Prelude Haha, the best part in the story: the metamorphose of the awkward duckling into a majestic swan…Yeah! I love this! REVIEW RIVEW REVIEW—I'm getting slightly overexcited, I'm afraid…Well, never mind. Please Review.
Chapter the Third
A Ball
So Ember's new life started. Writing, reading, harp playing, embroidering, dancing, riding, singing, literature, foreign, natural and historical culture, lessons after lessons, difficult, demanding, her day-life she found unbearable: often she did not eat any luncheon, and the better she got at every subject, the harder Opal made her work. Opal was so unpredictable you could not say if she was going to smile or scowl even if she told you before: she would make Ember work to exhaustion, and sometimes she would take her riding, or play harp to her, or read to her, or chat, amiably, gaily, like sisters. Sometimes she was stern and scornful, sometimes merry and talkative. Her lessons would be unbearably hard, and then she would offer a box of soft chocolates…As for the rest, it was as unpredictable as the mistress of the house: the cat and the crow would sometime be talkative, or snarling, sometimes insulting, or gently encouraging; Gold was most of the time reliable, but she vanished often in the middle of a conversation, and sometimes her words were enigmatic. The castle sometimes was friendly, and clear, sometimes a real maze of corridors and closed doors. The only thing that Ember could lean upon, the only thing she knew was always here, and never changed, was her piano, the dark, glossy, melancholy piano in a little room somewhere in the third floor. Every night, when she would go upstairs, she would find the door unlocked, with the key inside, so that she could lock herself, and also, the thing that troubled her the most, was the rose she found every evening waiting for her, fresh and crimson upon the black lid. She would take it in her bed every night after her piano playing, and hug it to her heart, until after a month, her left breast was so scratched and torn by the thorns that it was constantly hurting and bleeding. One busy year passed, in the confined, gothic secrets of Tal-Narra, and Ember grew slowly used to the different Opals, the cat and the crow, Gold's vanishings, her difficult day-work, and her playing of piano increased to such a high level of perfection she couldn't believe herself. Ember slowly changed, too. Her hair became thicker, richer, of a glossy raven-black, the black with the blue highlights, her skin changed of quality, no more chalk and sickly, but rich, creamy milky-white of colour, and fine. Her face grew thinner; the thin black eyebrows swept lightly upwards, the cheekbones elegantly pronounced, the lips curly, and the eyes grew as dark as the darkest cloud of storm: a rosy flush appeared upon her cheeks and lips, her breast grew slightly, high and firm, her waist became smaller, and her hips reached a grace of slimness that was incomparable. In fact, after one year of hard life at Tal-Narra, after one year of unleashed dancing, hard labour, long rides in the wild, cold corridors and hours of piano playing, writing and reading, Ember grew as beautiful as never Opal had seen someone beautiful: her beauty seemed of the night, black and white, her body was aerial, slim, slender, and she grew a kind of secret, changing grace, sometimes stealthy and closed sometimes gay and laughing. Already reading had become one of her great loves, and her dancing had gone beyond perfection; her writing was small, and neat and narrow and curly, her culture was improved of many facts Opal had never taught her, and she loved riding as much as her host did. Often the two of them would seat in the living room and discuss matters Ember would never had been able to discuss when she first arrived at the mansion, and they would also play long hours of chess, at which Ember lacked a certain talent, but still loved.
However, it was her piano playing that was her best improvement: she played so well, airs and tunes so sad and secret, so full of feelings, it was totally incredible to hear herself. It sometimes happened that she gazed with puzzlement at those long, spidery white hands that ran over the keys, black and white, and produce such a sound of pure beauty. She knew, of course, what mostly inspired the melancholy, desperate music: the tapestry behind her never ceased tormenting her; those two persons, black and white, still reaching helplessly towards each other, made her cry long hours in her bed, and also made her fingers run like a breeze upon the black and white keys, trying to help them by the music made for them. She longed to help them, grieved to the deepest parts of her heart for their doomed crave. And the rose, each evening, was here for her, as if trying to comfort her. She loved the rose so much, this too had become something making her heart ache, for now the wounds upon her breast didn't close anymore, they bled constantly, even if by little amounts.
