WHITE DARKNESS - BLACK MAGIC SAGA - BOOK 1

JEWELLERY BOX

Kingdom of Eskarya, Vaminia State

Sunday, 1stth of January

Leevanna arrived home with tears flooding her eyes.

She got straight up her room, not saying a word, the maids had already draw her a bath. She didn’t need to do anything; all was being done for her. Already naked, she saw herself in the mirror of her bathroom. The scar crossing her chest was still there, just like the many others, just like the ones her soul had.

“My lady, no! It’s too hot!”

But she didn’t listen.

She just went in the bath.

One feet after the other.

And she sat there, tears running down her face. The vapour of the water around her like a mist.

One of the maids tried to touch her, Leevanna didn’t let her.

She just cried and yelled.

Neferet Vaughan then came into the bathroom.

She said for all the maids to go, to leave her daughter alone.

Neferet stared at her crying daughter, who was suffering, feeling how her body burned and ached from all places. A daughter who breaks in front of her mother, one who begs for compassion and mercy for her soul.

She went into the bath with her. Not caring about her expensive nightwear or if the water was too hot for both of them, not caring about anything at all. Neferet, with her legs by the sides of her daughter, made Leevanna curl up against her chest. She yelled, begged and clung to her mother’s clothes as if they would save her from her fate. And Neferet just rocked her on the bathtub amongst the calm water around them, faint tears over her cheeks.

Because she has gone through this. She has been in the exact same position, and would have wanted for someone to hold her, to tell her everything would be alright. So that was what Neferet did, she soothed her daughter as best as she could, without words, just a tight embrace, feeding her with understanding and passion. The mother felt full of bittersweet stardust; she hadn’t held her daughter in years, and now, the first time after so much time, it is because the life that came out of her is shattering to pieces.

And they, mother and daughter, stay inside that bathtub, feeling themselves as they had never done.

The next morning Leevanna was curled up in her bed, she hadn’t slept much. Her eyes fixed on the balcony of her room It was snowing. The white prettily adorning the landscape. She wished to be as free as the snow, as the ice, as water.

But she isn’t, and the only thing she can think about is how she is now bounded in chains and manacles forever. She can’t escape this. She wouldn’t make it out alive, she knows.

This is about power; abut law and more bullshit she doesn’t care talking about.

She is just so tired.

Her father had been the one who gave the news to her barely arriving at her manor. He had called her to his study, her mum already there, looking at her as if there was no hope in the world. And that is when she got the hint. His father was wedding her to someone, probably an old man just like Orya.

Enormous had been her surprise when she heard it was Vailant who would be her jailer for the rest of her days.

Desperation in her eyes. But no compassion had come.

So she just nodded.

Neferet hadn’t come to her room until the next day.

And Leevanna was just devasted. Why did it have to be like this?

She didn’t want to marry, she didn’t want kids, she didn’t want any of that. She knew she was more than all those things, that she herself could accomplish so many great things no other could. But now… Now her dreams had been yanked away from her.

When the maids came in her room with her food and clothes for the day, Neferet came right behind them. She was as fancy as ever. Wearing a black gown, golden patterns of the embellishments over the bodice, down the long sleeves that went from the middle of the shoulder and down the front of the floor-length skirt. Golden necklace just like her earrings. Her hair in an up-do and lips dark red.

Leevanna sat down slowly, with the help of two maids who quickly undressed her and dolled her up. The dress the maids had gotten for her was a black one too, similar to the one her mother had, just that this one hadn’t so many embellishment, just golden appliques and the skirt was ruffled. Once the maids had finished dressing her, they started with her makeup. Light like her mother’s, red dark lips. Nobody said anything about the red eyes, or the dark circles under them, neither of her reddened face from crying the night before.

They just kept it quiet.

However, when they were about to start with her hair, Neferet lifted her hand in the air, indicating the to stop and go, which they did, leaving mother and daughter alone in the room.

“The Vailant family will be here in an hour for breakfast,” she said, standing behind her daughter, who was sat on the chair in front of her vanity table, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Neferet stood quiet for a couple of seconds, and then grabbed the hairbrush from the table to start brushing her daughter’s hair delicately, with patience. “Do you remember what I taught you when you were younger?” her finger mingling among the curls to then braid them.

Leevanna stared at her through the mirror. “The jewellery box,” she said, her voice small and tired.

Neferet nodded, “That will do,” leaving the hairbrush aside, she let Leevanna see herself in the mirror. Her hair was still loose, half of it anyway, the upper half her mother had made braids to then form them into a kind of small crown. “A’sen narez au cathir giati keray… Xieri kasdo seyn… Aiq the sehry harla sonoma.”

Her mother only used Vayrhi, the old language of the gods, when no one else but them was listening. That language had been prohibited since Osnos ascended as true king. Leevanna’s eyes pooled with tears. Neferet was saying sorry for not preventing this, that she just tried… That she used the ice within her.

