“Is something bothering our princess?” Julia’s inquiry was gentle as her fingers ran through the child’s voluminous crimson curls, checking for knots and damp areas missed.
The little girl, enjoying the other’s presence and touch like a baby beast savoring its mother’s forceful yet affectionate groom, each lick nurturing, opened her shut eyes, and her reflection in the mirror in front stared back at her. She yawned, and her enthralling eyes glistened with tears and defeating lethargy.
“Is it obvious?” Seraphina asked back, her head nodding and bobbing in drowsiness.
“M’lady seemed overwhelmed by lassitude these last few days. Having trouble sleeping?” Julia tied the little girl’s handful locks in a loose braid and changed her into a nightgown.
The child dashed to her wide plushy bed, diving into the sheets and snuggling and nestling herself into a bundled squashy ball, only her red crown peaking.
“Just need a few more days adjusting,” Seraphina’s milky voice was muffled.
“Indeed. It’s only been a week since we’ve arrived,” the clanking sound of the woman’s slightly uneven steps ringed through the chambers as she blew out the candles one by one, and soon, only the silver moonlight remained enlightening.
“Goodnight, my lady,” she bowed respectfully and retired, leaving the child to her peace and much-desired slumber. Unbeknownst to the dame, during the whole bustle, a pair of striking golden orbs never withdrew from the severed leg of hers, its stare profound and glaring, lurking under the sheets predatorily.
“You've returned,” the head butler, Julia, greeted the man whose face donned a nasty lengthy scar slithering across his cheek and lips.
“Why are you serving her?” His voice was rusty and low as the pair headed to the grand duke’s study.
“Better watch your tongue, commander. This 'her' is our new master, the young lady of the house, and the princess of the north,” Julia's voice was frosty and the tone biting.
She knocked twice on the door, entered the study, and curtsied to her king, who was still working in the dead of the wee hours, followed by the rough man.
“What took you this long?” A deep velvet voice fell.
“Your grace,” replied the knights commander, but the words after did not come.
The grand duke raised his head from the paperwork, and his golden irises, vehement and subduing, rested on the man standing before him.
“Go on,” he told.
“Amaris, that child, your daughter, is not what you believe her to be,” stated the scarred man.
“What I believe her to be?” Amaris’s amused chuckle fell as he gestured to his brother-in-law to continue.
“The townspeople, where Rosaline lived after leaving the trope, knew barely anything about her child that very few could tell she had a daughter called Ris, but nothing more.”
“Ris? As of my name?” Amaris confirmed in bewilderment.
“Must be,” Julia added, finding her lady’s mother to be a romantic shefox.
“Rosaline’s only friend was a prostitute, who later became a mistress of an old nobleman, named Jia. The neighbors said they were sworn sisters and affirmed the woman took the child with her when Rosaline passed away,” the man carried on.
“And she brought the child to the imperial elder?” Julia voiced, finding the sequence of the events specious.
“Considering Ezekiel’s history with the fox clan, no friend would do so unless they are more than what they portrayed themselves to be,” Amaris frowned, his eyes chilling with each passing second.
“She was, indeed, much more than a friend. She took the child to Baron Teivel of the south,” the commander spoke, his voice queerly low when spitting out the name.
“Who is that?” Julia sensed the man’s contempt.
“His land is notorious for being lawless and man-eating. Criminals roam the streets, and gambling houses thrive. Kidnapping and trafficking are common.”
“Where is he?” The grand duke asked.
“Dead. When I got there, the gambling house owner was impersonating him. He went to Tievel’s manor to get his coins, but the man was already dead in his bedroom. Nothing was missing, no signs of robbery, but only a corpse, a mutilated, rotted. He described the body as missing its heart as if pulled out by a beast… As for that prostitute, I couldn’t find her traces anywhere. However, some people claimed they saw a child pulling a bloodied cart around that time. The cart was thrown into the Dead Corner, its contents either alive or dead.”
Julia’s spine tensed as shivers assaulted her body and chill nestled inside her chest. Even as a northerner, she had heard of the horror of the Dead Corner, the alley where humans feed on or with humans.
“So, you’re saying it’s our lady’s doing?” Julia briefed.
“It’s hers,” the grand duke’s velvet voice rumbled a hum before the other man could utter a word.
“Your grace, I see you are not perturbed,” the commander spoke.
“Lysias, she is a daughter I had with an outsider. However, no one can deny or have the right to condemn that she is not a true Callenso, including you. The Callensos’ blood running through her veins is no less than your nephews’ or mine, and the Callensos’ hands are often dyed red. The method she used to handle them might seem a bit… animalistic, but, say, would Ihan, Aegaeon, and Deimos have done any gentler if they were in her instead?” The grand duke questioned, his proud eyes and the truth lingering in his words rendering the man speechless.
“Thank the goddess, she was unscathed,” Julia heaved as the thought of what if the two evildoers managed to achieve their purpose drenched her in a cold sweat and bloody murder.
The grand duke turned his attention back to the papers and asked,
“I assume that’s the end of your investigation?”
