"Hello, useless human."

Andrik pulled his sword out and pointed at the creature in his presence. Its smooth marbled skin, burnt horns, and blackened hair marked him like evil incarnate.

In response, the statue dumped the bones he'd been carrying at the duke's feet.

His arm faltered. "What is this?"

"One who claims to be your lover."

Andrik lowered his arm but didn't put up the blade. "I don't have time for a lover, let alone an interest."

"You did have a trusted friend who you left in charge of the princess. Those are her bones."

"But I saw her this morning."

"Let me finish, Andrik Vrchovina." The stranger's use of his given name startled him into silence for the moment. He pointed at the bones. "This is your friend, who fed your fiancé lies and very little food. Iva bruised her and belittled her. She told her precisely what positions you made love to her in. And it all went unchallenged because a little voice in your mind kept telling you what?"

The duke shook his head to clear it of the warning bells the creature set off in his head. "I have no idea what you are, but you shouldn't exist."

The creature laughed. "Ah, yes, that sense of wrongness an adult mind can't shake. I know it well."

The duke kept his features immobile. "Then what do you want?"

"I want you to know that you should have never touched The Cup of Madness." The statue's feral grin pushed Andrik to bring the point of his sword back up to the creature's throat. "You kept taking me from my little master. I had to work much harder to push you into ignoring the child while your friend neglected and tormented her. You vowed to protect the king's daughter and have not."

"I am the master of my own fate, not you." The lord shook his head, not contesting the lack but merely the cause. "Iva wouldn't betray me like that."

"Aye Master. You both followed the suggestions that came to mind. Your friend didn't want you tied to a child. She made Leena miserable enough to pay a bounty on her head." The creature gestured at the bones, constantly dragging his mind back to the pile, only to lash out at him. "But what rational man thinks that near-total avoidance is proper care of a child? And for what, to avoid the claim that you were bending the child to your will?"

The duke remained stoic and unwavering. The statue knew what humanity, what he hid behind that facade, as the centuries were long and dull.

"I am not afraid of taking her freedom from her. Your fiancé does my bidding because your cautious heart did not care for her."

Andrik's silence goaded the statue more than its words lashed the nobleman. It ignored the blade piercing its neck to reach forward, to grasp the sides of the man's head, and pull him closer. "Give me that wall inside your head."

The strength of the mind is felled all the lower due to its strength.

His sword clattered to the ground, then the man. The enormity of what he had been told finally made it through his thick skin.

"Your fiancé belongs to me, now; you mindless dribble."

There hadn't been a time in his life when he had bowed so low. Yet a creature that passed through the tip of his blade to reach him foisted this misery on him and then vanished.

He found himself shaking, staring at the pile of bones he had landed on. He remembered he had the King's latest letter for his daughter. Perhaps using that as an excuse to see if Leena was alright would sort out his fears before he sent in a request for leave for hallucinations.

Not that he would be granted it.

Not with the miracle child at his side.

It wasn't a long walk, but it was one he rarely made through his camp to the flap of Leena's tent. He knocked on the post.

"If it's Andrik, come in; if not, fuck off."

He rested his hand on the post for a moment, then stepped in and waited for his eyes to adjust.

To say he was moved by how time had changed her would allude to some latent romantic interest or limerence, if he had a heart. But this had always been a transaction between her father and himself. It had nothing to do with her other than the power she wielded.

No, it was the age that lined her face. A false age, as she wasn't older than him. The hand that rested against her forehead displayed her loss. But tired and worn switches to disdain and rage so quickly, especially in those who burn hot. "The Cup of Madness already told you what it did, so why are you here? Go find some other dumb woman to serve me and stay out of my life."

She didn't scream, clearly too tired to. The back of his mind warned him, clear from the haze that had hedged him in. This girl would kill him if he pushed her the wrong way. It was the same zeal he found in himself when he took on his title in the face of Blackrot and ineffective political maneuvers.

Leena created in herself an asset he could have fallen for if she was older. Instead, he had to admit she would be his greatest regret. She was far younger than his own shattering, and should still be soft. That was his failure. "A letter came for you from your father."

"Why is he sending me a thing after all these years?"

The duke frowned, tilting his head, but answered truthfully, "Someone writes to you every month."

"Yet another thing that witch has stolen from me." She held out the hand with the missing fingertip as she rooted around for a knife to slip under the wax seal.

"I don't know what to say." Andrik handed her the letter. "She gave a good impression of herself publicly. Her reports on you were never so negative that I felt a need to mediate."

"And other than my first outburst, I've rarely complained." She gripped the handle of the same blade that she had cut her and broke the seal. She had been a quick read at 10. With years of practice lost, she struggled with the words she said every day, barely recognizing her father's scrawl.

The Blackrot of her mind didn't stop the message from getting to her. Leena glanced back up at the duke. She needed to know more about him before breaking the news. "What was Iva to you?"

"She was one of the many my mother called over to give me children my age to play with. That ended when my father sent me to serve as Menheld's squire. By the time I came home, she was the daughter of a tennant, and I had no time for anything but curing my land." Had there been some vague feeling for Iva? He wouldn't have known over the grief and isolation he felt from having lost everything to save them. Andrik wouldn't have had time to love her, as he was so exhausted back then. "In the end, I wound up making all of us homeless."

"Is that all? What did you feel about her?"

"Did that creature really come to my room?"

She waved her fingers at him. "I didn't do this for nothing. He was there. You slept with her, like she claimed?"

"Not that I know of." He shrugged. "I wasn't sober for much of the first few months after my father died. There's a chance for anything under the sun. Did I seek Iva out and bring her to be my fiancé's maid? No. That's not something I could be tempted into doing. I'm sure your companion would have tried it on me."

"But did you want her?"

"The only feeling I've had for years, no matter the person, is guilt. Now, are you sure that those are her bones?"

Her expression lit with the soft glow of insanity at the memory. "He ate her alive and spat out the pieces as she screamed for mercy. No one outside this tent heard her cries for help. If they aren't hers, then he ate someone else along the way. I doubt there would be evidence."

Anyone would find her response revolting, both inhuman and inhumane. He was indeed late, if that kind of derangement had its grip on her.

She shook her head, refocusing on her betrothed. "Your answer isn't bad. Father calls us home. We should make it before my mother passes. I will not ask for an annulment this trip."

Curiosity is forever the bane of safety. But he wanted to know where he stood with her, so he asked, "And if we had been lovers?"

"Well, you could love each other in the same shallow grave for eternity!" She spat the answer out so harshly that she shook. "Now get out!"

Andrik feared for the girl's sanity. The creature of the cup proved to know his madness in what he had sown in the princess.