They say the best part of a journey is the friends we make along the way.

  I suppose I could agree—after omitting a few choice words. For me, it wasn’t about friends. It never had been. The best part of the journey was always the way itself—the shaping, the breaking, the becoming. And on my journey to becoming a princess, I adored the path from the very beginning.

  I won’t drag you through the details, not here. Suffice it to say that over the course of five long, beautiful years, Aska and I explored every manner of suffering the body could endure without extinguishing it. Pain is a precise language if you learn how to read it. And we were fluent. We starved him and fed him. We praised him and humiliated him. We deprived him of sleep, of warmth, of human contact. But never, ever of hope. That would’ve ended it too soon.

  Waterboarding was the one exception. That particular method… no, even I had my limits. Drowning someone in inches of water didn’t make me feel powerful—it made me feel sick. I left that one in the books. Everything else, however, was fair game.

  After five years, we broke him.

  “How is my loyal guard doing today?” I asked sweetly as I stepped into the dimly lit chamber. My hands cradled a tray of food—the same food Aska and I ate. I never poisoned it, never soiled it. There was no need. Normalcy, offered so sparingly, became a greater torment than hunger.

  He sat huddled in his cage like a castoff puppet, clothed in rags that had once been armor. His eyes were hollow, ringed with exhaustion, but no longer defiant. That fire had long since gone out. He didn’t spit anymore. Didn’t scream. Didn’t curse my name like he had during the first year or two. Now, silence was his comfort. Obedience, his default.

  I opened the cage door and set the tray down gently, kneeling to his level. He crawled forward without prompting, his movements slow, stripped of dignity. He picked at the food with his fingers, chewing methodically. I made sure he saw me watching.

  “Oh, by the way,” I said as casually as if we were discussing the weather, “Aska and I decided we’ve done enough for you. I’m thinking of starting your training now. How does that sound?”

  He said nothing, as expected. But that was fine. Responses weren’t required for the brainwashing to continue. First, you break them. Then, with time, consistency, and just the right mix of cruelty and comfort, you shape them. And with a helping god at my side, the process became… elegant.

  I reached forward, gripping his chin. His skin was rough and pale, the heat of life buried somewhere deep beneath the trauma. I tilted his face up and stared into the void that had once been his defiant glare.

  “Aska?” I asked aloud.

  Aska didn’t even look up from where he sat in the corner, flipping lazily through a worn-out book. “Acceptable,” he said without interest.

  That was enough.

  Phase two began: rehabilitation. Or rather, reconstruction.

  Over the next month, I wove myself into the knight’s reality. I became his nurse, his solace, his only lifeline. Gone was the cruel puppeteer who laughed at his screams. In her place stood a gentle caretaker who bandaged his wounds, told him he mattered, and asked—always asked—for permission to come close.

  Day by day, I dripped affection like poison into his cracked psyche. And he drank deeply.

  Then came the breakthrough.

  “Who… are you?” he whispered one evening, his voice thin as cobwebs.

  I smiled—soft, reassuring. I made sure it reached my eyes.

  “You don’t remember?” I asked, brushing his hair gently behind his ear. “I’m Princess Lucinda. The one you swore to protect until the day you die.”

  Of course, he didn’t believe it. Not at first. Confusion flashed across his face, a moment of static in the fog. But belief isn’t immediate. Belief is planted, watered, and harvested over time. I repeated the lie daily, without fail. I let him dream about it. I let him need it.

  And in less than a year, he began to answer to the title “my guard” without hesitation. He responded to “my knight” like it was his name.

  He began to live for me.

  “The sugar,” I said one afternoon, glancing toward the shelf. I was baking something sweet for Aska—an apology, perhaps, for neglecting him during my psychological project.

  “Yes, my princess,” the knight said obediently, fetching the jar as if it were holy.

  Nearly perfect. He moved when I commanded. He anticipated my needs before I spoke them. He even adjusted his posture to my mood—if I was serene, he smiled softly; if I was agitated, he became smaller, quieter.

  There was only one problem.

  I could not stand him.

  He disgusted me.

  It wasn’t just the pathetic devotion, the eager servility. No, it was the way his eyes lingered—obsessed, always calculating, as though my very presence were something sacred to consume. He ogled me when he thought I wasn’t looking, especially when I played the part of the princess to perfection. The more I acted entitled, the more enamored he became. And when his gaze turned hungry—when reverence slipped into lust—I punished him.