However, life went on, and Ember grew rather happy, in the secret and mysteries of the mansion, alone, retired and recluse, but for her four companion: the eccentric Lady Opal, the enigmatic Gold and those two strange, yet deeply darling crow and cat, both black as night, and somewhat bright as light.
One evening came what Ember positively thought as definitely a bad new. They were sitting before the window—the one giving on the garden of roses that now bloomed in their spring—on a fine evening, no wind at all outside, and the windows open to let in the warm night air. Opal, dressed all in white, a loosed-fitting dress that rippled slightly under the night breeze, and Ember, in a satin dress of dark scarlet, with a river of rubies and garnets cascading down her white throat the laced bodice had bared to the beginning of the high young breasts. Opal was embroidering a chemise, sitting in a leather armchair, with her feet resting on a cushion at her feet, while Ember, sitting next to her in a twin armchair, was reading out loud an epic tale, her back against one of the armrests, which was softened by a pile of large cushions, and her legs thrown upon the other one, stroking the black cat as he purred with an air of great satisfaction, his small shin resting upon her breast.
'By the way,' Opal said as Ember threw the book away to be able to caress the black cat better, 'did I tell you I organised a ball?'
'Ugh?' Ember bolted straight in her armchair, the cat jumping away with a revengeful whip of its paw upon her throat, leaving three long red marks. Ember didn't even notice, she was staring, her eyes and mouth open wide in horror, at Opal.
'Well, I know you weren't going to be pleased, but what is done is done.'
Opal raised her head from her chemise, and setting her work aside on a small petal-covered table near her chair, she took Ember's hands in both her own.
'Don't worry; I am sure you are going to enjoy it.'
The idea of a ball, the idea to have someone violating the peaceful sanctuary of immortal secrets, the idea of having someone normal, someone dirtily human, was disgusting, cloying, sickening, and Ember suddenly found herself locking herself in silence, always in her bedroom reading, or playing piano, which soothed her. Her lessons had stopped for the summer, as a kind of holiday, and she had welcomed the rest, yet now, she never more wished Opal to oppress her with work. Now, she was conscious every minute of the slowly filling of the house, as every morning new guests, she didn't even try to meet, and whom Opal didn't force her to, which Ember was infinitely graceful for, arrived. The ball was taking place in three days now, and even though she had begged and pleaded as much as she could, Opal had been inflexible upon the fact that Ember had to be present.
The afternoon before the ball, as Ember was dozing in a chair in her bedroom with her book open in her lap, and her eyes slowly starting to fall, when Opal came in, smiling widely. She was holding in her arms a pile of clothes, which she threw on the bed, with the merry order for Ember to wash, perfume, comb, and dress herself.
'Here are two dresses I am sure will suit you. Chose your favourite, and come down when you are ready.'
Opal went away, closing the door behind her, and Ember listened as her footsteps died down the corridor. Then she stood up, with a sigh, and told herself that it was no need to resist, and that if she had to be present, well, let's make it memorable.
She went in the comfortable bathroom, and in a bath already prepared. Gold was not here, evidently busy elsewhere, and Ember stripped herself of her dress, happy to be alone for once. She jumped in the bath, and started to energetically brush her body with a brushing-sponge, spreading the soap all over it as she went. Then she took a little flacon of thick hair-soap, and poured some in her hair, and chafing vigorously the violet liquid in her hair. The strong, delicate perfume of lavender filled the room, and Ember ducked in the soapy water, closing her eyes tight and catching her breath. Still under the water, she rinsed her hair and her body, and went back to the surface, gasping but free of bubbles.
After she had dried herself and apply perfume in her neck, hair, and wrists, she went away from the bathroom, still naked, and examined the two suits of clothes. Both were so beautiful she wondered if she would ever be able to choose one.