“Yes. As for what… the young lady had done or went to afterward or why sought the imperial elder is uncertain,” concluded Lysias.
Kill me! Seraphina gasped aloud as she shot awake from her sleep. She sat motionlessly, trying to catch her ragged breath and ease the thumping heart nearly rampaging out through her throat. She turned her head to the window and saw that the dawn was yet to rise and the long night similarly yet to pass.
“Fuck,” her low grumble, almost like a snarl of a feral beast, fell inside the bedroom.
… “Come here,” Amaris called for the child, who stood by the window, her eyes tenderly benign as she gazed at the looming city far on the horizon and her reflection on the glistening glass drenched in the warm hues of the sunset mesmerizing.
The little girl turned around and chortled in milky laughter as the man picked her up and sat her down on the broad dark wooden desk that wafted a slightly bitter-sweet and earthy fragrance. Next to her, on the center of the desk, laid another object worthy of awe and wonder, as its very being exuded beauty, power, and revere.
The small casket, its body long and slender, was made with bloody maroon rosewood, and coiled around its entirety were dozens of snakes of titanite, their sleek bodies bathing in emerald luster with hints of amber hues here and there. No snake was identical to the other as each had its charm and distinction in size, skeleton, and color that their twisting and entwining resembled knots and was much lifelike. Besides the alluring sphene beasts, there was no lock, bolt, or keyhole on the casket, which made its mechanism a mystery.
Finally, it’s here, Seraphina’s stomach tightened as cozy yet disobedient tickles spread from her core to her tiny palms, and the corners of her lips could not help but curl with merriment.
“You know what it is,” Amaris chuckled, witnessing his daughter’s enthralling eyes twinkling with impatience and rapture.
“En,” the little girl nodded, head bobbing like a pecking chicken.
The grand duke put his hand above the casket, and his palm emitted a golden aura, which penetrated and sank into the cold titanite. In a blink of an eye, the emerald eyes of the snakes started swirling with golden specks of dust, its’ stiff sphene bodies wriggled with life, mouths opened and hissed, and tongues flicked aggressively.
This is new, the little girl admired the scene as the lifeless gemstones turned into living beasts with a touch of his aura.
As Amaris withdrew his hand, the snakes slithered into the desk, circling the casket, and the tightly sealed rosewood opened with a click, revealing a black leather scroll.
“The dwarfs created the casket, and an elven mage enchanted it with the first Callenso’s request. There is no lock and key, and the only way to open it is to feed the aura of a master of a shadow beast,” explained Amaris as he retrieved the scroll, and the casket returned to its original appearance, snakes once again twirling and knotting around it.
The grand duke pushed the magical artifact aside and placed the scroll in its place before the child. He then untied the meticulously bolted black leather, and as he unrolled it slowly, names and beastal figures emerged, each embroidered with golden threads with soul-snatching artisanship. The first name unraveled was Amaris I Callenso, and on its left was a stallion and on the right, a woman’s name. The names intertwined with golden leaves and branches, and from the middle sprouted two other names, both Callensos, and the first one, once again, had a beast on its left and a woman’s name on its right. The pattern continued.
“It’s the family tree of the Callenso,” the little girl affirmed.
“It is. Compared to other houses’, ours’ differ. The leather is the cured skins of shadow beasts as each beast leaves behind a part of him before following its master to the afterlife, and the embroideries are of purest gold to resemble ours and their eyes. Moreover, when a Callenso not chosen by a shadow beast marries, regardless of the gender, they carry their spouse’s family name, and so do their children. Therefore, it only shows the direct bloodline, the bonded beasts, and spouses and children of each head.”
“Has there ever been a female family head?” Questioned Seraphina, her delicate voice oddly monotone, void of curiosity yet veiling another emotion which her father could not quite put a finger on it.
“Only one,” he further uncoiled the scroll before stopping on a name, Cecilia Callenso.
“The only female to have ever claimed a shadow beast, as well as the Callenso who was chosen by the strongest shadow beast to have ever graced the lands,” Amaris proclaimed as his finger tapped twice on the scalp-numbing beast, a basilisk.
“Cecilia’s beast reflected her temper. Untamed, unswerving, and stubborn. It loved the mortal world that it would prefer to stay outside its master’s shadow, and when it reclined, the whole tower would be filled with its black scaly body,” the grand duke told the tale.
The little girl lowered her head, her crimson lashes shaded the enthralling irises, and her tiny hand tremblingly reached out before gently running over the beautiful cursive letters of the name.
In her previous life, Seraphina had been petrified to realize that a life was growing inside her, and she hid her pregnancy altogether. Her fear had been genuine, but so did the joy. First had come the terror, then the bliss enveloped her soon, and each day, she would feel more grateful than yesterday. Still, she had chosen to keep her baby to herself because she and Reagan were yet to be married. She desperately wanted to protect her baby from being pointed fingers at or labeled as a bastard. At nights, alone, she had read books on womanhood, pregnancy, and motherhood and stumbled upon folklore. It sang that if the mother craved sour foods, the baby would be a boy, and if it was sweetness, then a girl. Seraphina believed the lore because she remembered her mother telling her once that she often craved sweets when she had her. She had determined that her baby was a girl. Hiding under the dark cloak of the silent nights, Seraphina would hum for her baby girl while caressing her still flat belly and whispering her name with love. She had chosen her daughter a name, and calling it aloud blessed her warmth and strength that nothing else had ever done to her.
