anyway, but even if you've already come this far, skip this chapter.)
When Y/N awoke, he was lying on the floor, with golden rays of sunlight were filtering gently in Duke's room through the veiled window in the corner. His chest still ached, but now it felt more stiff than sore, and the bruise on his face slightly waxy on his skin. Groaning slightly, Y/N sat up, feeling as though someone had strapped a barrel around his chest, preventing him from bending his spine as he sat up and rubbed his eyes gingerly.
'At last, he awakes!' Y/N turned, and saw Duke smiling benignly at him over the top of his counter. A large array of different coloured bottles were arrayed out in front of him, along with the drab ends of a few bandages and dressings. 'You've already missed breakfast I'm afraid. And most of lunch.'
'Did... did you...?' Y/N stammered, looking down at his chest. His entire torso had been bandaged up thoroughly, each bandage perfectly straight across him with several coloured patches here and there over his broken ribs.
'Your shouting match with the Countess was quite something to hear.' Duke told him in a congratulatory tone. 'There aren't many men who have stood up to her like that. Far fewer who have lived.' Y/N paused, then tried to get to his feet, only for Duke to call over again.
'You may wish to be gentle on yourself, Y/N. My medicines are more effective than most, but putting too much strain on yourself will see you back here before the end of the day.'
'Thank you.' Y/N replied gratefully, smiling slightly as his lip cracked painfully. 'I'll... I'll find my lei to pay you.'
'Always a pleasure.' Duke replied benevolently, with a slight smile.
'How long have you been back?' Y/N asked, clambering carefully to his feet. Now that he couldn't move his ribs very well, it seemed like all physical actions had become twice as unwieldy. 'If I had realized, I would have come to see you.'
'You're too kind, my friend.' Duke chuckled. 'I have been back only a day or so. My only regret is that I was gone for so long, though by the sounds of it, you have been holding your own remarkably well.' Y/N grinned, wincing again as his lip ached sorely, before his mind drifted back to the events of the previous evening.
'Well, I don't think we're out of the woods yet...' He murmured. His time was running out. If Lady Dimitrescu worked out that he had broken his promise to her and grown closer to Bela, Cassandra and Daniela, any future he had, either here or otherwise, would end rather quickly. He needed to fix whatever was going on.
'I am sure that you will prevail in the end.' Duke told him considerately. 'But should you need supplies of any kind, you know where I am.'
---
Y/N found Cassandra in an upstairs hallway. She was wandering the castle, deep in thought it seemed, but looked up in surprise when Y/N called out to her, turning around to face him. Her eyes widened when she saw the bruising on his face.
'My, my... mother truly did a number on you.' She murmured as she looked over his face, before noting his grim expression. 'What's wrong?' Y/N sighed.
'I need to talk to you. And I need your honest answer.' He eyed her suspiciously, and Cassandra's shoulders slumped slightly. She'd been expecting as much.
'Look,' he began, 'you and I both know that your mother is suspicious of me. She doesn't trust me around the three of you, and if she finds out what we've been doing then you know she'll kill me on the spot. You saw how she reacted last night.' Cassandra frowned as he spoke, her head lowering more with each word he spoke, and before long it seemed like even she wasn't able to meet his eyes.
'The point is that she's started suspecting me properly now, and since Bela and Daniela still can't even bear to be in the same room with me, it's only a matter of time before she works out that something's wrong. I need you to tell me what it is, so I can fix it. Otherwise... I probably won't survive the next twenty-four hours.'
'Y/N, I can't tell you.' Cassandra replied, her tone resolute. 'I promised the others...'
'Who?' Y/N asked pleadingly. 'Cassandra, please!' Cassandra made to turn away from him, but Y/N's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She turned back to him in surprise, but Y/N didn't let go.
'Please Cassandra.' He begged, holding her gaze unwaveringly as she looked at him, an expression of torment coming across her features. 'I need to know. I can't fix it if I don't.' Cassandra tried tugging her arm out of his grip, but Y/N held on. 'I don't care what it is! But I have to know if we're to move past it!'
