Fallen

“and they lived happily ever after.” A pause. “That’s the end.” I shut the book again and look back at the kids.

“Again!” The girl from the front shouts. The others join in the chant.

Mother Rose stands up from her old rocking chair, dusting herself off and sighs. “You can hear it tomorrow, it’s time for supper. Say goodbye to Thea.”

They say their goodbyes and Mother stays back to talk to me. “You’ve heard about the incident at the mines already?”

I give her a small nod. “Apparently the Resistance had already knew about it so they had evacuated most of the people.”

She grips my hand. “Be safe out there.”

Smiling, I turn towards the entrance and head out in the wake of evening. Holding the book close to my chest, I slink into the alleyways, deeper and deeper into the dark.

Someone bumps into me. I look back to see a large hooded figure, who continues stalking towards the village. Checking if anyone else is following, I continue treading on until I reach where I first left.

Elise is already at the entrance waiting for me. We silently head through the catacomb, leading us into my room. She drapes the tapestry over the entrance, and I take a breath.

“How was your time at the orphanage?” She asks.

“Fine, just the usual.” I reply, lying on the plump pillows on the bed.

Before our conversation continues, we’re interrupted by a knock on the door.

Elise opens the door. She then closes it.

“Your father wants to speak with you. In his study.”

I get up from the mattress and head out of my room.

“Talk to me my ass.” I mutter while walking down the stairs towards his study.

Then I feel feel someone tugging on my skirt. Turning to see Violet with her signature smirk on her face, she pulls on my skirt again.

Giving her a glare, I simply say. “Stop.”

“Do I have any reason to stop?” She retorts back.

“Father will probably murder me in cold blood if he doesn’t see me right now.”

A low voices appears. “It’s not nice to say that about your father, is it Vienna?”

Violet scowls at Father before trudging off in the opposite direction, flipping her side fringe out of her face along the way, and leaving me alone with him.

“What shit are you gonna tell me now?” I ask, not intending to be polite.

“Now don’t be rude, but this is rather, a private conversation. Come on now.” He walks into his study, expecting me to trail along.

The room is well lit, with shelves lining the wall and filled with untouched books, a thin layer of dust covering them. A portrait of my late mother with my father, holding a little me hangs in the centre of the room, behind the desk. Ma had died while giving birth to Violet, that’s why she avoids Father, because she believes that it’s her fault. Once she believes in something, she won’t change her mind. Stubborn girl.

Father leans back in his chair and beckons me to sit down. His dark violet eyes stare into my own as he starts to speak.

“So, your 18th birthday is in,” counting on his fingers, “2 months.” He stops, before continuing on. “And I have something big planned for you.”

Ugh, my turn to speak.

“Doesn’t everyone need to plan something for someone’s birthday?”

He slowly nods. “Would you like me to get straight to it, or would you like to drag this on for another 2 hours?”

“Just get to the point.” I bluntly say, rolling my eyes.

“You are to be wed to Byron Everglade.”

He’s got to be kidding, father knows that I absolutely hate Byron AND his father. My magic bubbles in my chest as I struggle to absorb the news.

“Why do you need to do this?”

He shrugs. “He’s my friend’s son and I think he’ll do a good job of keeping my slave trade intact when I am deceased. And of course, you’ll make beautiful and strong offspring.”

Barely able to sit in my chair, I stand up, with wisps of purple rising from my hands. Fisting my hands to keep them contained, I move closer to the desk.

“I’m not a breeder for you to sell off and the slave trade shouldn’t even exist just so you can take money from other’s pain and hard labour.” No details, but straight to the message I want my father to hear.

He sits up and raises his voice. “You sure do inherit your mother’s fury, but remember, you carry you father’s magic and royal blood. So you’ve got to agree to this or I’ll—” Someone is at the door, Elias pokes his head in the study.

He returns to his cool and commanding voice. “Elias, can you not see that I am trying to speak with my daughter here? Why are you here?”

Elias steps in, giving me a small nod. “Brutus and his men have captured one member of the resistance.”

As if he had been pardoned by God himself, he walks out of the study dragging me behind, dismissing our heated conversation from before.

We arrive at the throne room, where Brutus is already there with the captive gagged.

“Report.” My father commands.

“We caught him riding out of the main village, he’s one of the special ones.”

“Show me his eyes.”

Brutus lifts the hood off the man’s head, revealing icy blue eyes staring daggers into my father’s eyes. Our world is strange, your eye colour determines what magic you hold. Only royals have magic, but the occasional villager would be born with blue eyes, not the usual brown or hazel. But they were barely able to control their powers, so they chose to ignore them instead.

Father made the ordinaries slaves and forcing them to hard labour, gathering more and more hate against his rule. There was no resistance before.

The man stays still while Father walks in circles around him, interrogating him. I stand still barely able to withstand the boredom, until he finally says: “Vienna darling, I’ll give you the pleasure of eliminating this man.”

I slowly walk up to where the man is still kneeling on the marble. He looks up at me with an expression I cannot read and gives a light smile.

“So she is as beautiful as they say, hmmm, go on, do as your daddy says.” He drawls. His eyes then travel down the dip of my breasts.

