WHITE DARKNESS - BLACK MAGIC SAGA - BOOK 1

THE DHALIA'S TALE

“What’s that?” asks Thea Levine with a soft frown and pointing something Rhazel Cox had between his hands.

“It—” Mason Stein threw a cushion at his friend before he could even open his mouth well to answer the girl’s question. “Did you just hit my precious face?” asked Rhazel placing a hand on his chest and Mason nodded. “Bloody hell, mate, you woke up today and choose violence? I know you’re jealous of my mesmerising beauty, but you don’t need to disfigure me, sweet Uttara.”

“Sit your plain arse down, Cox,” Mason said rolling his eyes before continue writing his Arts of Foreign Brews essay.

The group was together doing homework in the boys’ dormitory, a ritual they had every Wednesday after all classes finished and before dinner.

It was already the final half of October, almost three weeks before the first task of the tournament and the stress of it was making her ill. Leevanna had refused at first, setting foot where Eisdrache Vailant, the guy who had left an irreversible scar down the line of her heart, spent the majority of his time wasn’t for her such a thrill. Still, Lhu had convinced her, that it was a ritual for them, and that he wouldn’t be there until late that day. So, after all the begging, she had accepted sharing his space.

She had heard he didn’t have permitted being near her, at least not so much until she presented a form for the school to revoke said verdict. And Leevanna just knew she would never revoke it. The nightmares from that day, when he had attacked her made her wake up screaming in the middle of the night. She had a scar still, the biggest on her body, it went from the middle of her clavicles to the end of the place her heart rested.

It burn constantly and Madame Pamela didn’t know what to do.

“Leev, I don’t understand,” said Lhu with a pout before handing her Mathamancy book to the jade eyed. “What the hell did you and the professor do here?”

“It’s a kind of calculation,” she answered normally.

“You cannot add negative numbers to positive ones, they are supposed to be subtracted,” huffed Lhu. “The f**k did you do? The worst thing is that’s correct! How did you do that?”

Leevanna shrugged and left her book aside to explain it to her friend. “Well, Mathamancy isn’t calculation per se, it’s about having imagination” she sighed. “I chose any number and counted down, the numbers decreased so I continued with the negatives, once I got to the number I wanted, I took the negatives and converted them to positives to be able to add them to the initial number I chose, I removed the excess ones to match the answer given and that’s it.”

Everything went silent. Leevanna took a liquorice cherry stick and bite it as she passed her gaze through her friends. “My gormless brain is rubbish, I’m not even going to try to understand that s**t,” said Rhaz before pulling Freya’s homework to his side and start copying the answers.

“And what Rhazel had in his hand is drug,” Leevanna said as she went back to her writing.

“How did she—?!” Rhaz looked at her scared. “Are you even from this bloody f*****g planet?”

“It wasn’t so difficult,” she shrugged before raising her gaze and giving her liquorice wand another bite. “I recognise that bag, I saw them in hands of some fourth years in the Vasilka game night party two weeks ago, Flynn was selling them right, left and centre, let’s not be around the bush.”

“Well, drugs and whatever in another chin wag,” said Lhu smothering her yoke-waist skirt that reached her mid-thighs. “I didn’t understand a shite about what you said.”

“The final answer is 10, but the problem is divided in two, so the first answer you get is 2000,” Leevanna sighed, “but they tell you, you have to give a number less ten,” Lhu nodded slowly as she saw Leevanna writing, “so, if you count backwards, you reach -10, now you convert that to the positive line, you obtain 10, you add that to the initial number you said, that is 1997, now you have 2007… You extract those 7 numbers extra and voila, 2000.”

“And how you get to ten?”

“That’s the second part, and for that you need to do all again with numbers that are extra, so 7 minus -10 is equal to -3, you pass the 3 to the positives, now the final answer (7+3) is 10, so is easier because you don’t need to subtract anything at the end. That’s it.”

“Vaughan, could you—”

“Don’t even think about it, Rhaz,” she chuckled before biting her candy. “It’s very simple, they’re just numbers.”