The first one was of green velvet, but no stiff, old velvet: it was fluid, water-like velvet, off deep emerald green so perfect that it seemed like a piece of green water sewn into a dress. The gown was cut tight from under the bosom to the half-thigh, and rest flowing free and bright green. The top was very loose, tied over the breasts by long laces of satin ribbons, all of pale jade laces. The sleeves were of green muslin, in many folds of translucent green. The dress was elegant, well cut, and evidently would fit Ember to perfection. The other was altogether different.
It had a magnificent corset, in red velvet of strange patterns, and tying in even darker red ribbons over an under-tunic of red silk. The sleeves were vaporous and black, and held in puffs by long, streaming, red ribbons, like those form the corset. The dress cascaded in long, ripped waves of at least three layers of black silk, ending into a trailing tongue of glossy black. The whole was queenly, fantastical.
Now, which one?
The ball was not taking place in the Blue Ballroom, a fact for which Ember was deeply grateful. The mansion, at the coming of all those people for the normal, wan world: the main corridor had been dusted, long pots of china filled with colourful flowers hid the bottom of the walls were the thin, miserable sapling from the two outside trees and the mushrooms grew; the dead leaves and flowers that used the carpet the floor had been swept away; lights in colourful, sweet little lanterns dangled form the ceiling, flowing a fresh, delicate perfume in the air, and a little series of holes over the door had been uncovered from their iron caps, forming the harmonious melody of a soft, slow music.
Ember hated it. She hated to see the velvety silver of the dust gone; she hated to see the scraps of golden-nut of the dead leaves swept away so ruthlessly, she hated to see the squatting mushrooms and feeble sapling hidden by silly flowers of pastel blues and pinks, she hated the changing, the departure of this antique place's magnificent decay. The ballroom in which the ball was taking place was just in front of the living room, at the opposite wall of the corridor: instead of two doors, it had two long, water-like curtains of rippling violet velvet, which had been washed to get rid of the dust and dirt of time, taking a clean, welcoming, floral colour. The room was vast, with a floor that had been cleaned white, and flowers hanging in garlands all along the top of the walls. Two tall windows at the far side of the room opened upon a veranda leading to a romantic garden of flowers, and both the windows had been opened, their curtains, like the doors', drawn up in elegant, large waves by golden plaited strings. The dancing floor was free of any filth, or ripped golden-brown leaves; instead, tine petals of multicoloured flowers lay enchanting and lovely on it, and butterflies of tender pinks and yellows and blues fluttered from garland to garland over the guests' heads. A long buffet had been laid at one side of the room, covered by a trailing white table-cloth and delicious meals and sweets and drinks. A tall, beautiful harp enweaved with flowers was lying next to a long bench covered in pastel cushions, and a little stool of pale shiny wood sat next to it, ready for a musician.
Opal was by far the most changed—and the most beautiful. Her hair had been raised vaporous and pure snowy white over her head, and a tight net of silver strings mixed with the most beautiful, colourful flowers ever seen gave the whole lot a truly fantastic air. Her dress was of a pale violet, but of a shimmering cloth, so that every time she moved, the folds changed from violet to silver, from silver to indigo, form indigo to pink. The effect was that she looked as if she was constantly moving, but gave a posed, magical air to this fact, it was fabulous, unreal. She walked with grace, and laughed and talked with amiability and good-humour; and her guests were evidently fighting over her conversation, as well as all the men were fighting over her dancing turns.
Ember watched her before she came in the room, slightly retired behind the purple curtains: Opal looked so graceful, so kind, amiable, agreeable, interesting, walking graciously from guest to guest, with a long lilac fan, incrusted with amethysts, in one of her delicate hands. Ember looked down at her own hands; those were beautiful. Not lovely, or nice; they were truly, utterly, positively beautiful. White as milk, delicate, with long, pale greenblue veins running down the back of them, and long, nimble fingers, spidery and white, nearly translucent, and long nails as white as the skin. Neither gold nor silver came to disturb the natural sweep of white beauty, only a twisty coil of emerald ivy.
