Chapter 144 – Who am I?

While Isolde was walking toward Raven’s quarters to retrieve Sarah, Sarah herself was hiding behind a wall, watching the scene in front of her with obvious dissatisfaction.

’Can this woman just not give up?’ She hissed inwardly, staring at Anesthesia standing in front of the Prince’s door, blocking his path and demanding answers from him.

Looking at Anesthesia’s expression, Raven understood he would either need to physically move her or give in to the temptation and finally speak to her.

He clearly wanted the latter. But he was afraid that once he started, he would not be able to keep himself in check.

That was something Sarah could see plainly, because she felt the exact same thing every single second she spent in Raven’s presence.

She had already loved him deeply. But lately, with how invested he had become in her — genuinely looking at her, genuinely wanting to know things about her — Sarah had to admit that her love was only growing.

Finally, she wanted to shout it to the world, her Prince was looking at her in a way that went beyond seeing her as a bed warmer.

And yet, even with all of that, one thing continued to trouble Sarah enormously.

Raven was still in love with Anesthesia.

’Then what am I to you?’ Sarah thought, pressing her lips tightly together, watching them from her hidden angle. ’Why are you jealous when I mention another man? Why do you look at me as if you want to consume me whole and make me yours forever? Why, my Prince, have your eyes on me softened and yet gained a dark, obsessive edge at the same time?’

Was that love? Or was it simply the obsession of a man claiming something he had decided was his?

Sarah didn’t know. And strangely, she barely cared to know anymore.

She had already started this slow, deliberate effort of making Raven love her. And Lord Seraph had been right.

She didn’t know exactly what he had done to pull Raven’s focus toward her, but she could feel it. It was like he was saying, without words: ’I shifted his attention from her to you. Will you disappoint me?’

Never.

’If I cannot have your heart, my Prince, then I will have your mind and your soul. And I am not afraid of your obsession. I am not afraid of your possessiveness. Take me as yours. Claim me. But this time, you must earn me. Earn me, and I will give you everything. So don’t let me go for her sake. She doesn’t love you. And the word ’love’ is no longer enough to describe what I feel for you.’

So please, my Prince, come to me.

Sarah was pleading internally, holding onto the first real thread of hope she had ever felt that she might one day truly be with the one she loved so desperately.

But she always tensed when Raven and Anesthesia were near each other, because she didn’t trust her Prince to hold steady any more than she trusted herself to hold steady around him.

Still, Sarah of Secrecy was not ready to give up. Not yet. Just a few more days — long enough to see the sincerity in Raven’s actions — and she would stop making herself unnecessarily difficult and begin to reach toward him herself.

No longer would she try to keep him through her body. That was a shallow way to hold a man.

No. This time, she would show him what he had been genuinely trying to find over these past five days.

She would show him who Sarah truly was.

Not the maid. Not the woman who had slept with her master. Not the coward who had smothered her feelings under layers of insecurity.

Just Sarah. Simply, and only, Sarah.

At that thought, she sighed ruefully, regretting that she couldn’t hear clearly what the two of them were saying. Knowing that would have given her something to work with.

’A shame.’ She mused.

But she stayed where she was. If only because her Prince was so sinfully handsome.

’Argh!! I want to kiss him so badly!’

In that moment, Sarah knew she was a lost cause.

But she was not the only one.

"What game are you playing lately, Raven?" Anesthesia asked in a cold, flat tone, fixing him with a hard stare. "Is all of this to humiliate me? Petty revenge because of what happened with Emrys?"

"Did something happen with Emrys?" Raven asked, tilting his head, his stern red eyes working hard not to quiver at the sight of her.

"That is the problem." She hissed. "Nothing happened between him and me. Nothing at all. Yet here you are, ignoring me while giving that bit—!"

"Control your tongue, Anesthesia." The Prince cut in, his voice carrying a clear warning. "I will not accept insults toward those who serve me."

"Vorn’s curse on me!" She exclaimed, and her face only cooled further. "Maybe this is a dream. Maybe these five days have been nothing but a dream. Because there is absolutely no way that you, Raven Hood, are defending a common fucking maid in front of me."

"What did I say about insults, Anesthesia?"

"What, will you strike me?" She said with deliberate provocation, stepping closer to him, watching him begin to tremble almost imperceptibly. She grinned, a cold and ghastly expression, her purple eyes glowing brighter. "Tell me, Raven Hood, will you strike me? Do you dare?"

The Prince didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Anesthesia was too close, and after five days of forcing distance between them, the urge to simply let go and melt in her presence was overwhelming beyond measure.

All he wanted in that moment was for her to walk away. But the Chosen Heiress would have been a fool to do that.

"You see?" She whispered, now an inch from him, their bodies barely apart. "You cannot hurt me, Raven. You cannot. You love me too much to raise a hand against me. And I love you too."

"Do you?"

"I do." Anesthesia lied openly. "And you know what I have sacrificed for loving you, Raven. My childhood best friend no longer wishes to speak to me. Yet here I am, at your side, faithful." Her face darkened. "And here you are entertaining a maid. Tell me, Raven, what exactly has she given you? I cannot think of anything, given that you have already taken and used her body far too many times for it to hold any significance anymore."

At that, Raven’s eyes narrowed with irritation. He had already disliked Anesthesia calling Sarah a bitch, but this, openly humiliating her in front of him?

"Alright." He said coldly, and Anesthesia’s expression shifted slightly with surprise. "You want to know what she gave me? Fine. I will tell you."

He leaned his face forward, stopping an inch from hers, and locked his eyes onto her purple ones.

The air between them thickened. And Anesthesia, somehow, for some reason, felt her heartbeat quicken at the sudden closeness of his face.

