WHITE DARKNESS - BLACK MAGIC SAGA - BOOK 1

UNSPEAKABLE

Two hours later, after Alchemy, when their class had already finished and they were heading to the Banquet Hall for lunch, Leevanna frowned, feeling this desire of going back and search the stairs that lead to the Infirmary wing.

Curiouser, curiouser.

“What do you think?” she was snapped out of her intrusive thoughts when Freya spoke to her.

“Yeah, what you said… I have to go somewhere,” and with that, she handed Lhu her things and started rushing down the hall to the gigantic open doors that were calling her. The fire that illuminated the chateau flashing before her. Pushing many students out of the way, she almost fled up the many stairs that would lead her to her destiny.

Almost out of breath, she finally reached then sixth floor of the chateau, where the Gleaxsiara Institute hospital wing was. Starting to control her breathing, she used her inner magic to warm her body and simulate she had a high temperature.

Finally reaching the door of the infirmary, she stopped and took a deep breath before she began to walk calmly as if nothing was wrong before she entered through the doors.

“Miss Vaughan, everything alright?” Madame Pamela inquired, soaking some gauze pads in water to then place them over Vailant’s forehead. A panel of his anatomy and a scan charm hanging next to him as a way of telling if everything was alright.

Leevanna opened her mouth willing to say something, but she closed it quickly trying to formulate an answer. Well, she hadn’t exactly thought of an excuse, she had only left her girlfriends halfway and started running until she reached the place in less than ten minutes.

A miracle considering she usually made it in fifteen.

She had been thinking about something all day. And that was the Pegasiphix… Or the incident Vailant had with it, better said. She hadn’t known anything about him since Tuesday, and she hadn’t seen him either, so, she just… Well perhaps he had fortunately died, and she just wanted to make sure of it. Yes, yes, that was it.

“Um… My head has been hurting a lot for a couple of hours now and I came to ask if you can check my temperature,” she said. And it wasn’t a lie. With all that thinking a migraine had been haunting her all day. “With… The thing two days ago… I didn’t want to worry Professor Reeves.”

This seemed to catch Vailant’s attention, whose eyes locked into Leevanna’s, which drifted away. “Oh, dear, of course, how have you been feeling?” the middle-aged woman asked with a smile. “Has the itch come back?” and Leevanna wanted to die right there. Couldn’t Madame Pamela stay quiet? Her cheeks acquired a pale rosy tone, and she shook her head. “That’s so good. The two of you wait for me here, I’ll bring the thermometer. No fighting while I’m gone.”

And when the woman left, Vailant raised both eyebrows.

“What?”

Vailant stared at her for a second. “Nothing.”

Leevanna rolled her eyes.

She wasn’t in the mood to put up with his stupid behaviour. Her migraine had already come back, even though all the thinking she had done all day was already gone. Her eyes went to the scan charm hanging by the side of Vailant. Everything was fine, though there were some annotations next to his anatomy. “Prone to epilepsy, are we?”

He looked at her again. Eyes hard.

“Worried about me?” his expression playful even though his eyes didn’t reflect the same.

“Worried? Me? About you?” he nodded slowly and proudly. “Ha! You wish.”

“Little Vaughan is worried about me,” now his eye were also playful, she realised.

“When abominations to the pure stop existing and infesting this earth I will worry about you,” she rolled her eyes crossing her arms on her chest.

A few seconds later, both turned their heads hearing footsteps.

Madame Pamela walked towards Leevanna and put thermometer inside her mouth under her tongue.

“Goodness! You have a fever of almost 102°! For your element this is so dangerous!” Leevanna sighed. Damn migraine. “I have to check your medical record but are you somehow allergic or sensitive to sudden changes of temperature or even the fur of creatures?” the woman asked and Leevanna hesitated if saying something.

She wouldn’t like Vailant to know her weaknesses.

“Er… Hm, when I was born my mother didn’t have enough breastmilk to feed me, and many doctors have said that my body defences are almost as low as the one Nonchanters have, and that my body is very propense to catch something even quicker than any other magical being, so I think yes.”

Madame Pamela nodded, remembering something she couldn’t say. “I’m going to give you a couple of things to lower that fever and some potions to see if we can change it at least for the upcoming winter,” Leevanna nodded. “On the other hand, Mr Vailant, you may experience some migraines, if they are very bad, please come to me, and please don’t be dramatic about this, that you are not dead,” and the jade-eyed girl exploded in laughter while the boy glared at her.