Ember went in, slithering as quietly as possible and caught Opal in a rather empty area. Taking her arm, she whispered:
'What on earth am I going to do here? Look at these people, they aren't in our rank. They are…in the mud.'
Opal smiled; a smile so mischievous Ember knew she was up to something. The time she tried to move away, already Opal turned her around to a group of talking gentlemen. Most of them were dashing young heroes. All of them were irresistibly attractive. They all bowed, and kissed her hand, gently, gallantly, and as they made a small conversation in which Ember took part only in monosyllables, she couldn't help noticing the way all of them discreetly compared her with Opal.
For if Opal was grace, colours, light and vaporous; Ember was a contrast. For Ember, in her inability to chose between those two examples of tailor perfection, had resolved her problem by cutting the knot short; she took another dress.
Of old black velvet, antique velvet, the dress had a simple cut: long and loose, trailing in ripped edges on the floor, with narrow sleeves that fell to the knuckles and a neck that fell in an obtuse V to the beginning of the white breasts, Ember had added a few touches only to make it more elegant: a large stain ribbon of shiny black was tightening the bust from the bosom to the waist in large crosses, the end falling at each sides in long, slithery black coils; a pair of plain black satin slippers that clacked quietly on the marbled floor and some few ribbons from the shoulder to the elbow of the sleeve completed to dressing extravagantly simply. The hair had been combed so long it had crackled with electricity, and now it was so silky, so perfect down the straight black, anybody could have mistaken it for a veil of satin. Rich azure highlights enlightened the darkness of it, and a network of blue and fawn feathers, a large, golden dead leaf, some coils of entwined jet-stones and sapphires and a pendant of old, timeless silver runes mixed and embraced in the whole of the blueblack mane, achieving an effect of savage elegance. It was beautiful, intense, casual. And the skin was so milky, so whitely creamy, so perfect, she seemed like a nymph of pure moonlight and night. Beautiful and tenebrous.
The young gentlemen were subtle in their gallantry, but empty of any attractiveness of interest. The looked upon Opal as wonderful and fantastical, and Ember as strange and dark. Their notice usually stopped there. Now, the room was filled with many people, and Opal took upon herself to try and introduce Ember to all of them. To the young girl, all of it was boring, senseless, colourless; until a little group of men finally mildly attracted her attention. They were all older than thirty five, and younger than fifty five. Men of science or of letter, their obvious lack of interest in the females present quickly procured them Ember's appreciation, and as soon as she could, she went to lean against a wall, in the shadows of a lantern-less corner, to listen to there conversation. Luckily, in fact, ridiculously luckily, they had not seen here, and they were talking as freely as could be, if not in a low voice.
'Well then, Lord Drake, what think you of our host?' the man nearer to where Ember was standing said.
He was obviously the eldest of the group, for his hair was metallic grey, but Ember could not see his face. The man to whom he was talking was, on the contrary, nearly fully facing her. He seemed in the areas of forty, but his hair was still very dark: not a blueblack kind of hair, like Ember's own, but a deep, highlight-less inky hair, that fell in straight line upon a tall, beautiful smooth marmoreal forehead. His eyes were extremely narrow, and he wore a single monocle circled with elegant silver. His face was one of slight disdain and casualty, but a disagreeable face, even if fantastically beautiful. He was dressed with obvious elegance with straight black breeches and boots, a tight black jacket opened at the top on a puffed white silken shirt, and a sweeping cloak of dark black lined with red velvet, and tied at one of his shoulder by a heavy antique silver brooch incrusted with a single garnet. Ember, to her chagrin, could not see what it was representing, however, her attention was quickly reported to his words, pronounced in a slow, thoughtful, yet slightly grudging tone.
'Lady Opal stands at the peak of her beauty,' he declared.
'Indeed,' said a small man next to him. This man had the jumpy beauty of a clever, exited man; in his early thirty-fives, small and slight, he looked around him with acute curiosity, 'Never before had I seen Lady Opal so fair.'
