Rosalind watched a small blue spider skitter along the ceiling of Caspian's room. Its skinny legs moved as if in a dance-- a tiny ballerina in grotesque costume. The spider began to weave a web, using its legs now to knit itself a little home and a little trap.

Rosalind's mind moved to death and how months ago she feared the Borgo Beast for all his wrongdoings. Never would she have imagined herself in his bed, his willing lover. Thoughts of Clairie invaded her. She stifled a sob with her fist. Death was King in Transylvania. But it was when Rosalind remembered Lilly's letters and the terrifying lights thrashing over the sky did she feel a burst of terror. Transylvania was doomed and it was all her fault. Guilt became a carnivorous beast, eating up her insides as the little blue spiders had done to Calla.

Little did Rosalind know that in the crypt, webs had long since covered Calla like a shroud. The spiders, all but one, lay dead inside her glass coffin and Calla's body had turned to ash. When the little blue spider above Rosalind's head finished her web, the lord's wife denigrated under the lace of web and was no more.

Rising off the bed, she felt dizzy. A wave of nausea hit her violently making her stagger and clasp onto the bedposts for support. Using the bedsheets to cover herself up, she grabbed her stained clothing and hurled them into the fireplace, suddenly sickened by the sight and scent of blood. Silent, she slipped out of Caspian's chamber and closed the door behind her. There was a chance someone may see her as she moved from the lord's room and her own, but Rosalind did not expect to see Troy crumpled like a broken toy on the top of the steps, bleeding from long, violent slashes on his back.

"Troy!" Running to him, the long hem of Rosalind's sheet trailed behind her like a clingy ghost. Falling to her knees beside him, she saw the way his shirt had been torn and fell off his shoulders and back.

Clinging onto the shreds close to his chest, Troy struggled to suck in deep mouthfuls of air. The scent of coppery-blood circled the pair like a vulture. Pain would wait until they were both spiritually dead to feast upon whatever remained of them. When Troy looked up at Rosalind, the agony was evident on his face. Tears streaked his cheeks, his lip was cut and he had a horrid bruise on his cheek. The imprint of a hand lay across Troy's face like a mask.

"Who...?" Rosalind asked in a pitiful tone but she already knew the answer. Carefully helping Troy up, she led him over the top step. As she accidentally brushed her hand along one of the wounds, Troy bit his lip to keep from screaming yet the faint moan escaping from his lips was akin to a badly wounded animal.

Opening the door to his room, Rosalind led him towards his bed where she helped him sit. She could not believe the way he had been beaten. Caspian's savagery had come for Troy and brought no mercy. Inspecting his back, she saw the angry whip marks and felt her heart shatter into thousands of pieces. "Why?"

Troy struggled with breath. Though the tear stains upon his face were old, there were now new tears spilling down over them. With Troy's confession, every word broke Rosalind more and more until there was nothing left inside her but a thousand shattered pieces of soul.

Troy's voice was barely a whisper, "I told him I knew you were back." Bringing his hands up to his chest, he bowed his head into them. "That he should tell you to go...he has no right holding on to you... pulling you into his violent darkness. He told me to mind my own doings and never speak of you again. But I went on...I...I know I should have stopped but I feared he would drag you so deeply into his hell that you would never find your way back out."

Troy's words hit Rosalind hard. Everything he said was a stab to the heart.

"When he said he would do what he desired I grabbed him. I pushed him into the wall and told him to set you free. He slapped me so hard my lip split. I saw the rage inside him when he grabbed me by the collar and lifted me up to strike me again. He asked me why I even cared," Troy's voice trembled. "I did not tell him what we had done." Looking up at Rosalind, Troy began to cry. "But I told him I harbored feelings for you from afar. It enraged him. He dragged me to his library, howling that you belonged to him alone. I begged him to reconsider setting you free. I could take his abuse but I cannot see you becoming a monster like him." Troy paused to take a ragged breath. "He laughed and told me that not all monsters are born, some were once little girls and if it was darkness you craved then darkness you would become."

Rosalind felt as if someone was strangling her. Her peripheral vision was black. All she could see was Troy, faded into black and white with shocking streaks of red.

"What did he do to you?" she croaked finding it hard to speak.

"He tied me to a pillar, ripped my shirt, then whipped me until I fell unconscious. When you found me I was trying to escape the manor but I have no strength, Rosalind...I cannot flee further than the forest. I am damned and now you are, too. He destroyed everyone he touches."

Upon listening to Troy, the man Rosalind had fallen in love with morphed back into the horrific monster who had taken her away from her family. She felt a vice-like grip of logic squeeze her intestines, the silver vorpal blade manifested in her mind and whispered, "Kill him." Rosalind knew she could not let Caspian continue to wreak havoc. A monster never truly changes, he simply morphs into another sort of beast. Cruel can never be kind and I am now lost in limbo, teetering on the scale of good and evil because of him. I love a monster and I will become him if I dare not fulfill my destiny. I am sinking and salvation is but a rotting log for me to use to try and swim back to shore. But how...how do I do it without dying alongside him?

Ever so carefully, as to not touch his wounds, Rosalind held Troy close to her. She kissed his falling tears until they stopped. Bringing her lips to his, she made a promise. "He will never harm you again. I swear it on my life." She knew what had to be done. She would have to kill Caspian. Though wicked as it may be, it was her destiny. But Rosalind also knew that killing him would also be the death of her.