Cecilia, Seraphina felt her chest tighten, a knot forming in her throat, and bitterness engulfed her senses.
“I like her name a lot,” she whispered.
Amaris sensed his daughter’s fluctuating emotions and patted her head, his thumb caressing her forehead reassuringly. Since the first day he had known her existence, he understood she had her secrets, and trying to scratch them would cause her more than just pain. The grand duke smiled at the little girl, patience and faith evident in his touch and gaze.
“I hope you will like yours more,” he told the child before unbundling the leather all the way.
At the bottom of the scroll pictured a winged shadow lion, and next to it was its master’s name, Amaris lll Callenso. The late grand duchess’s name, Lilianne Ravens, was embroidered shoulder to shoulder with her husband’s, and from their union branched out three others, Ihan Callenso, Aegaeon Callenso, and Deimos Callenso. However, theirs were not the farthest the tree bloomed. Directly descending from the grand duke’s glory was another name, a female one inlaid with the same cursive style, gold threads, and embroidery as his sons’, flowered magnificently.
Seraphina Callenso, it was.
.
.
.
A little girl stood in the center of the study, her body pathetically thin, hair cut short to severe the damaged parts, and the head lowered, chin resting on the root of her neck, eyes flickering with unease, and shoulders flenching with the slightest of movement inside the room. In her front, on a low desk, an open scroll laid. She eyed the embroidery on it before casting her head even lower, realizing her mother’s name was not on it. After a brief silence, the man who sat behind his enormous dark wooden desk asked, his eyes still fixed on his papers.
“Can you read?” His voice was deep and velvety.
The girl nodded, but the words never left her mouth, and the grand duke raised his head. As soon as his gaze befell the child, the girl started trembling as if on the verge of fainting cold.
“You may leave,” he withdrew his gaze from the child in an instance and continued his work, but the pen never descended on the blank white papers.
As if a criminal pardoned, the girl’s tense shoulders relaxed significantly, and she turned around to bolt out of the room. When she was a step away from the doors of the study, the man called out an unfamiliar name, the first in her life to hear out loud from another’s mouth, in his smooth voice.
“Seraphina,” he continued after a breath,
“It means the burning ones. I hope, one day, you will ignite brilliantly just like how your mother had... Go now,” he addressed the stiff frozen child.
.
.
.
The little girl’s smile was irresistible and contagious as she looked at her father.
“I do. I love it,” she told him, and the grand duke opened his embrace, which she dived right into.
“Do you know why I named you such?”
“Because you hope I will burn in brilliance like flames?”
“No, because you are ablaze, more radiant than anything I have ever laid eyes upon.”
A knock erupted inside the study as Seraphina was engrossed in the Callenso family tree, mostly the shadow beasts. There were all kinds of beasts, from herbivores to carnivores and from a tiny hornet to a gigantic basilisk. Only after the visitors stood before her did she raise her head.
Lysias Ravens, Julia Ayrmyn, and Leah.
“Seraphina, let me officially introduce these people. The knights commander, Lysias Ravens, the head butler and my aide, Julia Ayrmyn, and the head maid Leah. And, this, my daughter, Seraphina Callenso,” the grand duke introduced.
Oh, dear father, your introduction leaves out the most crucial factors. Lysias, the late grand duchess’s full-blooded elder brother and a man who will not die for me as he would for any other Callenso. Julia, a woman who practically raised you on the battlefield and a confidante you bear the weight of the world with, and Leah, an orphan child named after and raised in the same cradle with Lilianne by the Ravens, the late grand duchess’s bosom friend, and my elder brothers’ nursemaid. In my previous life, it was Leah who took care of me in the grand duchy. She was meltingly motherly and gentle, a woman I liked to think of as an elder, but that was what only my insignificant shortsighted half-blind eyes saw in her. After all, it was Deimos, Leah’s most cherished master, a son she had raised from infancy, who locked her up in the dungeon, tortured her inhumanely so that she prayed for death to the goddess, and yet never bestowed eternal peace.
Lysias and Julia, due to their upbringing and profession, permeated an intimidating aura as the two bowed their heads with their hands on their chest. Quite contrarily, the youngest of three, Leah, curtsied in sophistry that even some purebred noblewomen did not possess, breathtakingly elegant. When she bent her knee in the slightest and rose, a peculiar scent grazed the little girl’s nose.
That’s interesting, Seraphina amused, her eyes chilling with edgy frosts.
The little girl leaped down from the desk and landed before the man donning a hideous scar diagonally on his cheek and lips. She raised her head, catching the man off-guard with her unwavering eyes blazing with authority and royalty, and the tiny hand rose in the air, offered.