“It’s easy for you because you’ve got an extra-large brain,” came Vailant’s voice. “Now, the simple mortals, like us, dear Gryrku, don’t enjoy numbers and think they’re pretty consuming.”

Leevanna didn’t say anything, she pretended not to hear and continued resolving her exercises, not wanting to speak to him. He was staring at her, she could feel is gaze, a puzzled one. He was expecting a response that wouldn’t come.

She would never forgive him for what he did to her.

He would have first to endure that kind of experience to feel the ten percent of what she was going through. He had seen the blood coming down her mouth, down her ears, he had thrown her around the f*****g common room as if she was scum and still continued to punish her for whatever reason that wasn’t good enough.

The room stayed silent for a moment.

And they Freya said, “Where were you?”

He didn’t answer instantly, he gave Leevanna a last glance first. “Doing some training with Orya.”

“The Stouvania girl?” Rhazel whistled. “My mate here conquering countries.”

Vailant rolled his eyes and shook his head. Leevanna knew Lhu wasn’t speaking to him either. “We’re just meeting up for sole tournament purposes, nothing else you blithering idiot.”

It wasn’t fair. Leevanna knew.

That he was able to carry on with his life after the way he assaulted her. One week of detention without being able to use his element had been enough for everyone, but what about her? She wasn’t able to move on. She was the one having nightmares, she was the one with the biggest scar here, not him. Nobody in House Vasilka commented on what had happened, specially the men. How was that fair?

Oh but when he had been not even scratched by a Pegasiphix? The question ‘are you okay?’ hadn’t left everyone’s mouth for f*****g days, weeks even. Everyone was talking about it, offering him free homework, food, even tea. All his necessities, fulfilled. But her? Ha. She could have died and not even a word would have left their filthy mouths. Nobody asked her if she was okay, nobody defended her even. Nobody did f*****g anything for her to be alright.

For days he had been praised for ‘facing’ the creature so valiantly. For two bloody weeks everything had been about him. But now? Now that she had been almost killed by him nobody would say anything?

Fucking hell.

She was so done.

“Leev.”

The voice of Leah brough her back to earth.

“Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you have had any luck with the rocks,” now all of the group was looking at her.

Not even they did something.

Leevanna shook her head in negation of the question, “If I was a genius, I would have solved it,” she then took out the velvet bag out of the pocket from her Capulet coat hanging over a chair and handed it to Freya.

“I still don’t understand how they expect you to search a clue in common rocks,” frowned Thea grabbing one of them. “I mean is clear that the first task is the Earth element… but besides that I don’t have a f*****g clue.”

“I have tried to crack them open, but they won’t,” Leevanna sighed, leaving her Mathamancy book, Advanced Calculations for Teen Brains, aside and started organizing her pens, pencils and quills to deposit them inside her pencil case. “I don’t know what else to do.”

“They are pretty though,” said Freya with one small rock between her fingers. “Could be seeds if they weren’t rocks,” and the she threw it to Rhazel’s head.

“And what was that for?!” he whined.

“Copying my homework,” she smiled innocently.

“Perhaps we should throw them at your head,” mocked Vailant towards Rhaz as he gave a few riyals to Mason. He just took his middle finger up.

“What’s the name?” asked Thea while placing the small rock she had taken back to the bag before pointing the one Mason had just taken out from his robes.

“How was it? Um… Oh, yeah, opium,” replied Mason making aside his school books. “Though you’re not going to use it.”

“f*****g chauvinist,” mumbled Thea between teeth. “Why?”

“Are you barking mad? Us three have done it before and know what it does to our body, you haven’t even smoked a fag and I’m not going to risk a chance to have detention because you had a seizure on our carpet,” said Mason firmly.

Leevanna almost laughed.

“But Rhaz’s giving it to Freya!”

The four remaining teenagers turned their heads to the aforementioned ones, who stopped what they were doing and smiled innocently.

“In my defence, I have tried it before!” said Freya in a complaint of their looks at her.

“Wait, but the opium isn’t supposed to be eaten raw?” frowned Lhu softly. She had read something about it in a book from the library, Dark Flowers and Herbalism.