"Sarah gave me something far more precious than her body." Raven continued. "She gave me her heart, Anesthesia. And not only that, she opened herself to me. She made herself willing to be known. So now tell me, what did you give me?" He asked. "What did you give me when I gave you everything — my heart, my mind? Vorn’s breath, I would have given you my soul too if you had asked me with so much as a smile!"

Anesthesia’s heart missed a beat. She had always known Raven loved her. But the man himself had never once said it aloud.

It was not the first time someone had confessed their love to her. Men, women, young and old...Anesthesia had received confessions from all of them.

Even from Emrys Stormblessed himself.

But Raven’s confession was different. It was cold, dark, wrapping her in an obsessive weight that made her shiver, and shiver even harder when she looked deeper into those red, deathly eyes.

"You see now?" Raven said. "That is how much you mean to me. That is how much I love you. But with all of that, what about you?"

"My heart." Anesthesia answered immediately, her throat oddly dry. "I gave you my heart."

"What proves that? I don’t know you, Anesthesia. Which means your words carry no weight with me. I cannot believe what someone says when I know nothing of them."

"Now you are lying." She replied. "You do know me, Raven. And don’t compare me to that maid of yours. Simple women are easy to understand. I am everything but simple. And..." she attempted a seductive smile "...that is exactly why you love me and not her. So stop entertaining her and come back to me. I need you. I want you. I will give you what you want."

"Who am I, Anesthesia?" Raven asked abruptly, doing everything he could to ignore her last sentence for the sake of his own composure.

She paused, confused. "Raven Hood. Prince of the Kingdom."

"What else?" He pressed. "What do I like? What do I love to do? Tell me, do you know a single thing about me that isn’t already known by everyone else? Vorn, even my love for you is no longer a secret to the Kingdom. So tell me...what do you actually know about me?"

Anesthesia couldn’t answer. She stood rooted to the spot, silent, unable to produce a single thing.

Raven smiled bitterly, his heart aching with a pain that had no end. "And you say you love me." He shook his head, as if for just a moment he had let himself believe something. "You don’t know me. And you are not letting me know you."

He drew a slow breath, then pushed her gently but firmly out of his path. This time, Anesthesia didn’t resist.

Raven began to walk away, his voice carrying behind him — thin and pained.

"I cannot be with someone who refuses to open up to me. And I cannot be with someone who cannot truly see me, even though I have laid myself bare in front of her every single time." He paused. "So, Anesthesia, don’t call me, don’t message me and don’t come looking for me. You are here because you are talented and deserve protection your family cannot provide. We will see to that. You do not need to see me for that."

With those cold words, the Prince walked away, taking a different path from where Sarah and Isolde now stood.

He left behind Anesthesia, whose face had fallen.

She lowered her head, and as if by some twisted joke of the gods, her sister’s voice suddenly played itself back inside her mind.

’You will lose him. You will lose all of them. Do you know why, dear sister? Because you are a hypocritical, self-centred woman who thinks only of herself. Yet you no longer even know who you are.’

Anesthesia bit her lip so hard it split, blood smearing across her mouth.

’This cannot end like this.’ She thought coldly, her fists clenching, her mind slipping toward a dark and harrowing place. ’Why can’t everyone simply let me have what I want? That is what is best for everyone. Why do you insist on making me show who I truly am? Will you be able to bear the consequences of that? Will you stay and look me in the eyes when I do?’

Because the last time she had slipped, just for a moment, in front of Emrys, he had looked at her as though she were a stranger. Despite them having been together since they were toddlers.

She had been traumatised by that look ever since. Unable to simply be herself, unable to be free, only resonating with others and willingly accepting the innate suppression Emrys imposed on her.

But Emrys was no longer here. He was surely messaging — or fucking — Love.

And Raven Hood was not Emrys.

Thoughts cascaded through her mind, pulling her deeper and deeper toward a side of herself she had spent years wishing she could forget.

All of that, while Sarah watched from the corner of the corridor, Isolde now standing quietly beside her.

Isolde looked at her sister, and recognised in Anesthesia’s current expression the same cold darkness she had always carried within herself.

’I suppose, after all, we are sisters.’ Isolde thought. ’If I am a Villainess, then so are you. The only reason you are not seen as one is because you have been chosen, and because you are afraid and unwilling to let that part of yourself exist, because of Emrys or something deeper within you. Or both. But there is no longer any need to hold it back.’ 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Isolde’s heart shivered with a dark, quiet excitement.

’You are like me. A villainess. Don’t hide it. No...I won’t let you hide it.’

Because she wanted to see it. She wanted to see the version of her sister who walked a path entirely different from that of a Chosen One like Emrys.

At that thought, she gave her sister one last glance, turned, and walked away.

"Come, Sarah." She said. "We have seen enough. We need to move and see Raven."

"There is no need to find my prince." Sarah shook her head, looking one last time at Anesthesia, feeling the threat of her acutely, sensing the need to raise her own game. "I will simply tell him I went to see my man."

Isolde smiled with quiet amusement. "You are enjoying this situation quite a bit."

"I just want him to lose control."

"He might hurt you one day."

"My Prince would never." Sarah said with quiet certainty.

Isolde shrugged. "If you say so. Now let’s go. And quickly."

With that, Isolde and Sarah met Cassius and the three of them left the palace together to meet Meadow.

Behind them, Anesthesia was still standing in front of Raven’s door.

’Do I really have no other choice?’

She was deeply reluctant. But the choice was no longer hers to make freely. She needed Raven for her plan. And somewhere along the way, something else had become undeniable — a whorish maid was taking something from her.

Someone from her.

Her. Anesthesia.

The very idea was blasphemy.

’I will show you, Raven.’ She thought with conviction, and beneath it, a deep and private fear. ’I will show you who I am.’

Anything for her goal.

Anything.

—End of Chapter 144—