  I made sure he remembered the rules.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the sugar from his hand.

  But his fingers lingered. They brushed mine. Just for a second. Too long.

  Second time today.

  The rage bloomed instantly—white-hot and absolute. It flashed through my core and out to my fingertips. How dare he? How dare he, after everything, try to take more than what I gave?

  My smile didn’t falter.

  But my punishment would.

  He would learn again—just as he had a hundred times before—that love is a privilege, not a right.

  Especially from a princess.

  “Kneel.”

  The command had barely left my lips before he dropped to the floor with a sickening eagerness, spine straight, head lifted, eyes wide. He looked up at me with an adoration so intense it made my skin crawl. His mouth didn’t form words, but every line of his face screamed a single plea: Love me back.

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t even look at him.

  Instead, I turned my attention to the other figure in the room—Aska, lounging on the velvet chaise with a chipped teacup in one hand and a worn book balanced lazily in the other. He was the picture of detached elegance, as always, barely acknowledging the pathetic display unfolding on the floor in front of us.

  “What am I doing wrong?” I asked, voice calm, but inside, I was clawing at answers. The control I once relished was warping—slipping into something I hadn’t foreseen. And that wasn’t what I wanted.

  Aska didn’t even bother to meet my gaze fully. He lifted his eyes for the briefest second, disappointment radiating from every inch of his expression, then dropped them back to the pages.

  “You look,” he murmured, “but you don’t see.”

  Cryptic. Maddening. Infuriating.

  And perfectly Aska.

  He offered no clarification, no lecture, no lesson. He sipped his tea like it wasn’t my sanity on the line. Like my creation wasn’t fraying at the seams.

  Fine. My pet, my problem.

  I turned back to the man kneeling before me, letting my gaze finally settle on him with the clinical detachment I used when dissecting animals in childhood. Twenty-five years old. Strong build. Utterly devoted. Loyal. Submissive. Obedient.

  Yet something was wrong—fundamentally wrong. I had crafted him to serve, to follow. Not to love.

  His eyes shimmered strangely in the light—a faint pink glow beneath the surface. An unnatural warmth. I ignored it. That wasn’t the issue, not yet.

  “Aska,” I said without turning, “look at me.”

  He sighed—exasperated, almost offended—and glanced up again with reluctant, narrowed eyes. And suddenly, everything clicked.

  Ahh. I see.

  It wasn’t obedience I was looking at—it was infatuation. Not loyalty, but yearning. I had sculpted a servant and ended up with a suitor.

  I walked calmly to the drawer and pulled out a dull-edged kitchen knife—ordinary, domestic, meaningless. Until I drove it into his shoulder with all the casual force of adjusting a picture frame. The sound he made was sharp and wet, a scream bursting from deep inside his chest as blood burst around the hilt. He instinctively reached for the wound, shaking, but I seized his chin and jerked his face up, forcing his eyes to meet mine.

  Crimson clashed with pink.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “You are my guard,” I said slowly, deliberately, each word a dagger of its own. “Do you know what a servant must never do?” I twisted the knife handle just slightly. “Loving. Their. Master.”

  He whimpered, not from the pain—but from the heartbreak.

  I yanked the knife free. Blood poured down his arm, and still he stared at me with a mixture of agony and longing, as if my punishment only deepened his desire to please.

  That was the moment I realized I had gone too far.

  In erasing his past and giving him a new identity, I had become his entire world. The savior who rescued him from torment. The light after years of darkness. I didn’t account for the human heart’s foolish tendency to love those who heal it—even if they were the ones who broke it in the first place.

  A whole month passed, and I tried everything to undo the damage. I humiliated him again. Hurt him. Deprived him. Rewarded him. I shifted back and forth between cruelty and kindness like changing costumes, but no matter what mask I wore, he saw the same goddess beneath.

  He only loved me more. I had become his everything.

  It all came to a head one afternoon when Aska and I were sparring—training my dodging reflexes. We’d been at it for over an hour, and I was starting to lose focus. Not from fatigue.

  From his eyes.

  The guard stood a few meters away, silent and unmoving, but tracking every movement I made with the fixation of a starving man watching a feast. His gaze lingered where it shouldn’t—on my hips, on the tear in my dress that exposed part of my side. A voyeur masquerading as a knight.

  And that was when I missed Aska’s step.

