“Thank you,” the girl says turning around and looking me in the eyes. “If I might ask… why are you doing this?”

“Whether my uncle recognises it or not, I’m the rightful inheritor of this land. I am a countess and you are my responsibility,” I answer easily. “When I see how poorly you were being treated, isn’t it natural that I do something to resolve the issue? One can’t be a noble without a proper bearing, I must be sure to stand for what is right and defend my people, even the slaves, from injustice and cruelty.”

The girl just shakes her head with a sad smile on her lips, it doesn’t seem as warm as it ought to be, but she doesn’t explain her thoughts.

“In any case, I had wanted to ask an extra service of you,” I say, sitting up straight. “I am seeking to develop my magics, and a large part of that is learning how to scare a person. I’m not certain if I’m currently walking the right path, and it seems that you’re the only people here that I can truly trust.”

“You need to scare people to practice your magic?” The violet-eyed girl says.

“Yes, but first, what is your name?” I ask. “I ought to know it already, but I never did find the opportunity until now. I’d like to hear from all of you.”

“You really are a strange human.” She says, smiling a little more warmly this time. “I’m… you humans can never speak the sounds right. My name means Piper in your tongue, so call me that.”

“Piper.”

“Yes, my parents wanted me to be a musician, I think,” She says. “I used to practice with the bound pipes, a sort of flute, but the guards didn’t like the sound…”

“I’d like to hear you play when I have the chance,” I say, listening closely as the rest of the slaves give me their names. There are a few tricks to learning and remembering names, but part of it comes simply from experience. As a noble, it wouldn’t be good to forget a face, or what family a person comes from, so I’m rather practised at it.

“So, this fear magic?” Piper insists on returning us to the topic.

“I have a powerful blend of magics that work best in an atmosphere of terror. I have a few ideas on how to work towards creating such an air about myself, but I can’t guarantee that my ideas will work, so I’d like your thoughts.”

“On what we find scary?” She asks, raising a brow.

“Quite so. First of all, I have been casting frost magic on myself, is this frightening at all?” I ask, touching her hand. The frost crystals melt from her warmth, but she doesn’t react.

“I thought it felt nice and cool in here,” Piper says, nodding appreciatively. “Not scary though.”

“Sounds scary,” Hunter says, he’s a boy still too young to be separated from his mother. He carefully reaches out and places his hand on mine.

“Scary,” he says, pulling away quickly.

“Okay, I’ll consider it a partial success. I can also cast a particular magic that should frighten you when you meet my eyes,” I say, directing it first toward Piper. She meets my eyes and though magic burns through them and into her, there’s no change in her expression.

“Nothing?” I ask, slumping.

“I don’t feel anything. Sorry?” Piper hesitantly apologises, scratching her head and turning from me.

“Try me, try me!” Hunter says, crawling a little closer. A few other kids approach alongside him, thinking it some new game.

I turn my gaze down to him and he instantly freezes up, he sits there in motionless shock for about ten seconds before the effect wears off. Even the fear that I felt from him earlier is gone now, replaced with a strangely gentle warmth.

“I see. So, it doesn’t work on everyone. Maybe it’s because Piper is particularly fearless?” I guess at the reason while working with the children to figure out the other qualities of my magic. Without them feeling proper fear, I can’t summon the weaker of my magics, but that’s not too much of a concern.

Afterwards, we discuss what things I can do to frighten a person, and they have some interesting ideas and thoughts on the matter.

The older slaves keep a distance from us while watching closely, they make no subtle secret of the grudges that they bear towards me, but they don’t interfere, and I leave them to their own thoughts.

I’m… concerned.

They aren’t quite the animalistic creatures that they ought to be. Slavery was initially premised on the idea that they would be humanised by being around civilisation. The same reason why it’s so frequently used for criminals; to rehabilitate them. Perhaps we succeeded in that goal but forgot about it somewhere along the way.

Or perhaps… perhaps that noble goal was an ignoble lie all along.

Maybe my father wasn’t as perfect as I thought, because at least in this I’m certain that he made some mistakes. These children deserve more than this life. They deserve more than the whip and this sad excuse for a life.

I’ll have to do something to amend this issue.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I’ve learnt one important lesson from my magic training through the day, one thing that I failed to notice before.

I have nothing to improve my stealth.

Surely there would be some shadow magic that would help to hide me from sight or to stifle the sounds that I make as I move. If I truly am a quiet hunter of the night, that would be a part of my nature, but it isn’t.

So, what am I?

I am a noble lady, and I stand with dignity, I don’t crawl in the shadows and darkness. I stride through it with confidence.

Thankfully, it’s proven rather easy to develop my telekinetic magic into the most primitive form that can be used. While my time as a young lady has been focused on other studies up until my death, I have still been properly educated. The new magic isn’t at all unfamiliar, simply unpractised.

Night has fallen over my manor, and in the darkness, my spirit truly returns. No matter how much the servants scrub, the scent of blood never truly goes away. The death lingers in the air around us, and nowhere is it more dense than in the dining room where my uncle and his family now feast.

My aunt at least has enough limited sense to notice that there is something off, but uncle simply sinks his snout into the soup and snuffles it down like an undignified beast. Even the slaves showed more refined manners when they received their flavourless gruel.

The blood here is overwhelming, the death palpable. It’s like my soul comes alive here, in the place where I died. I can just remember it now… The fear, the terror, the… red eyes…

An issue for another time, I’m still weak.

With my sharpened senses, I can find the man who dared use the whip so cruelly this afternoon.

I owe him punishment.

Perhaps feeding from him will strengthen me.

He is in one of the servant’s dorms, a small space with but a bed, a bedside table, and a dresser. The man himself seems largely unconcerned, relaxing on the soft mattress without even thinking to take off his boots. If we had proper maids, they’d kill him for such an offence.

The hall where I stand, outside his room, is empty, so there is no one here to stop me as I kill the weak flickering flames of the candles and lamps. Once the hall is properly dark, I glance through the keyhole into the man’s room.

He’s grumbling about this or that while staring up at the ceiling, the candle lighting his room is thankfully in sight. Wasting no time, I use my telekinesis to pull it off of the bedside table.

The flames are quick to spread out over the carpet. A small luxury item that’s already stained with dirt.

Cursing loudly, the man throws himself off of the bed and stomps out the fire with his boots. I can taste the fright bleeding off of him, a momentary thing, but it’s enough to let me into the room.

Reality moves around me as I flood my body with æther and move into the room, and suddenly I’m standing behind the man. I grab his chin with freezing cold hands and lift it up with all the force I can muster. In the moment before the man can react, I run my dagger across his throat.

I surprise myself with my own strength, and the blade cuts easily through the flesh of his neck.

The man flails uselessly, spraying blood all about, a waste that I cannot accept. I lean over the man and drink of his lifeblood, drawing his strength from him as he slowly realizes his cruel fate.

Terror sweetens the blood, forming a divine ichor that runs down my throat and boils through my body, tingling my fingers and toes. Each warm mouthful of blood floods through my body with a satisfaction that I’ve never once known.

When the last drop is drawn from him, I stare down at the body, his glazed eyes still dripping with terror.

“Now what can be done with this?” I ask myself, considering the opportunity as I lick my lips clean.

For such a cruel man, he was surprisingly sweet in the end.