Sanguine

Hardened Heart

Over the next year, Ferenc made good on his word to give his youngest a hardened heart. With all the other Karnsteins gone, it was just him and her. Ferenc taught Mircalla how to be cold and cruel and he taught her how to stop caring about people beneath her. It was a sad thing to see, but Mircalla had no power over herself anymore and nobody was there to save her or stop Ferenc. Jusztina was still alive, but she was unable to do more than offer Mircalla the occasional shoulder to cry on. It was not enough to outweigh Ferenc's harsh lessons. So, day by day, Mircalla's heart hardened. Gone was the sweet little girl that use to race through the castle hallways. All that remained now was a second Maria.

Mircalla no longer frowned or sulked. Instead, she grew cross or brooded. She no longer wept for those outside of the Karnstein clan. Instead, she looked at them critically, or perhaps graced them with a small amount of pity. She no longer feared or felt. She became like a stone wall, unmoving and unafraid. She did not laugh, she became amused. She did not deliver justice, she made examples.

She had changed entirely, and the servants were now utterly terrified of her. She had always been relatively indifferent towards them, even as a child, and she'd never been above manipulation or occasional physical action, but now, she took pleasure in tormenting them. She really was shaping up to be exactly like Maria, but it felt even worse with Mircalla since, unlike Maria, Mircalla used to be a sweet kid.

Her punishments became notoriously harsh. And being forced to oversee them all hardened Mircalla's heart even more. Now, she could watch flogging, burning, beating and hanging while smiling and laughing. She no longer flinched when a child was tied to the whipping post. She did not cry or beg if it was someone she used to care about. Instead, she would only oversee the punishments with a grim smile. And woe to anyone who dared ask why. She was still not as loud or aggressive as Maria, but her coldness and apathy was equally terrifying, like ice and fire. Although they were very different, they were also both very deadly and the whole castle felt their burn.

Eventually, the servants stopped seeing Mircalla as a countess to be respected. Instead, she was a tyrant to be feared. Her thirst for blood terrified them all. But she did not care. As far as she was concerned, they were only slaves. They did not matter the way she, a special and noble countess, did. As far as she was concerned, she could do whatever she pleased with the servants because that was all they were. She had never been fond of any of them. The only difference was now, she was able to attack them more directly when they displeased her. Ferenc found this pleasing.

"You aren't Maria," he said one day. "But you are a countess!" then he clapped her on the back. Mircalla only gave him a dry smile in return. Magdalena was married off shortly thereafter, but it happened so quickly and with such little fanfare that Mircalla didn't even notice.

"Where is Magdalena?" the countess asked her father over dinner one night.

"Married off to some baronet just south of our kingdom," Ferenc responded, not even looking up from his plate. Mircalla offered no verbal reply. She didn't care enough to offer one. But Jusztina did.

"I hope she is doing well," the old woman sighed tiredly, sadly. But neither her husband nor her last child acknowledge her. She heaved another sigh and reluctantly continued to eat. It broke her heart to see what Ferenc was doing to Mircalla, but she was no longer able to persuade Ferenc out of it, and Mircalla spent so much time with him now that even in the rare moments when it was just her and Jusztina, Mircalla never really cared to listen to what her mother had to say anyway. Oh, how the times had changed...

"You fool!" Mircalla snarled at the servant who spilled wine all over her new dress in the middle of a party.

"Oh! Countess Karnstein! Forgive me, please!" the servant trembled, falling to her knees.

"NO!" Mircalla jumped up and slammed her fist on the table. "You shall be punished!" Then, all at once, a handful of guards sprung up and apprehended the sobbing servant quickly.

"Where do you want her?" the leader of the guards asked.

"Take her to the dungeon," Mircalla spat, eyes full of wrath.

"Yes, Countess," he bowed, then he and one other guard carried the servant off to be punished. It would be whips or finger screws, based on Mircalla's discretion. But that judgment wouldn't pass until later. Mircalla liked to inspire fear into her victims, so she kept them in suspense.

A few hours later, though, Mircalla finally gave the judgment. Finger screws it was! That servant would be useless for the next month.

"Good riddance! The fool!" Mircalla spat as the servant was tossed at her feet, passed out from pain with her fingers bloody, bone sticking out from eight of them. Others trapped in the dungeon trembled and moved further into their cells.

When the punishment was over, however, Mircalla left without a sound and made her way to bed with her newest lover who found her ferocity deeply attractive. But there was no true love between them because of Mircalla's hardened heart, so it did not take long for her to tire of him and move onto her next passion. She always was stuck in some one great romance or another. This man was just another name in a long list of her lovers whom she had bedded with.

Her father, as old as he was, had no idea about any of her trysts but frankly, she wouldn't have cared if he did find out. She was the countess, she got to call the shots. If she wanted to continue sleeping with these men, she would do so. Even if she only kept these men around for one night, it was always a good night. Her father slept in a very large and luxurious room. A few doors down, another man lay in bed. With him was his hostess and lover, the vicious countess of Karnstein. Any servant who ever dared hint that he or she knew about these affairs was tortured into silence, tongue and/or teeth removed.