ANIMOSITY

"Thank you for visiting me and for making my dress, I will surely proudly show off the dress you made for me. I am truly blessed to have you as my personal designer." Felicia smiled, holding Yulie's hands dearly.

Yulie on the other hand, smiled at her, beaming with pride and adoration for her saviour. If it wasn't for Felicia then she would've been someone living in the slums because her passion is not for the poor. 

"The honour is mine, Milady. I'll always be your loyal servant." She added, smiling as she bowed her head and held Felicia's hands with a tight grip, feeling overwhelmed with how the Lady valued her. 

As the carriage soon fled away, Felicia stared at the fleeting carriage where Yulie was riding, leaving the estate. She didn't move, waiting until the carriage had vanished from her sight before turning around and starting to walk inside the castle. 

"Mistress, the day is moving too fast. It is already 5 in the afternoon, you need to have your dinner in order for you to have a good night's rest." Olivia said, approaching her side as they went inside the grand manor, climbing the stairs that would lead her towards her room. 

"I wish I could pause this day." She sighed, her fingernails digging into the skin of her palms, grinding her teeth as the awaited day for her ruin had already been set to stone, happening tomorrow. 

"Do not worry, Mistress. Whatever happens tomorrow, Lord Alexander will always be at your side." Olivia muttered, walking behind her as she followed her lady, passing the rooms. 

"I know. But we could not go if you broke my arm. Because I don't want to come." She replied, shaking her head as the desire for not going to that party kept on giving her the ick to break her arm. 

If it's not for Yulie's hard work on the dress that she made, she would really break her own arm if it meant not going. "You forgot, Mistress. By simply breaking your arm, it'll heal on its own. You are the real Saintess after all." She mumbled in response, keeping her tone subtle and quiet. 

Felicia sighed, what Olivia said was right. The slap too from the Duke has healed in a slow process, leaving no trace of the bruise. No one questioned it, even Alexander and Olivia knew that it was because of her ability.

"I just wish that there could be a way for me not to come." She said, opening her door and going inside, letting her body succumb to the sheets in the bed. The dress was still there, intact and pretty.

It seems that no one had planned to ruin it. Helena must have not seen it probably arriving. 

"Can you just deliver the dinner here? I do not want to see the two of them eating in front of me. It'll just make my stomach feel very bad." She requested, ordering Olivia to just bring her dinner right into her room. 

"Of course, Mistress. If that's what you wish." She accepted, bowing her head before leaving the room to grab Felicia's dinner. 

Meanwhile, Felicia groaned, punching her pillow in distress as it might trigger something that she does not know. It's not that she feared coming there, rather it felt disgusting to even stay beside his side. 

"Goddess, why me..." She mumbled, kicking her toes while biting her lip in annoyance. Whatever fate has written for her including vindictiveness coming from everyone who hated her sole existence, then she will do anything in her power to avoid any disaster that may lead to her death. 

Bring it on.

—

As the day succumbed to the night filled with the resentment of the clouds, pushing out the rain and creating thunder roars, the manor was enveloped by silence yet disrupted by the rain and the thunder clapping. 

As the halls and each room were quiet, such malicious intent ruptured the whole hall, where no one could even notice the figure walking through the holes, holding a sharp thing in its hand. 

The rain and the constant thunder had made the figure's footsteps silent and not evident to even hear. The coldness seeped through every corner, followed by the chill and eerie serenity inside. 

Soon comes the figure, opening the door in silence and watching the sleeping woman, wrapped in her woolly blanket in comfort. Yet the figure's expression held disdain and envy as it raised its hand holding the sharp thing, its eyes burning in glare and resentment towards Felicia. 

In spite where the thunder roaring, she sliced Felicia's cheek, wounding her in gratification as the figure laughed, watching Felicia squirm because of the pain yet she had not woken up from what the figure did to her. 

The figure was satisfied to see the bleeding wound, however, its eyes were set on the glimmering dress, all in its form placed in the centre, adorned with thousands of glimmering trinkets, which would clearly steal the show tomorrow. 

With a hateful gaze towards the dress, the figure rushed to where it was and immediately destroyed the dress, tearing and creating holes until the dress couldn't be even worn because of what it did. 

With satisfaction visible on its face, the person left the room in a hurry, leaving all the dirty work that it did so that Felicia would never be able to show her face tomorrow. The show must be for her only, to the woman it serves. 