'And where is this little protégée of hers now?' the last member of the little group asked.
He was a tall man, but with a secret, rather closed, and clever face. No feeling reflected from his indigo eyes, and his grey hair came in no way to disturb the smooth blankness of his face. In any case, Ember grudged him to have mentioned her.
'Certainly disappeared. Poor girl, she certainly doesn't look as if enjoying this ball.'
'Who can blame her,' murmured Lord Drake nearly too low for Ember to hear.
The topic was starting to annoy her. She did not want to hear what those men had to say about her, yet she couldn't move now. Perhaps she would risk…
'Utterly beautiful. Indeed, even more beautiful than Lady Opal. By Heavens, have you seen this frame?'
'Dark and savage, nothing more,' Lord Drake scowled.
'Oh come on, Drake, don't be so cruel. She has some good points,' said the first man.
'I think,' started the tall secret one, turning to the last who had spoken, 'that you are right, Erelnirion. She has obliviously got hidden qualities.'
'She is perfect:' exclaimed the tiny exited one, 'those raven hair, these silvery-stormcloud eyes, this rosy mouth, this milky skin—'
Angrily, furious against herself from having stayed to listen, Ember swept away in a murmur of her shadowy skirt, and strode unceremoniously to the end of the room, and out, in the terrace. Withdrawing as far as she could behind a bulky bush of roses, she went to lean against the marble barrister, turning her flushed face to he night wind. The ball had not even properly started yet and she longed to be back in her room, or rather, in the piano room, alone in a dark place, with the solace of the enigmatic red rose against her bleeding breast.
'Indeed, they were mightily annoying,' said a low voice next to her.
Lord Drake, all dark and quiet had slipped like a shadow behind her, and was now leaning against the barrister, looked straight before him, and casually smoking a long, slim cigarette.
'I don't see what you mean,' Ember said nervously, glancing briefly and fearfully at the noble, marmoreal, aristocratic profile.
'Come, Lady, you can do better than that. 'I don't know what you mean' is far too trivial for such a mind as yours,' he retorted serenely, with a touch of slight contempt in his voice; and still not looking at her.
'What know you of my mind…' said Ember in a low voice, and imitating him in his lack of notice toward his interlocutor.
'A great deal indeed,' he said enigmatically.
A long coil of pearly smoke twisted into languorous wisps in the air, and slowly vanished, as Ember turned towards him, her eyes sharp and piercing, icy silver in her pale face.
'You may be clever, you may be renowned for your spirit among your fellows, but you shall not persuade me that you discovered my mind in a few hours,' she hissed.
'Indeed, I shall not. Your mind is far too well-hidden in the velvet folds of your hostility for me to discover it in such casual a time as a ball,' he said in a quiet tone, and the left corner of his lips slightly rising in a smug, yet disturbingly wry half-grin.
He was silent for a few seconds, and then went on:
'Your mind is like a secret animal of the night; wild and beautiful in its sadness. In the night, it finds solace in any way it can find, as long as it is a way no one knows; a way that is protected in secrecy. Your mind, like an animal, also can't be approached by any human: recoiling in its silky purity, and shrinking in the fright of a wound. So, I tamed it.'
'You speak of things you don't know. And my mind will not be tamed by any person.'
'No. that is what I have just said. I tamed it with something else.'
'You are a liar. You are only trying to get me out of my defences.'
'I must admit it is my main goal. To discover the rose hidden in its scarlet fold, instead of ceaselessly encountering those adorably sharp thorns you put in the way.'
'Well,' said Ember, with a touch of self-satisfaction she barely hid to him, 'You can still hope, you won't be able in a life time to reach your aim, whatever trickery you use.'
'Ember, all tenebrous and fearful, poor, frightened creature in a world too big for you, I have a question which if I asked, you would pale so much I would be able to see these greenblue veins I already can catch a glimpse of under those eyes you turn into helpless arrows of silver. Come, delicate Ember, tell me: is your mind not singing when it restlessly, smoothly leads your white fingers over the black and white keys that succeeded in charming you out of your defences?'
