WHITE DARKNESS - BLACK MAGIC SAGA - BOOK 1

DOING SOMETHING FOR ME

A few hours dinner was over, when everyone was sleeping, she hurried to a hide in a corner of the Vasilka House common room to finish reading the documents. She hated bedtime, she always had nightmares about that day — that horrible and traumatic day.

The fancy and aristocratic aura made her sigh in relief. The Vasilka common room was like her refuge, it had been like her home for the last four years. Deep in the west tower wing of the chateau, was the royal cave for the ones born from royalty dived in two spaces. It had six levels, all of the revolving around the main common room. Above the three main floors were for the first, second and third years.

The walls, painted in deep taupe and adorned with rich, gold wall panelling, were the home of gilded frames house portraits of past luminaries who have graced the halls of the Institute, their stern gazes seeming to impart grandeur and intellectual wisdom to all who pass. Some of them have carved dark-mahogany bookcases aligned. Centuries of knowledge written all over the books which reside there. Tall and arched paned windows framed with heavy drapes that can be drawn aside to reveal sweeping views of the meticulously landscaped gardens beyond. Moonlight streams through them.

A gran fireplace is carved in the middle of one of the walls. An ever-burning fire crackles within, casting shadows on the room’s luxurious furnishings. Plush armchairs and a four-body sofa, upholstered in sumptuous velvet adorned with tasselled pillows, circle around the fireplace and offer seats of comfort where conversations and debates unfold. Different types of gold-made candlesticks are dispersed.

Polished dark wooden tables are scattered throughout the room, each adorned with an assortment of quills, ink pots, pens, pencils, and parchment, ready to capture the musings and discoveries of those who gather here. A large, ornate globe rests in a corner, a tangible representation of the far-flung realms of knowledge that the Gleaxsiara Institute seeks to explore. There is a corner of the room where two sofas and various plush beanbag chairs meet, a gold and crystal table offering the people who will seat different kinds of sweets and fruits to eat. Vases with roses, peonies, hydrangeas, marigolds and more decorate the whole common room, just like the vines hanging from the corners of the ceilings.

Gold ornaments of butterflies decorate the walls.

The air is filled with the aroma of aged leather, the faint scent of polished wood, and the delicate fragrance of fresh flowers meticulously arranged. The soft strains of a chamber music quartet can be heard in the background, providing a sophisticated soundtrack to the symphony of ideas that fills the air. It is sweet and yet strong.

Dived by two arches on walls, detached from the tower there was the second space of the room, mainly used to relax and the game nights the little Vasilkas had. It was greenhouse-like. Arched paned windows aligned side by side. Light drapes adorning them. All kinds of flowers and plants were scattered around the room, filling it with a floral scent. More butterflies around the room like vines.

The celling was a dome which occupied most of it, stained paned glass painting the room with a kaleidoscope of colours that shift with the passing hours. Large sofas on one corner of the room, there were more plush beanbag chairs.

The floor had a space in the middle of it, covered in glass and lit with the calmly and dark, turquoise-silverish glow from the Attlely Lake, a division from the Winterwave Ocean, letting the dark silhouettes from the Raidnes, Ondines and fishes pass floating from time to time, letting their silhouettes shade the ceilings and walls.

But it’s not scary, at least not for her.

She could remember how horrible the shapeless silhouettes that the trees of her manor were, the sound of the wind cracking the wood and slipping through the tiny spaces of the window making scary noises that kept her awake all night.

She finds the dark shapes that pass behind the windows very relaxing because she knows what’s provoking them.

And the wind cannot slip through the tiny spaces. Instead, the tick tack of the clock next to the wood being consumed by the fire relaxes her like nothing else. She loved how the different type of armchairs, couches and tables — from velvet, leather and suede to black marble, wood and granite — combined so well but at the same time so bad. All went together somehow. It was as if every part of the place represented a little part from all the people in the common room, so different but yet so similar from one another.

She passed her gaze through the deep emeralds, shining silvers, light marbles and abyss blacks that surround her as the orange yellowish glow of a fireplace illuminate her pale and restless face, she sighs again.

At almost one-thirty in the morning, she looked up from the pages of the file when she heard footsteps approaching her and hurried to transfigure the file from her father’s office to a book she had been reading the day before. She couldn’t let anyone know she had them, specially not Professor Reeves. Taking a small dagger from the side of her nightgown, she swept her eyes through the shadows. There was one, bigger and taller than the ones from the outside, it wasn’t lightened by the fire, it came from a corner. She turned when she saw it move to the right. Her hand held the handle tightly. Avoiding drawing a word out of her mouth, she approached the corner where the shadow was. Her eyes narrowed. She swore she saw—

A hand brushed her arm.

Her dagger to his neck.

But she held her breath when a familiar face came into view. A one she certainly hated to see.

“Bloody hell, woman,” he grunted, trying to push her away, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you mad?”

“You are the one lurking in the shadows,” she bit out. She had waisted energy for nothing. Stepping away and keeping her dagger, her eyes drifted to the corner she had saw the shadow. Her brows furrowed. There was nothing there anymore.

“Are you looking for someone?” he asked now that there was no danger to him.

