At first, he had merely stepped into the village for some air, only to be ambushed by a boy posing as a peddler. Vincent had let his guard down, seeing only a child, but when he reflexively dodged, the blade still bit deep into his waist. The guards seized the boy, but the assassin committed suicide the moment he was caught—an act of such cold, practiced efficiency that we never discovered who had orchestrated the attack.
Since then, Vincent had recoiled from the outside world. A stroll in the garden directly in front of the mansion became his limit.
Then, one day, the garden turned against him. A servant, sent to fetch a wrap against the chill, heard a scream and rushed back to find a stranger dead, an iron rod driven through his chest. Vincent lay slumped in the dirt, gasping for air. The assailant was a ghost—an outsider whose identity remained a mystery. Vincent had fled, struck the man once with a rock, and finished him with the rod. It was a miracle he had survived.
Yet, even after we tightened security, Vincent refused to step foot outside the mansion again.
Later, he collapsed while eating. He managed to vomit the food back up, sparing his life, but we soon confirmed the meal had been poisoned. Shortly after, a kitchen maid was found dead in the woods—she had been trying to flee. We identified the culprit, but the motive remained buried in shadow.
Surviving such malice had birthed a phobia of food. For a time, Vincent was jumpy at every meal; eventually, he stopped eating altogether.
As he starved and hid, his health withered. He should have at least moved through the mansion, but the grand house was full of visitors. Once, he was spotted during a brief outing, and though nothing happened, the exposure terrified him. He retreated to the annex and barricaded himself in his room, sinking into a deep, hollow depression.
The terror of a hidden killer. The fear of an invisible enemy.
If word got out that he had lost his sight, his authority to lead the family would vanish. So, he used “recuperation” as a shield, locking himself away. Without contact, without light, he was simply fading into nothingness.
For the first time, I felt a flicker of pity. The body’s sickness inevitably infects the soul. I had known the agony of starving in the dirt, stealing bread just to survive—I knew how an exhausted body creates a diseased mind.
He was a sick man. That was why I tried to stomach his sharp tongue.
But I could not tolerate him wasting food. It infuriated me. To me, that bowl of rice porridge was a treasure I had begged for on my knees, clinging to the hems of masters who would gladly break my bones for a scrap.
And yet, this man…
“Bad behavior must be disciplined. Whether you are a child or a man, you must be scolded for wrongdoing. Did you not learn to cherish your food? Or were you taught that because you have so much, you are allowed to discard it like refuse?”
“…….”
As I listed his faults, a surge of raw, hot emotion rose in my throat. I had suffered until my body felt like it was tearing apart just to earn a meal. It was so wasteful I wanted to weep. But I wouldn’t cry in front of a blind man. It was too humiliating.
I bit my lip, forcing the sob back into my chest. *Don’t do this. I despise nothing more than a competition of misery.* I steadied my breath, retrieved the bowl—thankfully intact—and wiped the porridge from the floor with my apron.
“I will bring you more. If you are so terrified, I will eat a spoonful first, and then you may eat. Surely I can offer that much for a cowardly Master like you. If you can’t finish it, I will take care of the rest. That should satisfy you, shouldn’t it?”
“Won’t eat.”
“You surely aren’t going to refuse? I am risking my life to taste it for poison—would you turn away such devotion from your own servant?”
I couldn’t believe his coldness. I dragged the words out, tapped my foot in annoyance, and stormed out of the room.
Downstairs, the cook looked at me with pity as she scooped a fresh bowl. I took it and practically ran back.
I knelt before the bed once more. His face tracked the sound of my movement, his eyes unfocused, scanning the empty air. I scooped up a spoonful, clinking it against the bowl so he would know, took a loud, exaggerated bite—chewing despite the mushy texture—and extended the spoon toward him.
“Say ‘ah’.”
The bowl went flying again.
“Filthy.”
*Clang, clang, clang.* With that sound, my reason snapped.
The porridge was half-spilled. I snatched the bowl up and returned to the bed. He was staring at the floor, tracking my movements.
I scooped another spoonful, set the bowl down on the edge of the mattress, and shoved his shoulder, knocking him backward.
Vincent, caught off guard, collapsed onto the bed. I climbed on top of him in a blur, pinning him down with my weight and grabbing his throat to keep him still. I forced my thumb into his mouth as he gasped in shock, then shoved the spoonful of porridge into the opening.
“Ack, cough!”
Vincent thrashed. I pinned his resisting body, ignoring the way his hand caught in my hair and yanked, the pain sharp enough to sting my eyes. I bit my lip and endured it. He shook his head to avoid the spoon, but with my finger wedged in his jaw, he couldn’t close his mouth.
I watched his face, feeding him whenever the path cleared. When the spoon emptied, I grabbed more, shoving it into his mouth with mechanical precision. Eventually, I held the bowl directly in my hand to speed the process. My arm trembled so violently I felt as if I might faint.
“Master, I am so happy to see you eating so well!”
“Cough, you, cough, cough!”
“Yes, you are doing a great job!”
One, two, three—I kept at it until the half-empty bowl was clean. Half of it had ended up on his face, but I didn’t care.
Once the bowl was empty, he threw me backward. I landed on the floor as he pushed me away. I obediently picked up the bowl and spoon, touching the back of my head where a clump of hair had been ripped away. I let out a dry, jagged laugh, turning to see Vincent clutching his bruised throat, his face a mask of furious red.
“You’re fired, effective immediately!”
“I was merely serving my Master his meal.”
“Ha! You are a madwoman! Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? How dare you lay a hand on me! You must be desperate for death!”
“Did anyone see?”
“What?”
I replied with chilling calm.
“Only the two of us. How would anyone else know? How dare I lay a finger inside my Master’s mouth… that I had poked at his insides and spoon-fed him.”
What I had done was a crime punishable by death. If anyone had seen, my head would be on a spike. But here, there was only us. Because his blindness made him hypersensitive to movement, there wasn’t a soul daring to pass by his door.
Besides, his temper was legendary; he was a man whose nerves were frayed to the breaking point. While he had the authority to fire me, his position was too fragile for him to dismiss a servant on a whim.
“Ah, you did have a gun. You could have killed me with that, Master. But tell me—is there even a bullet in that chamber?”
“…….”
He pressed his lips shut, a flicker of fluster crossing his face. I had been right. I had wondered why he hadn’t shot me yet. I suppressed a scoff.
“For your information, rumors of your temper have made it impossible to find help. Everyone in this house shakes their head at the thought of waiting on you. If you fire me, there is no one left to take my place. You will have to remain with me until a replacement is found—and if no one is found, you are stuck with me forever!”
I took a sharp breath, my disheveled bangs settling over my eyes. I saw Vincent grit his teeth, his expression one of pure indignation.
I beamed at him.
“I look forward to working with you, Master.”
From that day on, the war began.
I forced food into his mouth; we endured endless, violent altercations every time I changed his sheets or bathed him. One day, I tried to drag him to the bathroom to wash away his scent, only to take a forearm to the face. I walked out, clutching my bleeding nose with my apron, and ran straight into Isabella.
My body stiffened. She scanned me—nose held, blood dripping—with a cool, indifferent gaze, then turned away without a word. How long had she been standing there? I realized then, from the stillness of her posture, that she had known exactly what was happening behind those doors all along.