After a few minutes, when Madame Pamela had given them both a potion for each, they walked in silence to the exit and down the stairs. Eisdrache glanced at Leevanna for a second, and then shook his head before making a turn and leaving the girl alone.

Leevanna stood there for a second, watching him go at a steady pace. Her gaze hardened. And she continued to walk towards the Banquet Hall with her mouth shut. Once she arrived at the part of the table her friends were in, she sat and let Lhu fill her bowl with a steak cut in cubes and mash potatoes as she took out her homework from her bag. Leevanna took a sip from the goblet of water she had by the side of her plate before grabbing a spoon and taking food to her mouth.

Homework would ease her.

“Have you know something about Eisdrache?” asked Leah Levine towards Mason. “It’s Friday already and I haven’t seen him anywhere.”

Mason nodded, finishing to chew his fettuccine, “He is supposed to be released from Hospital today so—” his onyx eyes then drifted to the person entering the hall, “—oh, there he is.”

Leevanna didn’t even bother in looking up.

“We were talking about you, how are you?” asked Freya taking chips dipped in mayonnaise to her mouth. The two blonde strands of her hair in braids. She smirked, “Heard you yelled you were dead.”

Eisdrache scoffed, taking a seat between Mason and Freya.

“I can practically hear him,” laughed Rhazel before standing and placing a hand over his forehead. “I am dead! I am dead! You will be punished for this!”

Now this made Leevanna smirk against the spoon in her mouth as she finished writing her essay for Alchemy, but her smirk was quickly erased when Jia Xieren next to two other girls came by and stopped when they saw the stupid face of Vailant. “Oh, Eisdrache,” one of them said, Anabelle Thomas, House Vasilka, “I heard what happened, are you okay?” He, robbing Freya of one of her chips, nodded.

“Madame Pamela said something to you, Drache?” asked Jia. Leevanna rolled her eyes. “Do you need help with something?”

“I will have some migraines, yes, but everything is alright,” he smiled at her before taking the chip dipped in BBQ sauce to his mouth. “But yes, d’you have the essay from the class of Life Gardening and Herbalism?”

“Oh, Drache!” came another voice. Ornella Osborn, sixth year Vasilka. “Heard you were attacked by a Pegasi! Are you okay?”

He smiled at her politely, “Yes, everything is alright, thank you for asking.”

Leevanna couldn’t even believe it.

Rhazel and Mason looked at each other, “Where is my Pegasiphix?” said the first. “Damn, I want that attention.”

“Mate if I had known it would drive the birds crazy then I would have been the one,” Mason laughed. The jade-eyed just rolled her eyes again when another girl from Vasilka came and asked Vailant for the incident. Then one from Faris. She couldn’t even focus on her homework!

Why did they worry so much of?

It was not like his head had come off or something, he was right in front of them, what need was there to ask with the shrill and high-pitched voices that some of them had? And why the hell she had to care if they asked him if he was okay?

Bastard.

That foul, loathsome bastard.

Those are the first words that came into her mind. She stared at him with narrowed eyes, with all the willing of the world to stab or kill him with just her gaze — maybe with the quill she is tightening every second with her hand, pressing the gold-made tip into the poor table thinking that it was Vailant’s face.

What’s more, she was thinking it was his whole soul itself and that she was punishing him for making her even think about him and that well deserved incident. She had wasted precious thirty bloody minutes of her horrible life just for that bastard. Now, instead of fake ‘worrisome,’ there was a sour and acid flavour inside it, making her cardia hurt like hell.

Loathsome bastard.

She, outraged, gasped silently when she saw his smug smile appeared across his face before he rolled his eyes playfully thanks to a comment that Rhaz had made. And he had the f*****g nerve to f*****g smile!

She tightened the quill in her hand even more while writing — at that point, her handwriting was trespassing the parchment.

That little foul, tosser, prat, wanker, arsehole, shitty t**t, filthy f*****g loathsome basta—

“Holy s**t, Leev, calm down,” said Lhu snapping her out of her thoughts. A fork with steak on it near her mouth. She lowered her gaze to her hand as she stopped tightening the quill, which was half-buried in the table.

Then she looked up finding that she had made a lightning-cloud above her, and a lightning had fallen near her hand, burning the poor table a bit from the electricity shot. Some people now were staring at her for the noise the lighting had made.

She shouldn’t care at all about Eisdrache Vailant.

She should not care about anyone, really.