Us Raquilius have the power of manipulating in the mind. Each of the nobles have one specialty, no one, ever, has had two specials or more.

I creep into the man’s mind and send a message through.

I’m going to knock you out, and I’ll let you out later. But if you continue acting like a creep then I WILL do as daddy told me to.

With that, his eyes roll to the back of his head as he slumps onto the ground. Brutus searches for his pulse. “He’s still alive, unfortunately.”

Father gives me a look.

I shrug. “Whoops, didn’t try hard enough.” I excuse myself and calmly walk out as they drag the rebel away to the cells. Now I have to ask a favour from Violet.

“Again?” Violet complains from her bed. She’s still in her training gear, all grimy and crap. She waits until everyone else has showered before she does so.

I nod. “Yeah, go distract the guards while I get the dude out of the cells.”

“Ugh.” She raises back up and comes towards me. Then, she shoves me in the shoulder, knocking me over.

“So will you do it for me or not?” I ask, muffled by the carpet in my face.

“Try to do something by yourself for once, BE INDEPENDENT. But I’ll do it for you anyways.” She pulls me back up and leads me to her bedroom door. “Now shoo and go do some other stuff, I’ve got things to do.” The door slams in my face.

Well that went great.

I gloomily return to my room and decide to shower first. Elise isn’t in my room when I arrive, so I have to do it myself.

After 15 minutes of water running through my hair and skimming across my body, Elise is outside with the dress I need to wear for dinner.

Another stupid long dress, it’s not fair. Violet is allowed to wear pants and shirts, while I’m stuck with dresses lined with lace and other fine materials. What’s worse is when Father makes me wear dresses that look like underwear that a prostitute would wear, only when he makes me dance for guests.

Elise helps me change into the dress, even though I am fully capable of dressing myself. She helps with my hair, and pins it up in a large up-do. Unlike other nobles, Violet and I don’t wear make up and we also don’t wear shoes when we are at home.

Elise escorts me to the huge private dining hall in the west wing, where Father is already sitting there. He seems to have already completely ignored our conversation from earlier before, but a sly grin is still pasted on his face.

Violet tramples in not much later, dragging the chair behind her before relaxing into it. She doesn’t bother looking at anyone in the room, but still kicks me from under the table.

The servants come in with the food and I slowly eat.

Father then stops before saying something. “Violet, sweetie, would you like to hear something?”

She doesn’t look up from her food.

“Were you eavesdropping when your sister was with me?”

Still doesn’t move.

“I guess I’ll have to repeat myself.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. I did not need to hear it again. But I couldn’t tell whether Father was going to talk about the rebel or not. Or both news.

“Your sister is betrothed to——-” Violet continues the sentence.

“That bigass Byron dickhead? Yeah, duh! Who else was going to be able to marry my sexy sister?”

“Don’t use vulgar language, not very good table manners.”

I shift around in my seat.

Violet continues. “Does Vienna really want to? He’s flippin’ 6 years older than her!”

“She didn’t say, nor does she really have a choice.”

“Great. So you get to play matchmaker now? Who am I getting married to?”

“I think you probably already know.” Father says in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Oh, bigass Byron dickhead’s little brother Kane? Why can’t we just find our own stupid husbands? It’s not like Vienna is willing to have sex with Byron. Nor am I to have sex at all.”

This conversation was getting out of hand. The heat in my palms start to flare up.

“I’m surprised that you aren’t screaming about being married to a bold man like him. I’m not talking about sexual conduct.”

“Why would I need to be ‘screaming’ over a guy who doesn’t even has a dick?”

“I would’ve willingly chucked you out of here to survive on the streets yourself, would you’ve preferred that?”

Violet stops for a moment, before opening her mouth to say more. “I believe that I could’ve survived better than you could,” she pauses but continues before Father could comment, “but you were willing to disown the child who killed your wife?”

For the first time in a while, Father looks stunned. Not from Violet, but the mention of Ma.

“For the last time Violet,” he says in attempt to soothe Violet, “you aren’t at fault for what happened to your mother. I don’t mind your presence here, ignore whatever i said—”

“If you didn’t mean whatever you said then don’t bother saying it in the first place!” With that, she storms out of the dining room.

Father sighs before turning back to me, his face pale.

“What am I to do with either of you?”

“If that’s a question you need answers for, you can ask yourself.”

I choose to leave at that moment to prevent a further argument to be raised by us two. Not like that would ever change.

Lying on my back, and staring at the ceiling for however long time had passed still doesn’t clear my mind from what happened today.

My eyes slowly flutter shut as the blanket of sleep decides to take over.

Then, someone slams the door open.

It wasn’t Elise, who hadn’t appeared after i left to Father’s study. Or Elias, not that he would have anything to do with me anyways.

But Violet, casually leaning against the doorframe, staring right at me. I could not think of any reason why she would meet me at such a late hour (I could tell cause she was wearing the same thing she had at worn at dinner, and when i last saw her in her room).

Her face shows nothing about what had happened between her and Father.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“Oh my god, you idiot,” she replies. “what did you want me to do earlier this evening?” She crosses her arms and impatiently taps her foot, waiting for me to answer.

Then it comes into my mind.

“Crap, thanks for reminding me.” Ugh, time to be a hero again.