Ember caught her breath in a hiss as sharp as the sharpest dagger-blade, and turned as pale as he had foretold she would.
'Do not answer me. Your pallor is an answer precise enough for me,' he went on, still not looking at her, and still smoking and blowing his pearly smoke in the night air, 'Yet, I will ask you another question: you who protect yourself so desperately from the pains of this world, how can you possibly allow a red rose to engrave such wounds upon your already bleeding heart?'
Ember staggered away, and finally, he turned to her and looked at her, his narrow eyes piercing her through the single monocle.
'When I see you like this, with the shield you so bravely hold fallen in the dust, I understand why all those protection: you are as fragile as the most fragile flower, you are frail and so forever on the point of becoming ash that you cannot afford a single tear to fall! Poor, poor Ember of the Dying Fire, poor, poor "Braise Mourante"!'
He then took hold of her arm, firmly, and in an iron grip, and led her back in the ballroom, where the lights were nearly all extinguished, and a soft orchestra had started, setting the guests on the dancing-floor for the first dance of the Ball. Opal was slowly being led around in the strong arms of Erelnirion, and a slight smile had added a flushed expression such as Ember had never seen on her face before. She looked, for the first time, actually happy. Intent on observing Opal's expression, and trying to ignore the heavy, unbearable weight of Lord Drake's words upon her mind, she first did not notice that he had taken her among the dancers. His arm he slid around her slight waist, and pressed her securely to his breast, before setting her on a slow pace. Unlike the long hours of unleashed dancing in the Blue Ballroom, the paces he made her do were slow and languorous, lingering, casual, rather senseless; the dance was effortless, too, for he made all that was necessary to go on, and she slowly lost control of her own body, sinking back in his words.
How could he possibly have known that she played and loved piano? How could he have known about the wounds she herself scratched away from the rose's thorns and upon her breast? Of course he could have seen the blood under between the folds of the cloth, and he could have been told by one of the many silent presences in the manor of her playing the piano; still, in spite of the reasonable ideas she forced in her troubled head, she could not help feeling profoundly disturb and unsettled. She felt she was in danger, when he knew so much of her secrets, and then, another idea, cold and horrifying to her poor mind, what if Opal knew? What if what she had reassured herself to be hers and her own, this secret she kept with such delight, have been known by her host? Was every thing she rested on as fragile as he had said she was? Was everything really so untruthful, so unworthy of faith?
'Allow me,' said the Lord's voice, interrupting her joyless meditations, 'to tell you… a story.'
Ember raised her now dark as the darkest storm-cloud eyes to his face, her mouth shut and small.
'There was once a young lady, of the rather unwelcoming name of Raven. She was as darkly beautiful as you really are, and as well protected from this society that you too fear so much. She grew up in this very mansion, retired form the world, under the vigilant keep of two woman, two sisters, Ladies and landladies of this manor. She grew up beautiful and pale, and secret and sad. One day however, her guardians gave a ball, in this very room, and there she met a young lord, in the ages of twenties, two years older than she. He was handsome and clever, and from the very first look she took at him, and him at her, they fell in love. I indeed do now the subject of love is trivial and without interest, yet, listen.