“Iquez gyair av kouva r’ay karga keray? Av aishan ryap,” and the tears quickly started to escape. ‘Why does it have to be like this? It isn’t fair.’

Neferet crouched down by her daughter’s side, wiping away her tears. “Leevanna, listen to me,” she said grabbing both of her cheeks. “You have to be strong; you have to be great. Use the jewellery box, freeze your emotions to death… Do it, please,” her mother’s eyes had also reddened, tears threatening to escape. Leevanna just stared at her. Her eyes slowly reflecting the empire of ice she had created within her.

Concentrating in her breathing and her mother’s, Leevanna started seeing in her mind’s eye the jewellery box. It was made of grey velvet, soft as a feather but hard as a stone.

Cold at touch but deep inside is soft and fluffy.

Thick, prowling clouds in a thunderstorm. Like the fog on a winding road, blurring her vision and muddling her sense of direction. As dark and melancholy as the ashes of the people who die in war. But yet so electrifying as the lightning bolts of a thunderstorm.

Grey. As mist. As pain. It is like the number 8089. It confuses her with its confusing and strange shape, and weird but rhythmic pronunciation. Eighty, eighty-nine. The numbers are like a riddle. Has to decipher how to make it make sense inside her brain. But doesn’t want to. Then it had been the texture and shape of hands. Long. Delicate. Soft and yet with a hint of rough. The way they had slid up her face, holding and cupping tightly but yet so careful. They didn’t exist anymore, because she was so angry, so enraged and unhinged she was capable of burn it all.

Next thing had been lips. Cold as marble or stone in winter and so blood-rushed that it seemed a river of the scarlet liquid. Soft ribbons wrapping her own in a way she wouldn’t have ever dare to imagine but yet lived all the time in her mind.

She had pushed the pompous memory in its jewellery velvet box. Shoved the lid and thrown it into a deep and dark abysm without hope of recovering it.

Following her mother down the stairs, she was received by the maids opening the door to the Vailants. Nicholas Vaughan was the first to receive them with a grin on his face. “Luther!” he said with a laugh before handshaking his friend’s hand. Then he kissed Skarlova’s hand, and finally, it came him.

Vailant.

Wearing a dark robes, black shirt under his blazer and coat.

Leevanna diverted her eyes from him, eyes cold as ice. She felt cold. Freezing even.

He was looking at her, she could tell.

Skarlova hugged Neferet and then Leevanna, who just dedicated her best attempt of smile to the woman. The air was cold.

The six of them started walking then to the morning room, where the breakfast had been served. The four adults were ahead of their children, chatting like nothing happened. Leevanna was ahead of him, who said nothing to her and just kept walking with his hands in his pockets. Had he been aware they were going to marry this whole time? That had been the reason he had kissed her that day in the courtyard? The reason he said he wanted her?

Her hands fidget with themselves over her belly.

A wave of anger washed over her.

The Leevanna who desired freedom one day, the one who was able to make her own decisions, was so angry. It wasn’t just the fact that she was being forced into marriage, but that her father was using her as a pawn in his own game. She was being sold off like a piece of property.

Leevanna had always been a woman of strong will, independent spirit, and fierce determination. However, this day she felt… she felt like nothing, just a pawn and not the queen. Her father's words echoed in her ears, the syllables forming an unpalatable reality she couldn’t swallow. Her heart pounded in her chest as if it were trying to escape the confines of her body. The man she was to marry was not only someone she barely knew beyond the academic arena, but also someone she had spent years competing against. Vailant was her rival, a constant thorn in her side, the one who had tried to kill her once.

As they sat around the rectangular table that had been set, Neferet glanced her for a second, reminding her of her deal with her before the Vailants arrived.

Nicholas sat at the head of the table, as it was his house. Nefret by his right side and Skarlova by hers. Luther sat at the other end of the table, his son by his left side, and Leevanna, without anything to say, sat next to him, in front of her mother.

The table before her had a selection of bacon, eggs, haddock, different variety of fruits and bread. All of them served with a glass of juice, or, in the case if the gentlemen, Issenti wine. Everything looked delicious and would taste as wonderful, Leevanna was sure, however her stomach dropped, and nausea crawled up her throat. She was going to be sick.

The maids and elves started serving the food as the adults chatted.

They were talking about the wedding.

Leevanna almost threw up right there.

She didn’t want to be there.

She wanted to scream.

To cry.

To die.

Vailant would look at her from time to time, little glances as she drank her juice or ate. He never spoke a word to her; he knew what was best, so he didn’t do so — he would collapse right there and there if he did. Every time the conversation had a hint of including Leevanna, Neferet made a comment, and everyone got distracted. It was a blessing really, a miracle, her father hadn’t made any comments towards her, and she was grateful for that.

She didn’t have any further recollection of the breakfast between the two families, nor she wanted to. Nobody asked her anything either. And as she ate bit by bit the chopped pieces of pineapple, she froze herself even more, hiding behind the ice walls of the empire of ice within her mind.