“It can be actually also ingested as a pill, made into a tincture for drinking or, what they’re going to do, be smoked,” said Leevanna. This time Vailant didn’t say anything about her being an ‘insufferable know-it-all’ as he always did. He just grabbed the opium pipe from a drawer next to the lamp and utensils. The pipe had a stem made out of stained bamboo decorated with metal.

The bowl was attached to a white metal mount set with decorative stones.

“I’m not going to risk having to take you three to the f*****g hospital wing after your seizure, forget—”

And Thea, Leevanna and Lhu looked at him with pouts and intertwined hands as a beg. Their eyes began to even sparkle. “Don’t look at me like that,” said Mason helping Eisdrache with his task. But the three continued looking at him like that and intensified everything. Leevanna even started shedding tears. “Don’t — Leevanna, stop, I’m not — oh, for Uttara’s sake, fine! Have at it!” Leevanna chuckled and wiped her tears with the knuckles of her thumbs before smiling and grabbing the opium pipe Rhaz was handing her.

“Dammit, mate,” laughed Eisdrache. “If I’ve known I just need to start crying to get something from you I would’ve done it a lot of time ago.”

“Shut it,” growled the dark-skinned before throwing the lighter to Leevanna, because her element was not fire, who went blank for a second before doing the same procedure Rhaz and Mason had done to lit the spirit lamp.

And then Leevanna paused for a second.

No.

She couldn’t do this.

She would be vulnerable around him.

She couldn’t be vulnerable.

But her little debate was quickly caught by Lhu, who grabbed her hand and whispered in her ear. “Everything will be alright, I’m here, I will not let anything happen.”

She nodded.

Taking a deep breath, Leevanna felt a little bit, tiny little bit, more secure. “How am I supposed to do this?” she asked with a frown confused once the lamp was lit in front of her.

“Set yourself comfortable, Ice Queen,” said Rhaz chuckling. “It’s most efficiently smoked in a reclining position.” The jade-eyed did what Rhaz said and waited the next instructions. Her black cat, Nix, had jumped over her.

“Now, take a pea-sized ball from the paste’s bag and grab the end of the long needle,” said Mason. “Hold it over the flame of the lamp until the bubble swells and turns golden.”

At the same time, he stretched the gooey mass into long strings in order to ‘cook’ it better, repeating the procedure several times under her attentive gaze. “Now roll it back into its pea-shape and quickly push it into the hole in the bowl,” continued Rhaz helping Freya with the same. “And hold the bowl close to the flame so that it hits the ball of opium.”

“Okay,” sighed Mason. “Take a deep (and I mean it), deep pull at the pipe until it is completely consumed.”

Half hour later, once the other two girls had also done it, they don’t feel hugely euphoric. They don’t feel intensely pleasurable. They don’t feel like they’re on drugs. They just feel nice. Genuinely nice. It’s like the feeling on a bright Saturday morning, you’ve just had your favourite breakfast. Nothing troubles you and you’re in a satisfactory mood because you’ve got the whole weekend ahead for you. The sun is out. You’ve got a fun evening scheduled.

Now, for Leevanna, who hates the sun, feels like she is under the almost frozen water of The Attlely Lake, and the moonlight is filling with light her path making the little bubbles sparkle. The stars decorating the dark-blue ocean above her.

That’s how opiates make her feel. In peace. It’s not intense. It’s just nice. She feels nice, just slightly itchy and slightly nauseous. Thats all. Just really nice. Comfortable. At ease. All is good in the world. No need to worry about anything. The pillow under her head felt divine, as if her head was melting into its fluffy and cold surface. She has never felt this relaxed formerly, just swimming in the Attlely Lake is synonymous. Just touching her fingers together was sensational and running a hand through her hair felt like the most brilliant thing she’d ever done. Everything felt so perfectly in place. And she thinks she has just discovered another way to relieve her outrageous nightmares.

She felt as if flowers were growing from her within, as if she was a seed for the most beautiful kind of gladioli, orchids, fuchsias, and her favourites, sweet Juliet Roses. Leevanna had always felt as if she was a rock, dead and dry since birth, but then… Then drugs had kicked in, and a whole different world blossomed inside of her.