Seraphina’s action stilled the air inside the study, and silence squeezed their lungs. Only the grand duke’s eyes shone with mirthful amusement as he reclined languidly in his seat. The child was, indeed, of nobler blood and higher social status, be that as it may, her offered hand was less than a meter away from the floor due to her height. A knight cannot refuse a lady’s offered hand, especially if she is from the house he vowed his allegiance to. Essentially, the little girl was forcing the man onto his knees, head bowed to the lowest, and eyes below hers. It was not loyalty that she sought but submission.
A second stretched like minutes, and after the brief stillness that scalded the two women’s soles, at last, Lysias bent the knee, dropping his head, the gloved hand took the child’s in his, her powdery white paw ridiculously tiny on his wide thick palm, and curled his neck, his forehead slowly and gently resting on the warm and doughy skin of child’s backhand.
The moment his forehead grazed her hand, Seraphina’s pupils widened into dark pools, nearly overflowing the swirling goldens, and her breath hitched. At once, she pulled back her hand in a violent swing, and a metallic tang of fresh blood permeated the air.
Amaris jumped to his feet and took a long stride to his daughter; however, before he could take his second, her usually sweet and sticky voice growled lowly, rendering him immobile.
“Don’t come,” Seraphina snarled threateningly.
Seraphina’s head was lowered, crimson locks blocking her pale face and horrifyingly enlarged pupils, and her hand, which she pulled back from the man’s hold, dripped blood from the sharp beastal claws as she backed away from the adults in wobbly steps. Her shoulders were shivering, and the breath leaving her mouth was broken and trembling.
Lysias rose to his feet, his scarred face splattered with his blood, and the hand, which the child mauled with her claws, gushed blood, and the torn palm flared, bones visible to naked eyes. However, his injury was the least of concern as the child’s ruffled dress, pale blue in color, spread streaks of blooming maroon from her shoulder blades to the torso, blood penetrating the silk from inside, startling everyone. None could tell how the long gushing wounds had formed on her chest from thin air, and the little girl lost her footing, instantly.
“Seraphina!” Amaris caught his daughter in midair, but the child threw the other’s hand in an enraged swing, nearly dislocating the grand duke’s arm, and backed away.
“Leave,” the grand duke ordered his men.
“Your grace, she’s injured,” head maid Leah; however, knelt beside the child and reached her hands to the tiny shriveling frame.
Amaris! Ratuna’s warning fell, albeit a second late.
The little child sprung forward, and in a blink of an eye, her sharp-clawed hand landed squarely on the woman’s lower face, the palm pressed on her full lips, nails sinking into the hollows of her cheek, penetrating the subtle skin and drawing blood, and the raw strength of her clutch shattered the woman’s bones.
Leah’s screech was forced back to her throat by the sheer power of the child’s hold, and only the cracking of her cheekbones, jaws, and teeth resounded inside the study.
“Seraphina,” the grand duke called, but did not step closer to his daughter as he was aware that the slightest mishap would result in a blasted head of the woman.
“My lady,” Julia followed suit, her voice a little shaky but, as always, gentle and patient.
Seraphina finally raised her lowered eyelids, revealing the vertical pupils slender enough to be missed, and her irises glowed with gold and shimmering dust.
“When I say don’t come, I mean it,” she growled viciously, the grinding sound of shattered bones filling their ears.
The woman’s hands clutched the claw smashing her skull in a desperate attempt to be released, and her tears flowed, mixing with her blood, and drenched the child’s hand and sleeve. The pain and fear engulfed her entire body as she felt that death was only a breath away. A foul ammoniac smell soon emitted.
“Little sister, let her go,” Ihan burst into the room, followed by Aegaeon and Deimos.
“And if not, will you hate me?” Seraphina finally tore her gaze away from the woman and looked at her brothers.
“No, even if you kill her, we will not. But, you have to release her. She is not worthy of you dirtying your hand,” uttered Deimos, his words startling everyone within the room.
To label the woman who had raised him from infancy the unworthy, the third young master was cruel and unsparing. The moment his words sunk, Leah, the woman who finally saw her saving grace, dropped unconscious, her eyes wide open and orbs rolled back, leaving unsettling white scleras for all to witness.
The little girl stared long at her elder brothers, and her hand loosened its grip, dropping the unconscious wounded woman on the hard floor like throwing away a broken toy.
She shifted her sight into the window, her eyes piercing the darkness outside, and her sharp claws withdrew, and pupils returned to human.
“You lot have an explanation to make,” her voice dropped flat as she ran her gleaming gaze on Amaris, Julia, and Lysias.
Seraphina wiped the hand soiled with the woman’s blood, tear, snot, and saliva on her skirt, rubbing ferociously, minding none of the three slashes burning and stinging beneath her blood-drenched dress and her tone glacial and unpredictable.
“Lilianne Ravens, how did she die? Or should I ask how she is still alive?” The little girl enunciated each word.
A/N: Hello, everyone. This chapter is longer than my usual updates. I wavered over whether to divide it into two separate chapters but decided against it. I would truly appreciate it if you guys let me know in the comment how long or short is the most convenient and preferred to read. Please leave your opinions in the comment section. Thank you.