She didn’t even care about herself and now she was caring about someone who wasn’t even important.

“Sorry, got carried away,” she said to Lhu before making the cloud above her disappear with a flicker of her hand. Her eyes then went to the ones staring at her from the opposite table. “What? Do you want an autograph?” the white-haired raised her voice so they could hear her, passing her cold gaze for those who were staring at her. Everyone turned their heads instantly, minding their own business at the fear of catch her icy eyes. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before letting the hot air leave her nose rudely.

“Leevy,” called Esmeray Atkinson, who was in front of her, her voice dreamy, “could you give me your opinion on some Astral Projection essays I have in my dorm?”

The jade-eyed sighed and nodded. “Fine, let’s go before lunch is over,” and she stood up.

“Hey, hey, finished eating?” Lhu asked, and Leevanna just showed her empty bowl to her. “Fine, go, here before class.”

“Yes, mum,” chuckled the white-haired, linking her arm with her cousin’s so they could leave the Banquet Hall. Leevanna gave one last look back before huffing.

Bastard.

Eisdrache Vailant narrowed his eyes at the white-haired as she left, then his mind went somewhere else. A dark place he shouldn’t be visiting. An intrusive thought in his mind’s eye.

Why hasn’t she asked me if I’m okay yet?

His head started to hurt.

That f*****g b***h.

Angelice Laverne slammed Rhett Lynch’s book against his desk. “Mr Lynch, could you care to pay any attention?”

“Yes…” mumbled the ginger, adjusting his glasses and turning away from his friend, Dexter Madden.

That year, due to the Paragon Tournament taking place at Eskarya, professors had decided it wasn’t a waste hiring the woman, so a new extracurricular class was implemented that year: Duelling and Shield Protection, for all grades in the school.

Angelice Laverne, before dedicating herself to the Office of Sports, had been a Mage Hunter — people specialized in catching Dark Enchanters and Enchantresses who remained hidden in all Eskarya kingdom. Leevanna knew she had resigned after a curse had hit her heart and she couldn’t practice much magic, elemental or not, any longer. It would only ill her. Now professor Angelice had been teaching them about foreign curses from their new book Advanced Curses for Duelling Principles, all week. It was already Friday and the extra hour in class had them all bored.

They hadn’t been using much magic, just learning theory. But today it seemed to be different. There were a few students who were lazily seated, mirroring their interest in the class. Contrary to Leevanna Vaughan, sitting alone at the front of the class, who was writing in her notebook as fast as she could. She needed to know more about duelling, she knew, even if she had classes as a child, things like this were basic in someone’s education.

Perhaps speaking with her mum about it hadn’t been such a bad idea, Leevanna knew Neferet had something to do with Angelice being there at Eskarya.

“I swear this children,” Angelice mumbled. “Now,” she started again, turning her body to the chalkboard, “could someone tell me if they know about any foreign curses that are deadly in duelling and why?” Harlee Leighton and Leevanna raised their hand. Professor Laverne glanced at Leevanna and nodded once, dismissing her hand for a moment, “Miss Leighton? Am I correct?”

“Yes, professor,” answered the Faris girl. “Some of the prohibited curses in a duelling are the five Unspeakables, and they’re deadly because they mess with a person’s mind.”

Angelice nodded, giving her reason, even if her answer had been a bit simple. “Please Miss Leevanna care to demonstrate.”

And this… This shocked everyone. Leevanna gulped and stood. Everyone was silent, petrified. Lhu and Vailant, who were seated together, looked at each other for a second before looking at Leevanna, who had stood between the chalkboard and the covered table in front of it.

“You think she’s really going to do it?” murmured Thea, leaning herself over the table so she could reach Lhu’s back.

“I don’t know,” the curly-haired answered, also in a whisper.

“Surely she is,” thirded Rhazel also leaning forward. “She’s Vaughan, literally her parents raised her for this.”

Lhu turned around, “Don’t say that.”

Rhaz put his hands up over his table as a sing of peace.

“Mr Madden,” said the professor, “give us one Unspeakable.” The four friends glanced at each other. Freya and Mason had been placed in the next group for the duelling class.

“The Mentis Unspeakable,” answered Madden, his eyes fixed on Leevanna, who knew very well about it. A cruel chill ran through her spine. Professor Angelice lifted the fabric covering the table, making many gasp. Leevanna almost three up right there. In front of her was the body of a bear who seemed to be in vegetative state. The mind was still usable.

“Miss Vaughan, please do us the honours.”