“Yes,” she turned to face him. “The part when I asked for your presence,” a sarcastic grin held up for a second before disappearing from her face. “Seeing you makes me bloody sick.” Her eyes flickered. It made her uneasy having such a tall figure before her. Specially a man. It made her remember her father.

He blinked, then, ignoring her words, he proceeded to grab the book on the couch and start flipping through the pages. “Reading psychological terror, are we?” he smirked. “This is no book for a young lady,” his eyes then landed on hers. “Of course you’re no lady, are you, Gryrku?” He had come with that nickname for her in their first year when they had learned about those creatures. Evil things were they, coexisting with Ondines, the water spirits, said to be the warriors of the sea.

“Give it to me,” she growled trying to grab her book. He held his arm higher, seeing her stand on tiptoes.

“Ah, ah,” his smug grin again on his face. She growled. “We’re in a bad mood, huh,” he laughed, sitting down on one corner of the sofa behind them. He signalled the other side of the sofa with his eyes, inviting her to sit. She remained with her chin high, looking away for a second before looking back. Obey, was the first through which crossed her mind. He had this look, one she recognised well. Her father had the same when he wanted something. You are a woman, was the second. Remember to have obedience towards men, was the third.

So she sat.

They were both in pyjamas.

Though keeping her mouth shut wasn’t much to her command, “What are you doing here? Wasn’t my little warning at dinner enough?”

As much as they hated it, this was not the first time they encountered each other in this similar situation. It was rarely sporadically, but it happened.

Most of the times one of them would leave to go to their dorm as soon as the other appeared, but there were some others that they would just simply co-exist in silent, perhaps on the same couch, maybe separately. Luckily for their precious sakes, no one knew about this, just them, and it was better to keep it that way. The small talks and secret glances were better kept under the deepest part of the lake.

“Do me please the honour to shut up,” he rolled his eyes, she avoided laughing with a grin. With her legs up the sofa, she rested her head on her fist. “I have insomnia if you don’t recall,” his eyes went to hers for a second, air escaping his lips. Restraining himself from asking her what kept her awake at this hour. The question had been just a second away from sliding down his tongue, but fortunately he isn’t just as stupid as he seems right now. Another discreet glance towards her makes him realise she wasn’t directly looking at him, not anymore, but he knew she was thinking of something. Enough time by her side all those years made him realise small things about her.

He didn’t care, that was for sure, he would never, not even for himself. But just then his mind remembers him that incident in their first year that now seemed so long ago, a blurry mirror of what had been the scene, so out of reach for him. He had found her in a total state of panic and distress, and not knowing what to do, he also entered in panic and started blurting and babbling out some random thing that had happened to him before finding her.

And he certainly hates knowing that part of her, because the more he knew her, the more he would… No. Simply no.

For her own side, Leevanna’s brain was fuming with questions about what she saw before he appeared. And she is so infuriated with him for interrupting her that her hands start to run cold just like her eyes, freezing at the thought.

“Didn’t know you liked Prince Henderson.”

Her brain snaps. Takes her out of her freezing state and makes her eyes look up at the glistering flames that reflect on the smoke-like grey, fades away with the wind. He is flipping through the pages again, trying to catch a glimpse of the world of wonder she had been reading about. Before Your Time Begins was a book about what the idea of owning someone is, how jealously consumes the soul before it can burn in flames. And certainly it wasn’t a pleasant reading for a young lady. This was a prohibited book for women, he knew.

A rosy shade of red creeps over her cheeks, tinting her face.

Trying to find an excuse to have said book, Leevanna’s mouth opened and closed. She knew he would go directly to Professor Reeves if not to Harmony Armstrong.

However, he continued speaking, “You’re three chapters ahead of me,” he nodded, seeing the title on the page were the bookmarker was. She, shocked, tried to say something. “I won’t tell,” he rolled his eyes before throwing the book for her to catch. His eyes again on her, arrogant. “If you do something for me.”

“What is it,” she mumbled between teeth. At least she had her book back and a promise that it wouldn’t be taken away again.

“Time will tell.”

Before she could say something else, a boy from the upper floors started going down the stairs prior to hitting his head with a marble pilar that was nearby. He, waking up from his slumber completely confused, turned around and started going up the stairs again. He didn’t even notice the two teenagers on the sofa.

Sharing a look, they shushed each other with mimics to not wake somebody else.

He conjured a book and started reading it after giving a glance towards the white-haired. A grin on his lips.

Leevanna looked at him for a second, wondering why he was being nice to her if he hadn’t done it before. Well, perhaps one time, but that didn’t count.

She returned her gaze to the pages of her book, face expressionless. Staring at the fire for a moment, she felt cozy, warm even, despite her cold skin.

Perhaps it was that at night masks fell of and just empty vases of what should be, are left to let the soul rest.

They shouldn’t be doing this, letting the energy at ease wasn’t what they were supposed to do. They shouldn’t even share spaces.

She bit her lip, not being able to focus on her reading.

It is envy of each other. They were envious of the other. So much that it drowned them. For different things, two extremely far away extremes, but those extremes collided at some point and become a kind of admiration.

Still, she couldn’t bear to admit it.

So she left.

His gaze following her.

Curious surprises the universe would put in their ways though.