Love,
Jewel
“Is something bothering our princess?” Julia’s inquiry was gentle as her fingers ran through the child’s voluminous crimson curls, checking for knots and damp areas missed.
The little girl, enjoying the other’s presence and touch like a baby beast savoring its mother’s forceful yet affectionate groom, each lick nurturing, opened her shut eyes, and her reflection in the mirror in front stared back at her. She yawned, and her enthralling eyes glistened with tears and defeating lethargy.
“Is it obvious?” Seraphina asked back, her head nodding and bobbing in drowsiness.
“M’lady seemed overwhelmed by lassitude these last few days. Having trouble sleeping?” Julia tied the little girl’s handful locks in a loose braid and changed her into a nightgown.
The child dashed to her wide plushy bed, diving into the sheets and snuggling and nestling herself into a bundled squashy ball, only her red crown peaking.
“Just need a few more days adjusting,” Seraphina’s milky voice was muffled.
“Indeed. It’s only been a week since we’ve arrived,” the clanking sound of the woman’s slightly uneven steps ringed through the chambers as she blew out the candles one by one, and soon, only the silver moonlight remained enlightening.
“Goodnight, my lady,” she bowed respectfully and retired, leaving the child to her peace and much-desired slumber. Unbeknownst to the dame, during the whole bustle, a pair of striking golden orbs never withdrew from the severed leg of hers, its stare profound and glaring, lurking under the sheets predatorily.
“You've returned,” the head butler, Julia, greeted the man whose face donned a nasty lengthy scar slithering across his cheek and lips.
“Why are you serving her?” His voice was rusty and low as the pair headed to the grand duke’s study.
“Better watch your tongue, commander. This 'her' is our new master, the young lady of the house, and the princess of the north,” Julia's voice was frosty and the tone biting.
She knocked twice on the door, entered the study, and curtsied to her king, who was still working in the dead of the wee hours, followed by the rough man.
“What took you this long?” A deep velvet voice fell.
“Your grace,” replied the knights commander, but the words after did not come.
The grand duke raised his head from the paperwork, and his golden irises, vehement and subduing, rested on the man standing before him.
“Go on,” he told.
“Amaris, that child, your daughter, is not what you believe her to be,” stated the scarred man.
“What I believe her to be?” Amaris’s amused chuckle fell as he gestured to his brother-in-law to continue.
“The townspeople, where Rosaline lived after leaving the trope, knew barely anything about her child that very few could tell she had a daughter called Ris, but nothing more.”
“Ris? As of my name?” Amaris confirmed in bewilderment.
“Must be,” Julia added, finding her lady’s mother to be a romantic shefox.
“Rosaline’s only friend was a prostitute, who later became a mistress of an old nobleman, named Jia. The neighbors said they were sworn sisters and affirmed the woman took the child with her when Rosaline passed away,” the man carried on.
“And she brought the child to the imperial elder?” Julia voiced, finding the sequence of the events specious.
“Considering Ezekiel’s history with the fox clan, no friend would do so unless they are more than what they portrayed themselves to be,” Amaris frowned, his eyes chilling with each passing second.
“She was, indeed, much more than a friend. She took the child to Baron Teivel of the south,” the commander spoke, his voice queerly low when spitting out the name.
“Who is that?” Julia sensed the man’s contempt.
“His land is notorious for being lawless and man-eating. Criminals roam the streets, and gambling houses thrive. Kidnapping and trafficking are common.”
“Where is he?” The grand duke asked.
“Dead. When I got there, the gambling house owner was impersonating him. He went to Tievel’s manor to get his coins, but the man was already dead in his bedroom. Nothing was missing, no signs of robbery, but only a corpse, a mutilated, rotted. He described the body as missing its heart as if pulled out by a beast… As for that prostitute, I couldn’t find her traces anywhere. However, some people claimed they saw a child pulling a bloodied cart around that time. The cart was thrown into the Dead Corner, its contents either alive or dead.”
Julia’s spine tensed as shivers assaulted her body and chill nestled inside her chest. Even as a northerner, she had heard of the horror of the Dead Corner, the alley where humans feed on or with humans.
“So, you’re saying it’s our lady’s doing?” Julia briefed.
“It’s hers,” the grand duke’s velvet voice rumbled a hum before the other man could utter a word.
“Your grace, I see you are not perturbed,” the commander spoke.
“Lysias, she is a daughter I had with an outsider. However, no one can deny or have the right to condemn that she is not a true Callenso, including you. The Callensos’ blood running through her veins is no less than your nephews’ or mine, and the Callensos’ hands are often dyed red. The method she used to handle them might seem a bit… animalistic, but, say, would Ihan, Aegaeon, and Deimos have done any gentler if they were in her instead?” The grand duke questioned, his proud eyes and the truth lingering in his words rendering the man speechless.
“Thank the goddess, she was unscathed,” Julia heaved as the thought of what if the two evildoers managed to achieve their purpose drenched her in a cold sweat and bloody murder.
The grand duke turned his attention back to the papers and asked,
“I assume that’s the end of your investigation?”
