She looked so much like her mother; her skin as pale as fresh cream, her lips as full and coloured like rose petals and her eyes as dark as the deepest depths of the sea. She raised a slender index finger to touch her face, watching as the mirror mimicked her movement with it’s own. Edonia felt the sting of oncoming tears behind her eyes and she glanced up, forcing herself not to cry; it would not do for her to cry. It was her wedding day, the day she would finally become a woman who would bring but a small bit of pride to her family for wedding the noble Sir Gregori. Edonia swallowed the dread that rose to her throat, but she knew she would have to endure such a painful task of marrying a man that she did not love.
A hard rasping of knuckles on the wooden door brought forced her from her thoughts, she turned towards the door and brushed back her now shoulder-length hair.
“Come in,” she called, her voice holding a slight rasp.
“Milady,” answered a familiar voice as the door was pushed open, a soft squeal emanating from the door’s rusted hinges.
“Ah, Ionne. What is it you have come for?”
Edonia reached for the comb’s smooth wooden handle.
“I bear the weight of grievous news, Milady,” began the young woman, who stood timidly just outside the doorframe’s perimeter.
Edonia’s hand stilled just above the comb’s handle, she turned her eyes from the comb over to Ionne, watching the woman wring her hands together nervously. She licked her lips in the silence before finally coming to her senses,
“What is it, Ionne? I hope that t’is nothing to interfere with my wedding day,” she began, her eyes narrowing as Ionne shifted her weight from one foot to the next.
The young woman dry-washed her hands on the white apron of her dress, taking note of Edonia’s clothing as she was wearing nothing other than her undergarments. “Perhaps you should get dressed, Milady Edonia? It would be best should you hear it from your father,” Ionne suggested, her eyes staring at the ground.
Edonia’s suspicion grew aroused, she rose from the stool and crossed the soft tapestries that covered the floor. She leaned in close, nearly nose to nose with the young woman before her, and pinched the woman’s cheeks with her index and thumb from her right hand. Edonia tilted the servant’s head back slightly, to make it so their eyes met.
“What is this grievous news that you bear so dutifully upon your pitiful self, Ionne?”
A stifled sob escaped the young servant’s pinched lips before finally her shoulders slumped in defeat, “I say it would be best should you hear it from your father,” she mumbled crossly, “Though, if you must know, Milady, it is of Sir Gregori,” she began, and immediately Edonia’s grip upon Ionne’s face slackened and then was released.
“Go on,” she waved a hand for the servant to continue.
“He has been grievously wounded whilst being ambushed by a lot of thieves. Sir Gregori was proclaimed dead this evening,” she said, tears coming to her eyes.
Edonia stared ahead, her eyes as blank as slates of ice. She turned to Ionne, tilting her head to the side and pursing her lips. “Very well,” she rested both hands on her bare stomach. “You may leave me now, Ionne. I will care for myself, thank you. Do tell his parents how I grieve for their son,” she said before turning and lowering herself to sit back upon the wooden stool she had been on before.
Ionne stood there a moment before she slowly recoiled from Edonia’s chambers, closing the heavy door behind her. Edonia watched as the door fell shut with a low thud, before she stared into the mirror. She had noted the way her petty servant had not even bothered to comment on the way she had done her hair, but then; servants weren’t meant to comment on their mistresses’ attire or appearance. She slowly brushed out her hair, watching as the tears that had swelled at the base of her eyes began to slowly make wet trails down her porcelain pale cheeks. She had remembered the first time Gregori Lancaster had made her acquaintance, he had been quite timid as they made conversation; it had been then that she took his fancy.
She hadn’t known that it would have been Gregori the one to whom she was betrothed, but it had been a moment of endless wonder as he had asked her hand in marriage. Edonia, however, had fallen in love with the intelligent, handsome, life-bearing man the first moment that he had introduced himself to her the night of a ball; though she had still been within her father’s graces. She had thought of the endless names for the term of endearment she had felt at that moment, and the list had gone on without pause. Soul-mate, her other-half or more importantly the love of her life. She, too, had thought of the cliché of which she had become, but she could not help but delve into the mysteries that had centered themselves around the elusive emotion of love.