Could be seeds if they weren’t rocks.

Leevanna sat up in a split of second.

Realisation kicking inside of her.

“That’s it.”

The earth element.

The group’s eyes went to her. Each of them had been laying on the floor, relaxed and in silence.

“What is it?” asked Freya laid over Thea’s abdomen.

Leevanna looked at Lhu.

She wouldn’t say anything in front of him.

“Probably homework,” shrugged Lhu.

“Yeah, I just — I, erm, just came for solution for a problem Esmeray was having, sorry, got a bit excited there,” she shook her head and quickly started picking up her things. “I have to go, Lhu could you come with me?”

“Yes, sure,” she said getting up and putting on her coat to leave the dormitory.

Leaving the whole group confused, they left the dormitory in a rush. “They are seeds,” Leevanna said once they reached theirs and showing Lhu the velvet bag she had been given the day she had been selected for the tournament. “The rocks are seeds.”

Lhu sat down on the carpet and frowned, still a bit dizzy from the drug usage, “Sure you aren’t still under the opium effects?”

“I’m one hundred percent sure, Lhu,” she responded while looking everywhere for a pot without a plant.

“A bowl counts as a pot?”

Leevanna turned around and nodded eagerly when Lhu signalled her a ceramic bowl where they left food for Leevanna’s cat. Grabbing a towel from the bathroom to clean the milk from it, she separated some dirt from one of the pots they had inside the room and placed it inside the bowl. She then sat down next to Lhu, who had a notebook and a pencil on hand.

The jade-eyed took the small rocks from the bag and placed them on the dirt before covering them with it. Mason handed her a glass of water and she poured a little of it on the monticule of dirt over the rocks/seeds. They waited a few seconds in which nothing happened, however, when they were about to turn around and give up, a small leave appeared. Each pair of eyes watched mesmerised as more tiny leaves appeared to then start growing. The leaves started to get bigger as the emerald steams grew taller. A blossom appeared on each.

Soon enough, five radiant pompon dahlias started blooming. The delicate details on each truly elevated them to the realm of the extraordinary. Each petal adorned with a glisten dewdrop, as if the morning mist had chosen to nestle itself upon this bloom as a mark of reverence. The sunlight caught these dewdrops, transforming them into tiny prisms that scatter light in a dazzling display of brilliance. At its heart, each Dahlia boasts a rich velvety maroon that fades gracefully into a deep midnight purple. Travelling outward, the petals transitioned into a regal magenta, reminiscent of the finest silk in royal tapestries.

These petals meticulously ruffled, giving the flower a sense of depth texture that invited both touch and admiration. Each flower centre is a golden mandala, a sun-kissed oasis amidst the sea of vibrant colours.

Like a portal to another dimension, it beckons insects and admirers alike with promises of nectar and wonder. The contrast between the warm golden centre and the cool, velvety petals create a harmonious balance that is simply breathtaking. As they swat gently in the breeze, it seems to whisper tales of distant galaxies and cosmic dreams. Their allure is magnetic, drawing them in closer to reveal in the intricate patterns, delicate textures, and vibrant shades that made it a true masterpiece.

The centres of each dahlia started blooming even more, going inward at each blink, rotating.

The group of seven teenagers stared in mesmerisation as the flowers continued to captivate them in. As they were taken to another universe, the dahlia in the middle started getting bigger, and its centre expanding, soon a fairy came into view, tiny and with pointy features. Her hair cascading and floating around her, ethereal just as her aura.

…There once was a tale, like no other it spoke about a cave, deep into the ends of Earth between the ocean and the sky’s vast death met. Wonders you may find… But beware and be aware… Because crystals shine as the sun burn… Your cue is to find what may free you for a breath…

With that, the fairy went back to the inside of the dahlia as they withered. When the magic died down, each of them blinked.

“Tell me you wrote that down,” breathed Leevanna.

“Got it,” replied Lhu as he handed her a piece of paper. “Still I didn’t understand much of it.”

“If it helps, neither did I,” Leevanna passed her hands through her face. “A cave? What may free you for a breath? What on Earth does that even mean? Honestly.”