“Yes. As for what… the young lady had done or went to afterward or why sought the imperial elder is uncertain,” concluded Lysias.
Kill me! Seraphina gasped aloud as she shot awake from her sleep. She sat motionlessly, trying to catch her ragged breath and ease the thumping heart nearly rampaging out through her throat. She turned her head to the window and saw that the dawn was yet to rise and the long night similarly yet to pass.
“Fuck,” her low grumble, almost like a snarl of a feral beast, fell inside the bedroom.
… “Come here,” Amaris called for the child, who stood by the window, her eyes tenderly benign as she gazed at the looming city far on the horizon and her reflection on the glistening glass drenched in the warm hues of the sunset mesmerizing.
The little girl turned around and chortled in milky laughter as the man picked her up and sat her down on the broad dark wooden desk that wafted a slightly bitter-sweet and earthy fragrance. Next to her, on the center of the desk, laid another object worthy of awe and wonder, as its very being exuded beauty, power, and revere.
The small casket, its body long and slender, was made with bloody maroon rosewood, and coiled around its entirety were dozens of snakes of titanite, their sleek bodies bathing in emerald luster with hints of amber hues here and there. No snake was identical to the other as each had its charm and distinction in size, skeleton, and color that their twisting and entwining resembled knots and was much lifelike. Besides the alluring sphene beasts, there was no lock, bolt, or keyhole on the casket, which made its mechanism a mystery.
Finally, it’s here, Seraphina’s stomach tightened as cozy yet disobedient tickles spread from her core to her tiny palms, and the corners of her lips could not help but curl with merriment.
“You know what it is,” Amaris chuckled, witnessing his daughter’s enthralling eyes twinkling with impatience and rapture.
“En,” the little girl nodded, head bobbing like a pecking chicken.
The grand duke put his hand above the casket, and his palm emitted a golden aura, which penetrated and sank into the cold titanite. In a blink of an eye, the emerald eyes of the snakes started swirling with golden specks of dust, its’ stiff sphene bodies wriggled with life, mouths opened and hissed, and tongues flicked aggressively.
This is new, the little girl admired the scene as the lifeless gemstones turned into living beasts with a touch of his aura.
As Amaris withdrew his hand, the snakes slithered into the desk, circling the casket, and the tightly sealed rosewood opened with a click, revealing a black leather scroll.
“The dwarfs created the casket, and an elven mage enchanted it with the first Callenso’s request. There is no lock and key, and the only way to open it is to feed the aura of a master of a shadow beast,” explained Amaris as he retrieved the scroll, and the casket returned to its original appearance, snakes once again twirling and knotting around it.
The grand duke pushed the magical artifact aside and placed the scroll in its place before the child. He then untied the meticulously bolted black leather, and as he unrolled it slowly, names and beastal figures emerged, each embroidered with golden threads with soul-snatching artisanship. The first name unraveled was Amaris I Callenso, and on its left was a stallion and on the right, a woman’s name. The names intertwined with golden leaves and branches, and from the middle sprouted two other names, both Callensos, and the first one, once again, had a beast on its left and a woman’s name on its right. The pattern continued.
“It’s the family tree of the Callenso,” the little girl affirmed.
“It is. Compared to other houses’, ours’ differ. The leather is the cured skins of shadow beasts as each beast leaves behind a part of him before following its master to the afterlife, and the embroideries are of purest gold to resemble ours and their eyes. Moreover, when a Callenso not chosen by a shadow beast marries, regardless of the gender, they carry their spouse’s family name, and so do their children. Therefore, it only shows the direct bloodline, the bonded beasts, and spouses and children of each head.”
“Has there ever been a female family head?” Questioned Seraphina, her delicate voice oddly monotone, void of curiosity yet veiling another emotion which her father could not quite put a finger on it.
“Only one,” he further uncoiled the scroll before stopping on a name, Cecilia Callenso.
“The only female to have ever claimed a shadow beast, as well as the Callenso who was chosen by the strongest shadow beast to have ever graced the lands,” Amaris proclaimed as his finger tapped twice on the scalp-numbing beast, a basilisk.
“Cecilia’s beast reflected her temper. Untamed, unswerving, and stubborn. It loved the mortal world that it would prefer to stay outside its master’s shadow, and when it reclined, the whole tower would be filled with its black scaly body,” the grand duke told the tale.
The little girl lowered her head, her crimson lashes shaded the enthralling irises, and her tiny hand tremblingly reached out before gently running over the beautiful cursive letters of the name.
In her previous life, Seraphina had been petrified to realize that a life was growing inside her, and she hid her pregnancy altogether. Her fear had been genuine, but so did the joy. First had come the terror, then the bliss enveloped her soon, and each day, she would feel more grateful than yesterday. Still, she had chosen to keep her baby to herself because she and Reagan were yet to be married. She desperately wanted to protect her baby from being pointed fingers at or labeled as a bastard. At nights, alone, she had read books on womanhood, pregnancy, and motherhood and stumbled upon folklore. It sang that if the mother craved sour foods, the baby would be a boy, and if it was sweetness, then a girl. Seraphina believed the lore because she remembered her mother telling her once that she often craved sweets when she had her. She had determined that her baby was a girl. Hiding under the dark cloak of the silent nights, Seraphina would hum for her baby girl while caressing her still flat belly and whispering her name with love. She had chosen her daughter a name, and calling it aloud blessed her warmth and strength that nothing else had ever done to her.