Beneath his fingers, Cassandra's skin broke apart, and his fingers closed over empty air as her flies slipped through his fingers, reforming into her hand as she moved back from him, her expression filled with regret.
'I... I can't. I'm... I'm so sorry...'
And with that, she turned and melted away into the air.
---
That night, as Y/N lay in bed, sleeping a restless cycle of nightmares and answerless dreams, a pair of cold hands shook him awake. Gasping suddenly as their hand closed around his wrist, Y/N lashed out blindly at the darkness, before a strong, icy hand clamped over his mouth, muffling his cry of shock, and a quiet voice hissed:
'SHHH!'
Falling still, Y/N peered through the darkness into the gloom. A tiny sliver of moonlight was filtering through the window, and against it, outlined in the darkness, he saw a slender, hooded figure knelt beside his bed. Tapping their hand to reassure them that he wouldn't cry out, Y/N waited for them to remove it from over his mouth and wrist, then rolled awkwardly onto his side, rummaged on his bedside table for a moment, then struck a match, lighting the lamp beside his bed.
As the soft yellow light swelled into being, Cassandra's frowning face was bathed in its light. Her hood was up, and though Y/N had never known her to be nervous, in the half-light flickering flame, he saw that her expression was one of distinct unease.
'Cassandra?' He sighed, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision of sleep. 'What are you doing here?' For a moment, Cassandra didn't reply, but glanced furtively back over her shoulder towards the doorway, before she turned back to Y/N and watched him for a moment. She sighed deeply.
'I need to show you something.' She told him quietly. 'Get dressed.'
Approximately two minutes later, Y/N joined Cassandra outside the door, nearly walking past her on account of how well she blended into the shadows.
'So, what do you need to show me?' Y/N asked, but Cassandra put a single, gloved finger to her lips and beckoned him onwards, away from her sisters' rooms.
She led him out of the south wing, around the gallery, but as they were descending the stairs, Y/N once again stopped her, asking again where she was taking him as his puzzlement grew. Cassandra sighed.
'When we first started... this,' she gestured between the two of them, 'we made it so that we would never lie to each other. So I'm answering your question from this afternoon.'
At these words, Y/N felt his puzzlement only increase, what could she possibly want him to see that would explain why Bela and Daniela were acting so strange?
Bela led him through the corridors, past the silent kitchens, and down into the storerooms, but as they passed the cellars and then the basement, Y/N once again felt his curiosity piquing. Suddenly, Cassandra stopped, staring down the dark corridor ahead of them, listening intently. After a moment, Y/N heard it too. The sharp, staccato tapping of high-heels against stone paving stones.
'It's mother!' Cassandra hissed in alarm. 'Hide!'
'Hide where?' Y/N hissed back, and before he could utter another word, Cassandra had grabbed his hand and pulled him into a shadowy alcove at the side of the corridor, shielding his body with hers as she wrapped her dark cape around them both. Her slender figure was held tightly up against Y/N, and as he waited, Y/N felt himself blushing as Cassandra's chest pressed against him. Her breath was very soft on his face, and her golden eyes glowed softly in the dark as her gaze held his.
'Stay quiet.' She whispered, her soft breath tickling his lips, and a moment later, a soft glow appeared over her shoulder as Lady Dimitrescu's footsteps grew louder. Y/N took a deep breath, then held it, pressing himself back as far as he could into the alcove.
The Countess's steps grew nearer... and nearer... and then with a suddenly flash of light, a lantern swung past them... and continued down the corridor, plunging the two of them once again into darkness. They waited until the countess's footsteps were a safe distance away, before they both let out a sigh of relief. Cassandra's face turned towards his, and there was an awkward pause where she continued to shield him before she pushed herself back and helped him up.
'Come on, it isn't far.' She told him, and again, Y/N heard the slightly reluctant tone in her voice. They carried on, and before long Y/N found himself entering a part of the basement he had not previously explored.
'I thought I had been everywhere down here.' He murmured as the two of them wound their way down a set of stone steps, Cassandra holding a lit torch they had found in a sconce above her head.
'Mother and the three of us are the only people who know about this.' She told him, and didn't elaborate further.
