Mori detached the chain from the tree, letting her body hit the ground.
"Still breathing?"
He could see her chest slightly moving.
"Alright."
He undid the chains and sat her down against the tree.
As he looked behind it, he could see the sun slowly setting, orange shades through the clouds in the sky.
A cold wind had picked up, blowing through his hair as he looked back at the manor.
I guess I'm not done with this place.
He kneeled and picked Aura on his back, holding her arms.
He went around the manor, following the wall until he found an entrance.
It was a door leading to what seemed to be the kitchen.
It looked abandoned, with barely anything decorating it, and a layer of dust.
He went through it, reaching a dining room.
He felt Aura move on his back.
"What are you looking for?" she whispered in his ear, weak.
"The dungeon he mentioned."
"To the left."
He went through the door on the left, it connected to a hallway.
"Left," she said.
He opened the closest door on his left, revealing stone-carved stairs going down.
It was dark, but he could still easily see the contour of things as he started going down.
I guess my white eyes are useful for something.
As he went down, he could feel Aura's heart beating against his back, slowly.
Her breathing also slowed down, her exhales softly brushing against his ear.
"Ironic," said Mori.
"What... is?" she whispered.
"You waited your whole life for a treatment. You thought you were sick, yet you weren't. You were hoping for a cure, but you were slowly ingesting poison until the day you would eventually be killed by someone you trusted."
"Is... it... ironic?"
His grip on her arm tightened as he kept going down. "More than you would think."
As he reached the dungeon, it was a singular room, a wide rectangle.
There was a stone bed in the middle, with a table next to it displaying various tools.
"So when you were sitting on my bed earlier, you were harvesting hexes?"
"Yes."
She looked at the multiple holes scattered across his chest.
She raised her arm toward him, but he didn't move.
She inched closer and ran her fingers across his body.
"That's... Horrible." She stared into his holes. "You need to keep better control."
"You care about me, now?" mocked Mori.
She didn't answer, but sustained his gaze.
"Huh. Well, the brand stays on your tongue, whatever it is you're planning. I've taken care of adding a stronger one while I gave you my blood minutes ago."
She took his wrist and started licking it. He was surprised, but quickly felt relief.
"Ah, I guess without that, most of your victims would die from blood loss."
"If I had any victims," she said.
His open wound slowly closed until only a scar remained.
She let go of his hand and looked around.
"So what are we doing here?"
"I need to harvest more hexes. Griswald was right. I'm weak, and lucky he drank your blood. I won't have that kind of advantage over my next enemies, so I need to grow stronger. After that, I'll take the ring back."
She looked down at her hand wearing it.
"Alright..."
"Those are your official commands: Keep the ring safe, keep the barrier on this domain up, and keep me above all else, safe."
"I will."
"Sadly, it's probably too late for the maid, but you might want to keep some animals around if you need blood and feel hungry. Worst case, just drink mine."
"Ah... My father usually provided me with some if I needed any. Probably laced with something too."
"It reminds me, don't take the stake out of his body."
Aura frowned, but agreed, unsure why he gave her all those instructions.
"Avoid unnecessarily moving me too, I don't know what those things can do to you."
Mori laid against the stone, pulling his legs onto it.
"When will you wake up? You're making it sound like it'll be a while."
Mori closed his eyes, his head against the cold stone in the humid dungeon.
He breathed deeply, preparing himself to go under and harvesting hexes.
He spoke one last time.
"In a year."