Cecilia, Seraphina felt her chest tighten, a knot forming in her throat, and bitterness engulfed her senses.
“I like her name a lot,” she whispered.
Amaris sensed his daughter’s fluctuating emotions and patted her head, his thumb caressing her forehead reassuringly. Since the first day he had known her existence, he understood she had her secrets, and trying to scratch them would cause her more than just pain. The grand duke smiled at the little girl, patience and faith evident in his touch and gaze.
“I hope you will like yours more,” he told the child before unbundling the leather all the way.
At the bottom of the scroll pictured a winged shadow lion, and next to it was its master’s name, Amaris lll Callenso. The late grand duchess’s name, Lilianne Ravens, was embroidered shoulder to shoulder with her husband’s, and from their union branched out three others, Ihan Callenso, Aegaeon Callenso, and Deimos Callenso. However, theirs were not the farthest the tree bloomed. Directly descending from the grand duke’s glory was another name, a female one inlaid with the same cursive style, gold threads, and embroidery as his sons’, flowered magnificently.
Seraphina Callenso, it was.
.
.
.
A little girl stood in the center of the study, her body pathetically thin, hair cut short to severe the damaged parts, and the head lowered, chin resting on the root of her neck, eyes flickering with unease, and shoulders flenching with the slightest of movement inside the room. In her front, on a low desk, an open scroll laid. She eyed the embroidery on it before casting her head even lower, realizing her mother’s name was not on it. After a brief silence, the man who sat behind his enormous dark wooden desk asked, his eyes still fixed on his papers.
“Can you read?” His voice was deep and velvety.
The girl nodded, but the words never left her mouth, and the grand duke raised his head. As soon as his gaze befell the child, the girl started trembling as if on the verge of fainting cold.
“You may leave,” he withdrew his gaze from the child in an instance and continued his work, but the pen never descended on the blank white papers.
As if a criminal pardoned, the girl’s tense shoulders relaxed significantly, and she turned around to bolt out of the room. When she was a step away from the doors of the study, the man called out an unfamiliar name, the first in her life to hear out loud from another’s mouth, in his smooth voice.
“Seraphina,” he continued after a breath,
“It means the burning ones. I hope, one day, you will ignite brilliantly just like how your mother had... Go now,” he addressed the stiff frozen child.
.
.
.
The little girl’s smile was irresistible and contagious as she looked at her father.
“I do. I love it,” she told him, and the grand duke opened his embrace, which she dived right into.
“Do you know why I named you such?”
“Because you hope I will burn in brilliance like flames?”
“No, because you are ablaze, more radiant than anything I have ever laid eyes upon.”
A knock erupted inside the study as Seraphina was engrossed in the Callenso family tree, mostly the shadow beasts. There were all kinds of beasts, from herbivores to carnivores and from a tiny hornet to a gigantic basilisk. Only after the visitors stood before her did she raise her head.
Lysias Ravens, Julia Ayrmyn, and Leah.
“Seraphina, let me officially introduce these people. The knights commander, Lysias Ravens, the head butler and my aide, Julia Ayrmyn, and the head maid Leah. And, this, my daughter, Seraphina Callenso,” the grand duke introduced.
Oh, dear father, your introduction leaves out the most crucial factors. Lysias, the late grand duchess’s full-blooded elder brother and a man who will not die for me as he would for any other Callenso. Julia, a woman who practically raised you on the battlefield and a confidante you bear the weight of the world with, and Leah, an orphan child named after and raised in the same cradle with Lilianne by the Ravens, the late grand duchess’s bosom friend, and my elder brothers’ nursemaid. In my previous life, it was Leah who took care of me in the grand duchy. She was meltingly motherly and gentle, a woman I liked to think of as an elder, but that was what only my insignificant shortsighted half-blind eyes saw in her. After all, it was Deimos, Leah’s most cherished master, a son she had raised from infancy, who locked her up in the dungeon, tortured her inhumanely so that she prayed for death to the goddess, and yet never bestowed eternal peace.
Lysias and Julia, due to their upbringing and profession, permeated an intimidating aura as the two bowed their heads with their hands on their chest. Quite contrarily, the youngest of three, Leah, curtsied in sophistry that even some purebred noblewomen did not possess, breathtakingly elegant. When she bent her knee in the slightest and rose, a peculiar scent grazed the little girl’s nose.
That’s interesting, Seraphina amused, her eyes chilling with edgy frosts.
The little girl leaped down from the desk and landed before the man donning a hideous scar diagonally on his cheek and lips. She raised her head, catching the man off-guard with her unwavering eyes blazing with authority and royalty, and the tiny hand rose in the air, offered.