“Perhaps you have to find something,” suggested Lhu. “I mean, it says that wonders your cue is to find what may free you,” she continued. “Perhaps what you have to find is the exit of the place you will be in.”

“That isn’t farfetched,” said Leevanna. “It has sense actually.”

It was in that moment when the door opened. Leevanna turned her head around in fear.

But it was only Freya and Thea. “We know you just figured it out,” said the first one. “Spill the tea, sister. How do they work.”

Lhu and Leevanna looked at each other.

“We won’t say anything to Eisdrache, Leev,” said Thea sitting by her side. “I swear we won’t. We just want to be here for you. We don’t want you to be alone in this shite of the tournament.”

Leevanna looked at her directly into her eyes. She knew Thea was saying the truth. They wouldn’t say anything. “Why didn’t you do anything when he attacked me?”

Thea’s eyes flickered for a moment as Freya sat down next to her. “We weren’t able, we couldn’t physically do anything,” she licked her lips. “When you went through the door, he was the first one to look at you, he practically pushed us away with his element to attack you, Leev… I swear if we could have been able to do anything, I would have, we would all have saved you from his rage… I swear to you I would have killed him if I had been able to do so.”

Leevanna nodded and wiped Thea’s tears away. “Why isn’t the common room speaking about it?” this time her question was directed to Freya.

“I threatened them that if they spoke I’ll have their tongues.”

And she said that so nonchalantly that Leevanna smiled and almost laughed.

Yes, Freya would do that.

“We didn’t want for you to come back and be suffocated by the whispers and murmurs or even gossip that was going around, it wasn’t fair for you to hear what they were saying,” Freya shook her head is disgust. “I swear I punched two or three blokes for commenting on it and that was enough for everyone to stop. We didn’t mean any harm or for you to think we didn’t care.”

“It’s okay,” Leevanna nodded.

Yes, it was.

“Do you want to know how the rocks work?”

And they nodded enthusiastically.

So Leevanna started explaining them what had happened with the rocks that were seeds and the words the fairy had chanted to them. She gave them the hypothesis Lhu had they reached the same conclusion: Leevanna had to search for something to escape the hypothetical cave she would have to go through.

“If the war needs even more soldiers and we are their only option, Leevanna would be like these generals who are super serious but if they are drunk are bloody funny,” Thea chuckled, running her fingers through her hair. The rest of the girls nodded in agreement.

“Still, don’t manifest we will go to the war any time soon,” said Lhu changing the direction of the conversation. “Being part of it, if it is to continue of course, would be a distress for everyone. And don’t even argue me on that because then we would be separated from each other.”

“That’s true,” nodded Freya. “Not knowing where the other would be horrible. Imagine one of us dies in battle and we don’t ever get to know.”

“Yeah,” sighed Thea giving Freya the reason. “A lot of people would die every day, that could be any of us.”

“Some people deserve to die,” said Leevanna.

And they knew that was a thought and belief each of them in that room, space and time, had at some point and still did.

Perhaps it wasn’t the best to say it out loud, but now they felt safe of expressing their thinking of some days. Not that they didn’t felt it before, but Thea was somehow sensible with the subject since her parents had forged her with the belief of God and the rest of the beliefs magical beings had. It was a merge of both. “And what about the innocent people?” frowned Thea.

“No one is completely innocent,” the jade-eyed sighed. “We all are sinners, some of us deserve death, some of us deserve to live with the punishment of trauma, but we all are sinners.”

“Even the gods?”

“Even those motherfuckers.”

She was there, with salty rivers running down the hills of her sickened pale skin.

“You should have kept her safe,” she cried looking at the dark ocean filled with little, shining white points. Thinking that perhaps a miracle would come. “I prayed, for Heaven’s sake! A f*****g lot! And you did nothing! Nothing at f*****g all! You let her suffer and be tortured! She believed in you!”

And she was so disappointed with herself, with the Gods and with everything in the whole world. It was hard, for a little kid, to be in her place. But that certainly that wouldn’t be the first time she would be disappointed.