Eventually, after what seemed like miles of walking, they reached a small iron gate built into a stone archway that seemed to be illuminated with orange torchlight from the other side, and Cassandra brought them up short, placing her torch into a bracket on the wall before turning to Y/N. Her behaviour was beginning to trouble Y/N, as she seemed increasingly on edge, glancing up and down the tunnel behind them before swallowing uneasily and turning to him.
'Look... um... Y/N...' she began awkwardly. 'Bela and Dani would rather I didn't show you this... but, I think I know you well enough by now to know that you like to make informed decisions.' Y/N frowned at her, still confused, and she went on haltingly. 'Look... you can either move past this... or you can't... but you need to know...'
'Cassandra, what on earth are you talking about?' Y/N asked, rather worried now by Cassandra's uneasiness. Cassandra sighed, then reached out and opened the iron gate, which swung forwards with a creak of rusty hinges.
'You'll understand in a minute.' She told him hollowly. Cautiously, Y/N moved past her, stepping through the gate and into the corridor, before beginning to walk slowly down it towards the other end, Cassandra following a few feet behind him.
The scent of blood hit him before anything else. Strong, metallic, and acrid, mixed with other, fouler smells that hung in the warm cave air. Gingerly, Y/N moved forwards, rounded the final corner, and emerged into a large, cavernous chamber filled with orange light from the half-dozen torches on the wall.
As he entered, there came a sudden rattling of chains... and then the screaming started, and when Y/N's eyes fell onto what the chamber contained, he felt his heart, stomach, even the soul drop out of him.
The chamber was filled with prisoners. Dozens of pale, emaciated men chained up to the flat faces of rocks against the walls, kicking and yelling through throats ripped raw from screams as they saw the two new arrivals. Most of them were unclothed, save for perhaps a loincloth or pair of crude shorts, but the one thing they all had in common was that all of them were bleeding.
Some of the men's limbs were missing, and their eyes were perfect white circles of absolute terror as they screamed and gnawed at the gags between their teeth and gums. Deep lacerations scored many of their chests, and for several of them, deep iron spikes had been driven through their hands and wrists, where thick trails of crimson blood traced down their sides into bowls on the ground.
Horrified, Y/N found that he was unable to tear his eyes away, and looked on numbly as his gaze raked the cavern. The longer he looked, the worse everything appeared. The prisoners were more injured with each moment he stared, barrels of more blood stood propped against the walls, knives and-
Y/N turned away from the horrific scene, looking at Cassandra, his face white, wondering what one earth had possessed her to show him this, and Cassandra's expression was firm, looking on at the prisoners before her.
'You said the other day that you thought we were good people.' She told him softly, her words carrying a self-mocking edge as she looked on with a grimace. 'But I'm afraid that's not true... You said that to a certain extent, we were forced to do this, that we had no choice because of what we are... and to a certain extent, that's true... but you need to know that there were times were we weren't being forced. Times where we enjoyed it... We've seen hundreds of men and women fall beneath out blades, people we've killed for pleasure and desire alike... We cannot even pretend to imagine that we're the good people you believed us to be.'
Cassandra sighed, then turned to Y/N, who was still staring numbly at her.
'I'm sorry that you had to see this.' She told him, and there was real sadness in her voice as she looked at him. 'I'm even more sorry that it is something we've done... but you needed to know.' She turned away from the scene, moving back towards the tunnel, and a moment later, Y/N followed her.
'I know that you're considering some things that... might be thought of as unwise...' Cassandra told him, turning to him once they were a fair distance away from the cavern. 'I've seen the way you are with my sisters, and they seem to care about you... a lot, in fact... but you needed to know everything we are if you're to make the informed decision.'
'Why didn't they tell me?' Y/N asked numbly, his mind still filled with the horrors of the cavern. 'Surely they didn't think they could lie to me forever?'
'They were afraid of how you might react.' Cassandra told him quietly. 'You're the first manthing to ever love us as people, rather than for blind looks or... some other appeal... but at the end of the day, you're still a gentle soul. Tough, yes, but still gentle. They were afraid that once you knew what we truly were, the things we've done... you might not care for us the way you do now.'