Leevanna nodded and manoeuvred her hands by the sides of her head to then move them to her front, “Mentperium.”

The bear lifted itself, twirling around before raising its paws.

Leevanna smiled at it.

Shaking her hand, she made the bear greet the class. Moving her right hand to the side, she made the bear do a handstand. Her mind and hands working together. “Do tap dance,” she said, and the bear started doing it, making many of the class laugh.

Angelice looked at Leevanna pleased, her eyes then swept through the class and picked a student. “Miss Lian Jianhong,” she called, “give us the next please.”

The Vasilka girl smiled, “Corpus Trnasfigurare.”

Leevanna nodded and centred her eyes into the bear’s body, which quickly shifted into the one of a duck, and then a few seconds later the one of a ferret. This kind of transfiguration on a normal body could cause serious damage to the bones and veins, but with the animal being almost dead, it wasn’t as if she could do more damage.

“Miss O’Neyl,” called Angelice. “The third please.”

“There’s the um… The Transmogrifian Tormentum.”

Leevanna lost her smile. A painful memory came to her like lightning and left her frozen for a second. Eisdrache, watching the jade-eyed girl in the front of the class get lost in her memories, couldn’t help but snap his fingers under his table, which attracted the girl’s attention, pulling her out of her memories.

She looked at him.

Why the hell he had done that? Was everything fine in his brain?

She put a half-smile on her lips and they both stared for a few seconds that seemed endless. An eternity that should not be forever, not for even a bloody second of the time’s life. Now he did not want to stop staring at her.

Bloody fantastic, the voice in his head said sarcastically.

He had been released from the Hospital wing the day before, and he couldn’t stop thinking about what the Pegasiphix had showed him that day.

“Miss Vaughan.”

That was Leevanna’s cue to look at her new professor again. Pain. Grey as mist. As grief and mourning. Completely opposite from spring but yet to similar a familiar that it is scary. It hurts. The box of the tea set leaves the abysm somehow and opens in front of her in a single second. She sees 8 everywhere.

Grey eights.

There was something in Angelice’s eyes Leevanna couldn’t quite comprehend. “Please, the curse.”

She looked at the bear, then at the rest of students. And she breathed:

“Tormentum…”

The room seemed to darken as Leevanna’s hand shook over the bear’s body, which didn’t move not even one bit.

Leevanna tried again, her whole-body trembling. It didn’t work.

Angelice stared at her, then walked until she was next to Leevanna. “Tormentum,” she uttered, not movement of her hands, just her eyes locked with the bear’s body.

And while the poor bear shook violently against the table, rolled over and continued to shake, thousands of memories invaded Leevanna’s mind, causing her body to get tense trying not to shout for her to stop it.

Eisdrache looked at her confused and saw how she closed her eyes hard while whispering for the professor to stop what she was doing — the shouts of help leaked through her ears.

Clearly, all that shouting was her memories, memories that she wanted to forget badly but she couldn’t. Though she had the majority of that day blocked, what Angelice was doing had been the detonate which made her brain to project her horrible and punishing memories again and again.

She quickly proceeded to place her hands in her ears to prevent the sound from still reaching her mind.

And she wants to avoid thinking, to avoid seeing. She wants to forget. But it was impossible. The tea set now is open again. Cups shaking. Sweets becoming bitter while rotting. Worms and larvae sliding across. She wants to scream.

It is like a bomb. One that just exploded in the nastiest of the ways.

Eisdrache frowned more seeing her hands trembling. “Stop it! f**k’s sake! You are hurting it! f*****g STOP IT!” and Leevanna’s voice came out without her realising it. She knew what was coming next and she didn’t want to be there to hear it. Professor Laverne stopped looking at the bear and now her eyes were on Leevanna.

“Mr Vailant, the next.”

He gulped, “Displodo Corperis Unspeakable.”

“Care to demonstrate, Miss Vaughan?” the woman asked, her dark-blue eyes bored into the girl’s. Leevanna shook her head.

“No,” she murmured.

“Give us the last Unspeakable Miss Vaughan.” But the girl shook her head refusing to talk. “No? Demonstrate it then.” Leevanna didn’t stand it anymore and left the place quickly without caring about anything. Everybody saw her leave the classroom, including certain boy, who didn’t say anything as his eyes followed her.

