I used to love this room, with its light cream rug that catches the light from the larger bay windows on the east wall that overlooked the once glassy blue bay, to only have its light drained by the blood red walls. They all remind me of her. And I hate that.

I take a sweeping glance around the room, trying to find any part that does not remind me of her. A heavy oak china cabinet stands alone on the west side of the room, its cracked glass panels sending uneven ripples of light onto the delicate porcelain shards of the cups that once dotted the shelf. The only other furniture in the room is an oversized armchair under the window, in which she once sat in to watch the burning boats out on the bay. But the bay is black now, with the bodies of smoldering ships and their ill-fated crews. The room that once held life and that voice, that voice of silk on porcelain skin, that voice that drew those soulless travelers in from miles around, it has all been silenced like her. The delicate porcelain cups that once brimmed with tea from faraway places, have been smashed by soldiers' meaty palms, causing the white shards to be stained by the blood of their victims. Just like her. The walls weren’t always red; they were once cream, pure and innocent, like her, but then they painted them with her, they painted the walls with the woman who started it all. They painted with the blood of the woman who freed them all.

I look at the painting of her and I. My long platinum blond hair is the only discernible part of the once flawless painting. I am the only discernible part. She is cut, slashed out of her own life.

But you can still feel her, you can still hear that voice of silk on the fairest of maidens' skins. The voice of the woman in red, the voice of the woman who is called a traitor by all who know her. But that is what we Chaffees are, traitors. Or at least that is what I am, for I told them where to find the woman with the voice of silk.