As soon as the figure reached a certain room, it kneeled on the floor, smiling in victory as it bowed its head towards the person facing the mirror while brushing its long blonde hair. None other than Helena. 

"Did you do it?" She asked the person who dared to crash Felicia's outfit. It was the knight who served the Saintess, Leonardo Silva who agreed to ruin the dress as the Saint requested for him.

Other than that, he was also the one who caused the bloodied cheek of that woman, as a payment for what the lady did to him. That wench really gave him a headache with its stubborn and prideful appearance, always landing him in his butt. 

"I did, just like what you asked me to do, your Holiness." He answered her question, still his head bowed down. He was smiling like a psycho, wanting to burst into laughter as he destroyed the important part of a woman's quality. 

Her face. 

"Very good, you deserve a reward," Helena said as she stood up from sitting on the chair facing her vanity mirror and smiled sweetly at the knight who kept on kneeling on the floor. 

"You may stand, my brave warrior." She offered, which the Baron immediately did and stood up, waiting for her reward with a wicked grin plastered on his lips.

Helena slowly made his way towards the knight, wrapping her arms around the Knight's nape and placing a kiss on his lips to which the Knight immediately responded to her intoxicating kiss.

The reward that he awaited, the very reward he would always get whenever he did something for her. A kiss from the Saintess triggered his arousal for this holy lady of the land. 

He immediately wrapped his hands around the lady's waist, pulling Helena's body closer to him as their kiss intensified. It felt like being electrocuted, sending shivers down to Leonardo's spine. 

"You did a great job..." She whispered as she pulled away from the kiss she started, grinning at the stupid Knight who immediately turned himself into a mindless slave of hers, always wagging his tail for her.

Felicia is right, this man is a dog to her.

—

"That hurts," Felicia responded as she sat on the edge and stood up, walking towards the mirror to look at what the person did to her. "Seems like it was a plot made by that woman. To think that she sent her knight to do this to you." Noctua replied as he emerged from the darkness, landing on the table.

"Or he maybe has a personal grudge at me for what I did to him in the last days when we met each other." Felicia chuckled as she sat in front of her vanity table, facing the mirror and staring at the bloodied cheek of her, blood sliding down. 

"That could also be the reason. However, it will always be Helena," Noctua replied, looking at the blood on her cheek. "Even the dress had been tortured severely, what a maniac." He added, his eyes trailing towards the dress.

"I can't help it. I would've saved it if not for a plan suddenly developing inside my head." Felicia sighed as she turned around and looked at the destroyed dress made by the Baron's wrath. 

The poor dress, tattered and destroyed because of someone's wickedness, it breaks her heart that Yulie's work had been ruined because of those stupid assholes. She gritted her teeth, her hands curled into fists as the thunders continued to roar. 

"What are you thinking?" Noctua asked as he looked at her with curiosity. Whatever she plans, Noctua will always be an accomplice of her malicious intentions. 

She sighed in distress and turned around, opening the cabinet of her vanity set up, pulling a piece of paper and a pen and began writing something into the paper. Meanwhile, Noctua just stared at her in silence, waiting for whatever she was commanding her. 

If it's for her, then Noctua is willing to do anything that she wants. 

As soon as she was done writing something on the paper, she looked around to look for something to shield the paper from the destruction of the rain. It was pouring out but not heavy despite the continuous roars of thunder. 

As soon as she was able to find one, she rolled a ribbon into it and tied it on Noctua's ankle, hoping that this message would be delivered immediately from Yulie, a dear friend of hers. 

"Deliver this to Yulie Rajeh, the one whom I helped to become a fashion designer. You must wake her up for her to see this. Whatever you do, as long as she reads this, make it happen." She said, patting Noctua's head as she finally put the piece of message tied to his ankle.

She grinned menacingly, face filled with a vengeful look. "Since she wanted everyone's attention, I'll be stealing the limelight from that pretty imagination of hers. Did she want to become the star? I don't think so." She mumbled and opened the door to her balcony for Noctua to fly and relay the letter to Yulie Rajeh. 

As Noctua began to fly in the dark, Felicia stood on her balcony's door, looking at Noctua who eventually vanished in the dark. As the water droplets hit her toes, she could feel the wound on her cheek start to disappear as light embedded the wound, healing the spot where the Knight wounded her.

With a vengeance written all over her face, she muttered to herself, along the lines that would clearly happen tomorrow. Mark her words very well.

"I will surely become the shining light, Helena. Not you, not everyone else. Me."