When the class ended, Eisdrache went out looking for the black-and-white-haired girl and on the way, he asked Jia if she had seen her anywhere — saying as an excuse they had a project for Elemental Magic —, but she had said no. He did not understand why he was caring and worrying so much about the girl. He despised that feeling. But seeing her in class trying to cover her ears as she implored in whispers for the professor to stop had him intrigued. And worried.

God, he despised feeling worried about her.

Why. The. f**k. He. Had. To. f*****g. Worry.

That little f*****g cunt.

He wanted to kill her. Choke her. Stab her. Run her over with a truck full of anvils. Leave her without any f*****g air until the light of life left her pretty eyes. He wanted her to suffer the most torturous way of dying. Maybe open her up and start pulling her insides out one by one and watch her bleed to death.

The boy walked at a brisk but sneaky pace and examined every passage through which he passed to see if the girl was there. He wondered if maybe she was in the girls’ bathroom, the one no one went to because of the incident a few years ago.

He released all the air in his lungs when he saw her sitting in the window and the figure of Lhu, who had apparently followed her after class, in front of her while they were talking. “It was all my fault,” Leevanna said with a broken voice before looking at the glass on her side. “I am a f*****g monster, Lhu.”

“Don’t say that... You didn’t want it to happen, it was not your fault,” replied Lhu sitting down.

“I didn’t know she was a Hybrid, I just wanted a friend,” the girl continued, unable to prevent her tears from falling. “My father appeared, hit me and said it was a shame, that that was going to be my punishment… I heard her screaming, begging him, her supplications full of pain, and I did nothing! She was a girl... Just a little girl... And I did f*****g nothing! I just stood there! Crying! Like the f*****g i***t I am!” The girl cried angrily before hiding her head between her knees. “You don’t know how many times more I saw children be tortured, all of whom I had ever spoken to... Killed because of me.”

Lhu caressed her hair once more before. They didn’t notice him there, so that was good. He doubted it for a moment, perhaps saying something would be good. But then, what would he possibly say? This was Vaughan. He contemplated her for a moment and examined every one of her features. What the f**k he was doing?

Why did he care so much? Why the f**k was he worrying?

Fucking cunt.

And he couldn’t help and think that her vulnerability was extremely breathtaking.

The way she looked so weak was just — so perfect.

It was undoubtedly beautiful the way her tears ran across her face and decorated her eyes leaving her eyelashes wet, like little diamonds decorating her pale skin. Her rosy cheeks and the way her face contracted in pain. Her breathy and little gasps leaving her blood-rushed lips creating a melodious symphony.

The coldness in her crystallise look, made her eyes look like a holy stained glass, like those ones in the churches just that even more gorgeous. She looked like a f*****g holy grail. She was crying and she looked so... pretty. Mesmerizingly gorgeous.

Seeing her cry was the most beautiful thing in the entire world. And Eisdrache couldn’t agree more on that. Though the way she did it, burned every single part of your body, leaving you without any hope of air, fighting to breathe as you gasp and implore her to stop as you cry because she is doing it.

As a venom which invades your body and leaves you agonising slowly, punishingly. A beautiful torture that you want to stop.

But Eisdrache did not want her to stop... She looked so weak and peaceful...

Broken but gorgeous... Hurtful but glorious.

Just like ice.

He wanted to made her cry every day of his life is she was gonna look like the way she was doing it. Her tears were something similar to diamonds, making her skin shine somehow.

Diamond tears.

He was in trance. Internally fighting to breathe again. Just staring at her breathtaking but yet so heartbreaking prettiness.

“Everything is going to be alright, Leev, you have to forgive yourself for what happened,” Lhu continued as the girl in front of her continued crying. He came out of his thoughts and looked at the girls as he opened his mouth to say something.

But nothing came out of it.

He couldn’t say anything.

He couldn’t at least try and do something.

Because he shouldn’t.

And he didn’t want her to stop suffering. It was a raw emotion within him, cruel perhaps, but it was there, consuming him.

He sighed lowly. Maybe she hadn’t noticed him, so he could run. He really could. Eisdrache didn’t even had to be there in the first place, this wasn’t his problem, she wasn’t his problem. Not now, not ever, simply no. She wasn’t his and would never be. He would make sure of that every single day. She didn’t belong to him to care about. She wasn’t his friend, let alone his lover.

She wasn’t anything to him.

But...

She — She was crying…

He could — he could at least… try.

No, came the voice inside him in a growl.

And it is right. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t and won’t.

So, giving her a last final look, trying to forget what he had heard about her past, turned around with flames consuming his brain.

And left.