I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

The eerie floral scent spiked, thickening in the air. It was a chilling sort of sweetness, laced with an edge of indescribable danger.

The other luminescent plants in the garden—those high-rank, precious existences—had their brilliance instantly eclipsed. Every other color, every scrap of radiance, was ruthlessly drowned out by that profound, demonic crimson-black.

The beauty of the black roses was a silent one. Barbed. A heart-stopping kind of gorgeous that seemed to swallow the very light around it—a beauty so absolute you couldn’t tear your eyes away!

Pandora’s eyelashes fluttered, a sudden daze washing over her. Before she could even process what a full-bloom of black roses in this garden might signify—

A hand thrust out from nowhere.

And I mean that quite literally.

A woman’s hand jutted out with jarring abruptness from a ripple in the air right in front of Pandora.

The hand had milky-white skin, smooth as the finest porcelain. The fingers were long and slender, the knuckles perfectly proportioned, the nails neatly trimmed and gleaming with a healthy pale-pink sheen.

It was a flawless hand.

It was… Faye’s hand.

It reached out from the void with a singular, unmistakable target—Pandora. The distance between them vanished in a heartbeat. The hand didn’t move fast; if anything, it was painfully slow. Yet that slowness only fostered the terrifying illusion that evasion was impossible, as if time itself had turned to molasses, or her body had been pinned to the spot by some invisible, absolute force.

In a flash of motion, a silhouette interposed itself.

“Please conduct yourself with dignity.”

The voice was gentle, yet unyielding. Elsa, somehow, had already stepped forward, placing herself squarely between Pandora and the floating hand. The maid’s gaze was resolute, staring down the limb from the void as she tensed into a guarding stance.

The hand stopped. It seemed to hesitate, hovering in mid-air, its fingertips less than an inch from Elsa’s chest. The air crystallized into a brittle silence.

A second later, the hand made its move. It pivoted, snagging Elsa by the wrist!

“Elsa!” Pandora barked.

“Elsa! I swear to protect My Lady to the dea—”

Her voice cut off mid-sentence. Elsa’s figure instantly dissolved into thin air, leaving behind not even a ripple. Only the sea of blooming black roses remained, swaying softly in the silence.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

A beat later, the hand emerged from the void once more. But this time, as it reached Pandora, it slowly dipped downward. Then, it uncurled, palm up, presenting itself right in front of her.

The posture was... an invitation?

Pandora’s heart skipped a beat.

In a daze, she could almost see “Faye” whole and complete—the gentle yet fiercely stubborn sister from her memories—smiling as she extended her hand, inviting her to someplace else.

“You want me to come with you?”

The hand didn’t speak. It just lay there, palm up, patient and elegant.

“Is it... dangerous?”

The hand remained motionless. It simply waited, exuding a patient, unhurried grace.

Pandora took a deep breath and checked her mental link with Elsa. While their rudimentary mental bond wasn’t strong enough to show her Elsa’s exact surroundings, she could at least confirm the maid wasn’t harmed. Her heartbeat was only slightly elevated. It meant Elsa had merely been relocated; her freedom of movement might be restricted, but her life wasn’t in danger.

Pandora breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Her gaze drifted back to the impossibly flawless hand hovering before her. Pandora remained silent for a few seconds. Then, she took another deep breath, her eyes calming into resolve. She reached out and grasped Faye’s hand.

It was cool to the touch, the texture as delicate as the finest silk.

The next second, she was pulled forward a single step, and just like Elsa, she vanished into the ripples of the air.

The garden was left in absolute silence. Well, silence and a garden full of silently blooming black roses.

A breath later...

“Who to ask, though?” Amanda seemed to finally snap out of her reverie, massaging her temples as she muttered to herself. “Too low a rank, and they’d be entirely useless. Too high, and it’ll cost me way too many favors.”

“What a headache... What do you think, my little Apprentice?”

She turned around, fully expecting to ask Pandora’s opinion, only to be met with a vast, echoing stretch of empty space.

“Where did they go?”

Amanda’s expression locked up. A second ago, Pandora had been right behind her, waiting patiently. And now? Two living, breathing people had just evaporated right from under her nose???

You’ve got to be kidding me.

This was her garden! Her home turf! Was there seriously someone out there who could just smuggle her Apprentices away without her noticing a damn thing?

Wait!

As the realization hit her, Amanda’s eyes swept the room. She instantly locked onto the black roses—the ones currently blooming with that demonic, crimson-black radiance.

They were breathtaking. Dreamlike. Blooming with such vivid splendor, yet radiating such uncanny wrongness.

Amanda stood frozen in place. She didn’t say a word. That signature lazy smile on her lips slowly retracted, fading away until it was completely erased.

No explanation was needed. None at all.

She understood exactly what had happened.

“She” had been here.

Yet, in her own mind’s eye, she couldn’t perceive that familiar silhouette.

That alone spoke volumes.

Visible to the flowers. Visible to you. Yet invisible to me.

How utterly... cruel.

A bitter, remarkably complex smile crept onto Amanda’s face.

The exact instant that smile surfaced—

Every single black rose in the garden withered in unison. The once-vibrant petals rapidly lost their moisture, curling, blackening, and cracking into a fine black powder that drifted down like ash.

A full bloom, reduced to dust in a heartbeat.

Amanda remained standing there, her posture tall and elegant, yet overshadowed by a sudden, striking loneliness in this buried, subterranean space. The languid warmth previously cast by the golden lights had completely evaporated, replaced by a desolate chill of abandonment. It was as if that grand blooming had been nothing more than a gash carved into her heart by a supremely lofty entity—a slash that the entity had already brushed off, leaving behind only a jagged mess for Amanda to clean up.

When it comes to roses, some see the thorns, some see the beauty. And then there are those who only want to hold it in their hands, only to find themselves forever separated by an invisible pane of glass—forever beyond reach...