Edonia rose from her wooden stool, pushing back a lock of black hair as the sudden realization began to form itself within the depths of her mind. Sir Gregori Lancaster had died, the symbolization of such an event predicted the freedom that would be hers. The chains that had once bound her hands and feet now had broken with the key of release, she could travel now to beyond the borderline of her homeland. She no longer had to endure the endless suffering that was the traditions of her people; though she was to find another to marry she would not, she would not once again be bound by the unbreakable force that was a man’s power. She had indeed loved Gregori but he was gone, his spirit travelling into the depths of the underworld where he would dwell for eternity. She could not let a single man bring her life to ruin, and she would not allow such a thing to happen.
She spun around, reaching blindly as her mind began to wheedle with the planifications for such a journey as the one she would soon embark. She wrestled with the tangle of lace and silken fabric before finally slipping it on, not bothering with a corset as she would no longer need it for where she was going. Wherever she found herself, she would not be known for her royal bloodline, she would simply be known as a peasant or perhaps a lower-class noble. She tilted her head to the side as she glanced over towards the mirror, her reflection showing a pale woman dressed in a gown as dark as ebony; a contrast to her light flesh.
Edonia reached up and pinched her cheek, allowing the light flush of blood to color her normally lifeless face. She smoothed the front of the gown before turning to her large bed and scooping the leather pack that sat upon the sheets as though it had known that she would be needing it for such an important revelation.
“Clothing,” she muttered to herself, her voice hoarse as she rummaged through her belongings, searching for clothing that would be useful for such traveling.
Edonia plucked a silver gown from the piles of clothing that rested in folded heaps within the mahogany dresser drawers. She placed it within the leather sack, reaching inside and finding a pair of worn traveling clothes; she had stolen them as well from her brother’s personal items. She remembered the odd moments when she and her brother had spoken of traveling to distant lands, but then it had merely been a distant wish, a dream. Now, however, it would be as though she were living for her sibling who had not had the chance to truly experience the many things they had so often spoken of. As she placed the folded clothing within the pack, she had slowly but methodically began to map out where it was she would be going. She would have to steal the maps from her father’s enclave, and so it was then that her door was thrown open.
The woman frozen, biting her lip before turning to face the intruder.
“Edonia,”
“Father,” she greeted him, her voice matching the tone he had set.
The large, heavyset man stepped towards her, his hands held behind his back as the corner of his lips fell into a scowl. Benzoic Ravenna was a magnificent man; a leader as well as a well-known model father but those things mattered only to those who truly had no idea of the man behind the mask. Though his appearance aided greatly in hiding the man’s true self. She examined him a moment, the lean muscular man that had intruded upon her activities. He had balding hair, deep-set eyes and a crooked nose, his lips were pursed together as though he had just heard something ungodly as well as the fact that he had a moustache that drooped well below his chin. At the moment, however, the ungodly news or thing seemed to be her.
“What, Edonia Ravenna, do you think you are doing?” he asked, and by the set of his shoulders he meant it as a demand.
Edonia flashed him a cold smile, “I’m arranging my things, surely you’ve another man for me to wed,” she answered, scratching the side of her nose with one long fingernail.
Benzoic’s answering smile sent spiders running down her back, causing her to shudder at the sight. “You are so much like your mother, Nonie would have cherished the moment of seeing you wed a handsome man,”
“Don’t you dare speak of her as though she would still have loved you!” she said quietly, the threat ever-present in her melodic voice. “You know that it devastated her to find you sleeping with that filthy whore!” she spat, venom dripping from her words.
Edonia stood stunned for a moment, not having realized that her father had moved as she had finished her sentence. Through the blinding agony at the side of her jaw, she looked up at her father staring at her, no remorse in his cold brown eyes. He had hit her; the daughter that he had claimed to have looked like his wife. She turned away, hatred burning through every fibre within her being, making her quake with the restrained fury.