'At the beginning of his stay in the manor with the other guests, she started by shunning and fleeing him, yet after a few days, she started to look for him, and spy on him, in secret. She did not wish for her love to be known, or to marry, which would have been perfectly possible, given that the young lord was in her rank, and that she was in age. Yet, like you, she feared people would use her own feelings against her, and hid them. For a few months he looked for her, and her for him, and during all his stay in the house where she lived, for half a year, they did not exchange one word. Finally, in sadness and chagrin, he had to go, and she saw him out by one of the hidden windows, tears in her eyes. She had saved herself, so she believed, from the evil love could bring her, and in true she destroyed herself. For three more months, she decayed in her chambers, crying from dawn to dusk, from evening to morning, ceaseless in her regret, and fright and anguish; her body, like her heart, slowly dying. He on his side, was doing the same thing, but not knowing whether she loved him or not. It went on for one whole year of unbearable misery when both came to a decision: he told himself he would go and see her, and take her cost what it might, and set out the very hour, and she, finally lowering her shield, told herself she had been slain, and decided to climb to he highest parapet of the highest tower and stab herself. The time she was up, he was racing through the corridors to her chamber, and the time she made the terrible, final peace with herself, he had caught a glimpse of her, with the dagger, at the top of the tallest tower. She saw him climb desperately to her—too late; she stabbed herself, and then, as he still reached for her, she stretched out her arms down to him, and both reached and reached, to finally die in each other's arms, for he too, was wounded, not physically, yet mortally to his heart; both could not reach their goal. In their last, final movement, the only feeling was one of chagrin, for they knew both they would die before having reached each other: they died in pique, in terrible, horrifyingly sorrowful exasperation.'
The white figure reaching for the black figure, both desperate, both helpless and hopeless, oh! how could Lord Drake know? Ember lowered her eyes to the puffy shirt on his chest, not daring to look him in the eyes.
'And all this why? Because she was too much of a coward to accept her own feelings. Because she was such a funk to love. See?'
'I don't see why you are telling me that,' Ember whispered.
He stopped abruptly in the peaceful paces of the dance, and savagely hugged her in his arms, so hard and cruelly that the breath was torn form her breast. Her chin was now lying on his shoulder, close to his ivory neck, and her burning cheek was brushing against his jet black hair.
'You know perfectly well why I am telling you this. I do not wish to see you suffer. And more than that, I do not wish you to destroy someone else, like you are very likely to do in your foolish lack of faith in the world.'
He pressed a hand to the small of her back, and the other one he brought sweeping up her spine, in the delicate nape of her neck, bringing up her face to meet his glittery eyes.
'If you could make me have faith, I probably wouldn't scare you,' she said quietly, still not meeting his eyes.
The hand that held her grasped viciously at her skin, as he twisted it to bring up her face, to force her to challenge his glance. When his effort stayed fruitless, he hissed in an exasperated, angry way, and like a ravenous falcon, he brought down his face, like the executioner's axe, upon hers. In a biting, violent way, he kissed her savagely on the lips, drawing blood in his frustration.
When he released her, it was to toss her away form him, looking aghast, horrified by what he had just done. Slowly, unbelievingly, he raised his hand to his mouth, and touched the blood of her own he still could taste at the tip of his tongue.
Ember, with such a look of anguish in her eyes as never he had seen, never even imagined a girl's eyes could express, staggered away, and drunkenly, dazedly, she went out of the ballroom, groping her way back to her own room, away from this unreal man who could so wrathfully tear a kiss form her one, private, delicate lips, after having thrown all her secrets broken at her feet, even though he'd known her only for less than an hour. When she reached her door, however, she suddenly changed her mind, and went up, by corridors and narrow staircases, quickly fleeing away from the too real, yet unreal world down stairs, and to the solace of her piano. When she entered to room, her eyes, as if my irresistible magnets, were drawn to the tapestry, picturing such a scene of despair and longing it made tears swell in her eyes. Dashing them angrily away, she went to seat abruptly down on her stool, and opened the lid, revealing the gleaming keys. Just then, she smiled, and her hands, like two butterfly, fled across the desert of black and white, drawing a quick, sad, desperate music in which all her chagrin, her anguish, all her feelings she poured, like strange ingredients in a potion. It was only then that she felt at peace, finally all the worry, all the puzzlement, all the feelings were soothed under the peaceful waves of her calm. She felt serene, safe. She felt good.
Requiem Dear readers, I hope you loved this chapter, I personally adore it. It is soooo good, and I love it soooo much. Pleeeease tell me what you think about it. Which means, in other words: REVIEW! Or e-mail, if you prefer.