Missax - Do This For Me -

Elara should have run. Any sensible person would have. But she had been chosen, shaped, prepared for this moment across years of strange requests and midnight trials. Missax had not been training a servant. She had been crafting a vessel.

No one knew Missax’s full name, or if she even had one beyond that. She was the mistress of the estate, a woman of sharp cheekbones and sharper silences. Her hair was the color of burned copper, and her eyes held the cold patience of a bird of prey. The household staff feared her. The village whispered she had buried two husbands. But to Elara, Missax was simply… inevitable. missax - do this for me

“What happens to you?” Elara whispered. Elara should have run

Missax tilted her head. “Then the house will stand empty until it finds another. But you, my dear, would not survive the winter. You have already seen too much. Touched too many forbidden things. The house knows you.” Missax had not been training a servant

But in the corner of the room, the shadows seemed deeper. And from somewhere far above, in the east tower, she heard the faint, satisfied whisper of a woman’s voice.