  He reappeared beside me without warning, a hand falling on my shoulder like the ghost of judgment. I flinched.

  “Get a grip on your pet,” he said coolly, voice as smooth as ever. “It’s just love.”

  The hypocrisy of that statement nearly made me laugh. From him, of all people. The god who had spent my childhood stifling my affection, warning me against attachment, withholding affection like air. And now he wanted me to understand love?

  We were both failures in that regard—Aska and I. Twin flames too twisted to burn together.

  Still catching my breath, I turned to face the guard, hoping—praying—to find some humanity left behind the obsession.

  But his eyes weren’t even on my face.

  They were fixed on my exposed belly, lips parted ever so slightly. Entranced.

  He didn’t see me. He saw the fantasy I had carefully, fatally built for him.

  “Guard! Get away from here. Clean the bedroom or something.”

  My voice cracked like a whip. He hesitated—of course he did, the same way a dog lingers near its master hoping for more affection, more attention, even if it’s negative. But the command worked. As always, he obeyed, bowing his head and slinking off like a kicked stray. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, trying to scrape the irritation from my mind.

  With the distraction removed, Aska and I resumed training. The familiar rhythm returned, a dance of evasion and precision. Daggers flew toward me—regular, deliberate throws meant to condition my instincts. I sidestepped most with ease, ducked or deflected the slower ones. It wasn’t perfect, but I was improving. Only when I finally let go of the discomfort left by the guard’s gaze did my focus sharpen to the blade’s edge.

  Half an hour passed, the daggers accelerating slightly—Aska testing me, as he always did—but I stayed on my toes, nimble, calculating. And then the blades stopped.

  I blinked in confusion. Aska’s laughter rang out behind me—unrestrained, surprised, laced with that dark humor only gods truly understood.

  “You won’t believe what your guard is doing…”

  I froze. The tone in his voice wasn’t mocking, not entirely. There was a warning buried inside the amusement. Something cold. Primal.

  “What. Is. That. Filth. Doing?” I growled, stomping toward the house, fury spiraling through me like a storm. I didn’t look back, but I felt Aska hesitate, his footsteps trailing off.

  “You’ll regret it,” he muttered, voice quieter now, serious. “But you’re old enough. Go see for yourself.”

  I should’ve stopped. I should have turned back. But I didn’t.

  I shoved open the front door with more force than necessary. Everything looked normal—the kitchen was untouched, the living room spotless, the hall smelled faintly of lavender oil I used that morning. A breath of false relief escaped me.

  And then I stepped into the bedroom.

  The air shifted. Heavy. Wrong.

  My feet stopped moving, my body locking in disbelief. There, on the bed Aska and I shared—my bed—the guard lay entirely naked. Completely exposed. His face buried deep into my pillow, grinding into the fabric like a beast, hands wrapped around himself in full view.

  He was moaning. Grunting. Utterly lost in the fantasy he had woven of me.

  I stared at him. His back, pale and twitching. His hips, obscene in their rhythm. His shamelessness.

  I closed my eyes, praying for blindness. But the sounds... they filled the room like poison. His ragged breathing, the squelch of his movements, the creaking of the bed.

  I couldn’t escape it.

  Silently, with steps light as falling ash, I approached the side of the bed. My fingers twitched at my thigh where my training dagger was strapped. I was almost there when he noticed me.

  “Princess?!”

  He turned—horrified, caught—and I felt something hot and wet flick onto my hand.

  It must have been spit. It had to be. I clung to that illusion, but my mind betrayed me, vomiting up every possible alternative.

  Rage swallowed me whole.

  Without hesitation, I dropped to one knee, drew the dagger, and opened my eyes—fixating on his neck and only his neck. I didn’t want to see any other part of him. I didn’t want the image seared into my soul any deeper than it already was.

  The blade plunged into his throat with a wet, thick resistance.

  Blood burst across my arm, his scream caught in a gurgle, eyes wide with shock—and maybe relief, maybe desire, I didn’t care. I pulled the blade out, then brought it down again. Again. And again.

  I kept my focus narrow—jaw, eyes, temple. Everything else was noise. I didn’t stop until his body stopped twitching. Not when the sheets soaked through. Not when blood splattered across the wall in a violent arc. Not when my hand went numb from the effort.

  Even when his neck had turned into a torn, pulpy ruin, I kept swinging. Because this wasn’t about punishment anymore.