'And you're not?' Y/N asked, a hint of an edge to his voice as he looked up. 'You're not afraid?' He suddenly felt angry, angry on behalf of the hundreds they had tortured and killed, but more importantly, angry that the girls who he had come to love and trust would lie to him like this? How could they keep something this horrific from him? Cassandra looked up at Y/N expression, and he saw her eyes begin to sparkle wetly in the torchlight.
'I... I am.' She whispered, her voice turning tremulous as silver tears began to fall down her cheeks. 'I am afraid... More than anything... I've never felt this way about a human before, so to think that you might hate me after seeing what I am...' she looked up at him, setting her jaw determinedly as she met his gaze.
'But I also know that I would never lie to you. The chances of you still loving us after this are almost nothing, I know. But if you were to love us completely, it would have to be after knowing everything we are... not just for who we are on the surface... We want you to know us better than anyone ever has, and to know you the same way... so after everything you've done... after everything you said to me... I thought you deserved to know the truth...'
She drew herself up, facing him down without fear as she sniffed loudly, wiping the tears from her eyes.
'You can either move past it, and love us still, or you can't. But if you truly mean more to us than anyone else we've met... then how can we deny you the right to choose to leave? How can we not be honest with you about what we are?'
Cassandra closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and waited, as if expecting him to strike her, but Y/N didn't move. He didn't speak, didn't look up, didn't say anything. After several long minutes, Cassandra finally opened her eyes again, and when she did, it was to the sight of a man whose trust had just been broken in half before her eyes. He seemed smaller now, and the resilience and defiance that had radiated off him since the moment she had met him seemed gone.
He was an empty husk of the man she had known, and after a few moments, Y/N sank to the ground, and awkwardly sat back against the wall, closing his eyes and sighing deeply. His expression was pained, but not from his ribs, and as she watched him for several long minutes, eventually, he got back to his feet, brushed off his clothes and spoke to her.
'Please... wait here.' He told her, and before she could stop him, he had staggered back into the cavern.
Numbly, Y/N moved around the cavern, looking over every inch of it, every man kept prisoner, every cut they had suffered. Cassandra was right, he thought, if he was to move past this, then he needed to know everything. He was forcing himself to look. It was his duty to look. To know what had happened here. He knew there were more... more who had come and gone before he was even born, more who he would never be able to bear the burden of...
At the far end of the cavern, a tall set of iron bars covered an opening to the outside, and peering between the bars into the dark, Y/N saw that it spit them out not too far from the front door of the castle, but around the base of the castle far enough that it was hidden from view. The torched burning in the walls kept the cavern warm, and distantly, he noted that there was a lock on the door. He counted the men, every prisoner still alive, then returned to Cassandra, who was still waiting for him by the door.
'Tell me the truth.' He said softly. 'When was the last time you came down here?' Cassandra's expression was full of pain and regret as she answered.
'... the day before you arrived...' she whispered.
'And the others?'
'... Dani hasn't come down in a while... she never really took to it in the way that mother wanted... Bela's last visit was about a week before mine... and mother comes down every day.'
'Did your mother do this?'
'Most of this group... yes... she normally does the most... but that doesn't make us any more innocent, we've done far worse across the years.' Cassandra's expression was now full of unease, and she tried to look up into Y/N's eyes but he stared past her, focusing on something a thousand yards away.
'Take as much time as you need to process this...' Cassandra told him awkwardly. 'if you even can... but...' she sighed, wringing her hands desperately, knowing there was nothing she could say to reverse her crimes of half a century, and Y/N sighed in turn, still not looking at her.
'I need to think.' He murmured softly. Cassandra started, then hastily looked around for the torch, taking it back down from the bracket on the wall.
'Okay. We'll... we'll head back upstairs?'
She led the way, glancing back nervously as she went to check on Y/N, but her friend didn't utter a single word as they climbed the stairs to the castle. He remained silent as they passed through the hall, quiet as they entered the south wing, and when Cassandra turned to him outside their rooms to say something, anything that might heal some of the hurt she and her sisters had caused, she found that he had already moved to the door of his room, opened it, and closed it behind him without a word.