Chapter 9 Class 2.2: Controlled Vulnerability

Chapter 9 Class 2.2: Controlled Vulnerability
Each step toward The Velvet Chamber felt like a march toward the gallows. Today, the room didn’t smell of lilies; it smelled of dry paper and old dust—a sign that the lesson was unearthed from the darkest chapters of the Sanctum’s history.

There were no chairs. We were ordered to sit directly on the floor—cold oak wood surrounded by blood-red walls. The position was tactical: designed to make us feel small, exposed, and defenseless.

Madame V stood in the center, draped in a crimson power suit that made her look like a predator carved from rubies. Beside her, Julian leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the floor—a rare moment where he refused to meet my eyes.

“A Mistress’s greatest weapon isn’t her beauty. It’s her vulnerability,” Madame V began, her voice a silken caress laced with venom. “A man is easily seduced by the body, but to capture his soul, you must become a wounded bird that only he can save.”

Dominique smirked, her fingers brushing her Rank 1 badge. She lived for this. She loved playing the victim.

“Class 2.2: Controlled Vulnerability,” Madame V continued. “Today, you will tell us a story of trauma. It must be visceral. It must be heartbreaking. We need to see how far you can manipulate your target’s emotions to secure their protection.”

The round began. Dominique was first. She spun a fabricated tale of a lost sister and a broken home. She cried on cue—perfect, crystalline tears that tracked down her cheeks without smearing her eyeliner.

“Very good, Dominique. Cliché, but effective,” Madame V noted.
Lulu was next. She struggled. She told a story about her grandmother, but her voice was too shaky, her fear too raw. She wasn’t controlling the vulnerability; the vulnerability was controlling her.
“Too weak, Rank 12. Try harder,” Madame V’s voice was a whip.

Then, her eyes settled on me. A predatory smile stretched across her lips. “And now, our little ghost. Eris, Rank 15. Show us what you have.”

I stood up. Every step toward the center of the circle felt like walking on broken glass. I felt Julian’s head lift. He was watching me now—wary, intense, as if he knew that whatever was about to come out of my mouth would be a weapon.

I stopped in the center. I breathed in, letting every wall I had built over the last three years crumble brick by brick.

“My story is about a cell,” I began. My voice was low, barely a whisper, yet it silenced the room.

The luxury of the chamber vanished. The crimson walls bled into the gray, damp cement of a memory.

FLASHBACK

I remembered that day. A week after my last visit to Papa. An anonymous official called, telling me to collect the ‘asset’ from the prison morgue. Asset. That was their word for my father’s corpse.

The morgue smelled of formalin mixed with rotting meat and rust. It was freezing—not the kind of cold from an air conditioner, but the kind that sinks into your marrow and stays there. When they slid the tray out, I didn’t see my father. I saw a skeleton draped in skin. His fingernails were gone—ripped out by interrogators. His neck had a deep, purple ligature mark, but the angle was wrong. It didn’t go up; it went straight back, as if he had been strangled from behind while kneeling.

“Your father committed suicide. Case closed,” the officer said, slurping his coffee. The sound of his gulping was an insult to the silence of death. I touched Papa’s hand. It was like ice. I rubbed his skin, trying to warm him up, as if my body heat could jumpstart a heart that had already stopped. I stayed there for hours until the smell of the morgue became my own scent. I was sixteen, standing over the ruins of my world, realizing that in Vespera, ‘justice’ is just a word they use to decorate the law.

PRESENT

“…the last thing I remember was the sound of the metal tray sliding back into the wall,” I finished. “The sound of a life being filed away as ‘resolved.’”

The room was deathly silent.

Dominique was staring at me, her fake tears gone, replaced by genuine horror. Lulu had her hands over her mouth, eyes brimming with real sorrow. The other Proteges seemed unable to breathe.

I looked at Madame V.

Her eyes were glittering. She wasn’t horrified; she was delighted. She stepped toward me and cupped my face. Her skin felt like a snake’s scale.

“Exquisite,” Madame V whispered. “The detail… the formalin, the purple marks… that was masterful, Eris. Your imagination is truly dark. It felt so real, I almost believed it myself.”

“I practiced, Madame,” I said, offering a dry, hollow smile.

“Perfect. That is how you break a man’s defenses. You give him a tragedy so raw that he feels the need to bury you in his protection just to stop the pain.” Madame V turned to the class. “Take note. Rank 15 just gave you a masterclass. She didn’t just cry—she made us feel the cold.”

I bowed my head. Performance. If only she knew that every word was a truth carved into my soul.

But it was Julian’s reaction that truly mattered.

He was no longer leaning against the wall. He was standing straight, his face pale, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of a mahogany table. He looked like he was about to vomit. In his gray eyes, I saw a flickering—guilt? Fear? Or the realization that the “mud” he found me in was actually the blood of the man his family executed.

Without a word, he turned and stormed out, the heavy doors slamming behind him.

“Ignore him,” Madame V said. “Julian has always been sensitive to… certain details. You did well, Eris. For today, you are promoted to Rank 13.”

As we walked back to the West Wing, Lulu cornered me. “Eris… that story… was it real?”

I looked at her, then at the CCTV camera above us. “It’s whatever you want it to be, Lulu. In the Sanctum, the truth is just a story that hasn’t been edited yet.”

I didn’t go into the dorm. I went to the common balcony for air. My lungs still felt heavy with the phantom scent of formalin.

“You shouldn’t have told that story.”

I straightened my back at the sound of Julian’s voice. He was in the shadows, a cigarette in his hand—the first time I’d ever seen him smoke.

“It was an assignment, Sir,” I said coldly. “Madame V was pleased.”

“It wasn’t just an assignment for you.” Julian stepped into the light. His eyes were bloodshot. “You weren’t acting, Eris.”

I froze at the use of my name. “Eris. My name is Eris.”

“Stop it!” he hissed, grabbing my arm. He smelled of tobacco and rain. “I was there, remember? I saw the reports. I saw what they did to your father’s case. Do you think I don’t know that every detail you said was exactly what happened?”

“Then why does it bother you?” I challenged, my face inches from his. “Is it because you remember that your family put him on that tray? Or because you realized that the girl you’re trying to ‘refine’ is already dead?”

Julian’s grip on my arm tightened until it was painful. I didn’t flinch.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and grief. “If my mother realizes your ‘vulnerability’ is actually your motivation, she won’t just dispose of you. She will erase you.”

“Then let her try,” I replied. “I’ve already been erased once, Julian. I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.”

I pulled my arm away. This was the first crack in his armor. He wasn’t the untouchable Conservator anymore; he was a man haunted by the ghost of a girl he failed to protect.

“By the way, Sir,” I added. “Thank you for the promotion. Rank 13 is much closer to the East Wing than Rank 15.”

I walked away, leaving him alone in the rain.