  It was about purging.

  When it was done, I stood—hands dripping with fresh blood—and stared at what was left. Not a man. Not a pet. Just a wretched thing that had dared to make me his fantasy.

  Unlike my past kills, there was no thrill. No quiet satisfaction. No rush of control reclaimed.

  Just revulsion. Deep, howling revulsion.

  I hadn’t just lost my creation. I had defiled my own sanctuary. My bed. My hand. My mind.

  He had ruined it all.

  Once I was absolutely certain—truly certain—that he was dead and gone beyond revival, even by necromancy or the most unhinged divine intervention, I stepped away.

  I walked several paces toward the far wall and stood there, my back to the corpse. I stared blankly at nothing and tried to will the bile in my throat back into stillness. The adrenaline began to thin, but not the feeling. The itch remained. No matter how often I wiped my left hand—that hand—against the coarse fabric of my dress, it wasn’t enough. I could feel it still. Sticky. Warm. Violated.

  I wanted to cut it off. More than anything. But I didn’t.

  Self-mutilation had never been one of my hobbies, and I wasn’t going to start now, not over him. I took slow, measured steps, forcing the violent thoughts back behind the dam in my mind. The urge ebbed—just enough for logic to retake the helm—and I focused on something I could do: cleanse myself of the stench of that room, of the blood, the filth, the shame.

  Without a word, I took the dagger still slick with blood and sliced open my dress. Not recklessly—I made sure the blade never once touched my skin. The cloth parted cleanly, falling in strips around my legs until I stood there in my underthings, my right eyelid twitching with frustration.

  “Why the hell is every man so godsdamn horny?” I muttered through clenched teeth. “Why am I the only damn woman around here? Why me?”

  My voice echoed through the house, but I didn’t care. I stepped away from the room that now stank of sweat, blood, and death, and made my way into the kitchen, passing the bookshelves—empty now. Of course. Aska knew me too well. He always did.

  He had predicted what I would do. What I needed to do.

  In the kitchen, I opened every window and every door, save one. There was no use scrubbing the memory out of those walls, no spell strong enough, not even Aska’s. I didn’t know why the magic circle used to erase memories was gone. Maybe he had removed it in anticipation. Or maybe it sensed what had happened and simply unraveled on its own.

  It didn’t matter.

  I gathered every barbecue lighter I could find, all of them, and placed them in a neat pile outside the bedroom door. I didn’t hesitate. Fire bloomed at the touch of the first spark, catching the wood greedily, hungrily. The smoke thickened quickly, curling up the hallway, devouring the heart of the house—the bedroom.

  Only then did I retreat, calm and methodical, and redress myself in a simple, clean frock that hadn’t been tainted by blood or memory.

  When I stepped outside, Aska was still there, exactly where I’d left him. His arms were crossed, and his expression unreadable—though I caught the faint flicker of amusement dancing behind his eyes.

  “Hi, Aska!” I chirped, the smile stretching across my face like freshly painted porcelain. “Nearly didn’t see you there.”

  He didn’t respond. Just stood there in silence, letting the smoke rise behind me.

  “It seems our house caught fire,” I continued, feigning innocence as naturally as I breathed. “Terrible, isn’t it? But at least you saved all our stuff. Did you remember the socks I knitted? You know—the ones I left in the hallway?”

  He raised a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching. Still silent.

  “I mean, it’s a real blessing that I was already thinking about moving,” He added like nothing was wrong. “Otherwise, we might’ve lost everything. Oh, well. Too bad we saved our bedroom for the official moving day…”

  His silence was a gift. A kindness. He knew better than to say anything more. If he’d made a joke—mocked the scene, reminded me of what I saw—I might have torn him to pieces right there. Even him. Even Aska.

  “That’s great to hear!” I said with forced cheer. “I know a perfect hill just a few kilometers east of here. It has a lovely view of the non existent sunrise. What do you say—should we build our next house there?”

  He finally gave a nod, and we turned our backs on the smoke curling skyward, black and thick and final.

  And just like that, we left the house behind.

  I didn’t look back. Not once.

  There would be no mourning for that place. No sentimentality. No flicker of nostalgia.

  It was tainted beyond redemption. That was no longer a home—it was a burial ground for mistakes I never intended to make and a monster I had created, shaped, broken, and failed to discard in time.

  But never again.

  Never.