“Do not turn away from me, Edonia,” there was nothing to show her that he felt anything after having hit his own daughter and so she did not turn. Instead, the young woman hurriedly grabbed the shockingly light pack that she had set to the ground.
Edonia brushed passed her father and marched down the hall barefoot, not bothering to demand of Ionne a pair of shoes before being off. She no longer belonged here, her father had shown that much to her whence he had decidedly acted out in violence.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he called after her.
“No one will want to accept you into their homes!”
“You’ll have no one, no where to go!”
Edonia ignored each call, each attempt to lure her to her death. He knew that she would speak of what he had done but he also kept the knowledge that no one would believe the lies that came from her lips. He had assured himself that everyone within his court would know of his daughter’s disgrace and so they did. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat, ignoring the voice of her father as he pleaded her return until he said something that made her falter.
“You’ll lose your mother, Edonia,” he warned her, his voice holding false tremors of hope.
She stood there a moment, hearing his tentative footsteps as he attempted to approach her but she stepped forward, not daring to allow him the precious few steps that would enslave her once more. Edonia felt her heart pounding hard against the confines of her chest, begging her not to lose the one thing that had been her most cherished memory. Her mother, the beautiful Nonie Ravenna, had been the only thing that had made her endure the endless nights of watching Benzoic creep into her room at night to touch her. She squeezed her eyes closed, remembering those nights when her mother had been oblivious but Edonia could not ruin her mother’s happiness because of her own distress.
Edonia Ravenna glanced over her shoulder to see Benzoic Ravenna’s smug smile, and she met his eyes with her own. “I won’t lose her,” she answered calmly before marching from the room with her chin held high and a new sense of courage beginning to blossom within her chest.
In her mind she heard her mother’s voice urging her on, her mother’s gentle voice telling her that everything would be fine.
* * * *
“Mommy?” a timid voice called out, belonging to the figure of a small young girl. She wore her black hair in braids that wove down to her lower back, her blue eyes were filled with the joy of innocence and her small pink nightgown touched the floor as she walked.
“What is it my darling raven?” her mother's voice rang out like the purest of chimes.
“I had a nightmare mommy,” her blue eyes began to well with tears, her voice shook with tremors.
“Oh, my darling Edonia, climb on my lap honey. It’ll be alright,” the older woman patted her drab looking dress, the torn fabric looking terribly out of place on a beautiful woman like her.
“Mommy, why don’t you wear the gown’s daddy buys for you?” asked Edonia, eyeing the dress with a frown before lifting her arms as her mother hefted her up onto her lap.
Edonia touched the small necklace that hung at the base of her mother’s throat, the necklace she told her that had once belonged to a very kind man, and by the way her mother spoke of this man Edonia knew that her mother had loved him.
“I don’t need to wear those expensive dresses, I’ve got my own. There’s no need to waste money on unnecessary things,” she told Edonia, smiling softly and nipping her nose.
Edonia giggled, “Will you come sleep with me, mommy?” the little girl asked, her heart beating rapidly in her chest.
“Yes, little raven. I’ll come sleep with you and make sure the ghosties and goblies don’t get you,” she said as she rose from the chair, Edonia snuggled in her arms.
“I love you, mommy,”
“Hush, my Edonia. Hush my raven, and I’ll sing you to sleep,”
Edonia pressed her head against her mother’s breast, listening to her mother’s honey-like voice as it began to sing the song that she had not heard before. As Edonia listened she let herself forget all the nights when her father had come to her room, she let herself forget her own unhappiness for her mother. Within moments, her eyelids fluttered closed and she was embraced by the welcoming arms of slumber.
[A/N - To avoid confusion for my readers online here are the names within the story and their pronunciations:
Edonia - E[e]d-on[i]e-a[h]
Gregori - Greg-o-r[ee]
Ionne - I[ee]-on-n[ee]
Benzoic - Ben-zo-i[ss]
Ravenna (last name) - R-a[y]-ven-a[y]
Nonie - No-ni[ee]
I appreciate all who read, and I don't mind if you have to rip this post to shreds. It is a draft and if you can offer any advice on punctuation then I would be forever in your debt.]