Seraphina’s action stilled the air inside the study, and silence squeezed their lungs. Only the grand duke’s eyes shone with mirthful amusement as he reclined languidly in his seat. The child was, indeed, of nobler blood and higher social status, be that as it may, her offered hand was less than a meter away from the floor due to her height. A knight cannot refuse a lady’s offered hand, especially if she is from the house he vowed his allegiance to. Essentially, the little girl was forcing the man onto his knees, head bowed to the lowest, and eyes below hers. It was not loyalty that she sought but submission.
A second stretched like minutes, and after the brief stillness that scalded the two women’s soles, at last, Lysias bent the knee, dropping his head, the gloved hand took the child’s in his, her powdery white paw ridiculously tiny on his wide thick palm, and curled his neck, his forehead slowly and gently resting on the warm and doughy skin of child’s backhand.
The moment his forehead grazed her hand, Seraphina’s pupils widened into dark pools, nearly overflowing the swirling goldens, and her breath hitched. At once, she pulled back her hand in a violent swing, and a metallic tang of fresh blood permeated the air.
Amaris jumped to his feet and took a long stride to his daughter; however, before he could take his second, her usually sweet and sticky voice growled lowly, rendering him immobile.
“Don’t come,” Seraphina snarled threateningly.
Seraphina’s head was lowered, crimson locks blocking her pale face and horrifyingly enlarged pupils, and her hand, which she pulled back from the man’s hold, dripped blood from the sharp beastal claws as she backed away from the adults in wobbly steps. Her shoulders were shivering, and the breath leaving her mouth was broken and trembling.
Lysias rose to his feet, his scarred face splattered with his blood, and the hand, which the child mauled with her claws, gushed blood, and the torn palm flared, bones visible to naked eyes. However, his injury was the least of concern as the child’s ruffled dress, pale blue in color, spread streaks of blooming maroon from her shoulder blades to the torso, blood penetrating the silk from inside, startling everyone. None could tell how the long gushing wounds had formed on her chest from thin air, and the little girl lost her footing, instantly.
“Seraphina!” Amaris caught his daughter in midair, but the child threw the other’s hand in an enraged swing, nearly dislocating the grand duke’s arm, and backed away.
“Leave,” the grand duke ordered his men.
“Your grace, she’s injured,” head maid Leah; however, knelt beside the child and reached her hands to the tiny shriveling frame.
Amaris! Ratuna’s warning fell, albeit a second late.
The little child sprung forward, and in a blink of an eye, her sharp-clawed hand landed squarely on the woman’s lower face, the palm pressed on her full lips, nails sinking into the hollows of her cheek, penetrating the subtle skin and drawing blood, and the raw strength of her clutch shattered the woman’s bones.
Leah’s screech was forced back to her throat by the sheer power of the child’s hold, and only the cracking of her cheekbones, jaws, and teeth resounded inside the study.
“Seraphina,” the grand duke called, but did not step closer to his daughter as he was aware that the slightest mishap would result in a blasted head of the woman.
“My lady,” Julia followed suit, her voice a little shaky but, as always, gentle and patient.
Seraphina finally raised her lowered eyelids, revealing the vertical pupils slender enough to be missed, and her irises glowed with gold and shimmering dust.
“When I say don’t come, I mean it,” she growled viciously, the grinding sound of shattered bones filling their ears.
The woman’s hands clutched the claw smashing her skull in a desperate attempt to be released, and her tears flowed, mixing with her blood, and drenched the child’s hand and sleeve. The pain and fear engulfed her entire body as she felt that death was only a breath away. A foul ammoniac smell soon emitted.
“Little sister, let her go,” Ihan burst into the room, followed by Aegaeon and Deimos.
“And if not, will you hate me?” Seraphina finally tore her gaze away from the woman and looked at her brothers.
“No, even if you kill her, we will not. But, you have to release her. She is not worthy of you dirtying your hand,” uttered Deimos, his words startling everyone within the room.
To label the woman who had raised him from infancy the unworthy, the third young master was cruel and unsparing. The moment his words sunk, Leah, the woman who finally saw her saving grace, dropped unconscious, her eyes wide open and orbs rolled back, leaving unsettling white scleras for all to witness.
The little girl stared long at her elder brothers, and her hand loosened its grip, dropping the unconscious wounded woman on the hard floor like throwing away a broken toy.
She shifted her sight into the window, her eyes piercing the darkness outside, and her sharp claws withdrew, and pupils returned to human.
“You lot have an explanation to make,” her voice dropped flat as she ran her gleaming gaze on Amaris, Julia, and Lysias.
Seraphina wiped the hand soiled with the woman’s blood, tear, snot, and saliva on her skirt, rubbing ferociously, minding none of the three slashes burning and stinging beneath her blood-drenched dress and her tone glacial and unpredictable.
“Lilianne Ravens, how did she die? Or should I ask how she is still alive?” The little girl enunciated each word.
A/N: Hello, everyone. This chapter is longer than my usual updates. I wavered over whether to divide it into two separate chapters but decided against it. I would truly appreciate it if you guys let me know in the comment how long or short is the most convenient and preferred to read. Please leave your opinions in the comment section. Thank you.
Love,
Jewel
