a/n: hey, thanks for checking out Starry Veins! This is the novel I wrote for Round V of LMS, and it's still a first draft! While I don't discourage any feedback, I prefer not to receive feedback on grammar! I'm not polishing this draft up yet, so I'm not as concerned about editing. I am, of course, open to all feedback, but I ask that you keep this in consideration! Thanks <3
[Isadora]
If Isadora hadn’t
heard the incanting, she would have walked right past.
She peered into the
Guildmaster’s Study. The ceiling stretched upwards as though reaching for the
sky, the dark bricks of stone melding together to form a dome shape. To the
centre and back was a great desk, made of carved and lacquered golden oak. A
gift, from someone Isadora didn’t remember.
“Barba facit philo—”
“What are you doing?”
Cassius jumped backwards.
He caught himself on the cushioned, velvety purple chair that looked more like
a throne, but it was a near thing. If it hadn’t been there, he’d have probably
fallen back and hit his head into the glass encased bookshelf behind him.
“Nothing!” He
scrambled back to the desk and shut the book that had been lying face up. When
he spoke, a white mist like exhaling into cold air drifted from his lips. He
met her gaze and grinned with all the childish innocence of a twelve-year-old
caught doing something they ought not to be doing.
Isadora folded her
arms. “Rascal.”
She had never taken to
incantations, try as her mother and Margaretta might. But she had taken those
first few unsuccessful lessons from Professor Alexios, and she knew Cassius
besides.
“You didn’t see
anything,” Cassius tried.
“I saw your breath,
and your hair was starting to glow,” she said.
Cassius reached up to touch
his maple curls as if, by touching it, he would be able to see the glow that
had already long since vanished. Or maybe he was trying to prevent his tell
from showing.
He hadn’t stopped
smiling. It had turned into something that would have been charming if she hadn’t
caught him using magic for mischievous purposes. “Well… you can’t prove
anything,” Cassius said, shrugging.
“Really?” she asked, crossing
the threshold until she was standing on the opposite side of the desk. “What
happens if I open this book?” It was one of Margaretta’s philosophy books that
Mishal could probably devour.
Cassius looked down. There
was a twitch in his expression. “Um.” His smile faded. “I— You interrupted me!”
Which was code for he
had no idea.
She weighed the consequences
of opening the book to find out whether the spell had worked. Since she had
interrupted him, if it was to activate, it would not be as intended. She wasn’t
even sure what he had said, she’d never learned the spoken or non-spoken
incantation language.
It was completely up
in the air, really.
When she reached for
the book, Cassius’ hand twitched but he ultimately did not try to stop her. It
wouldn’t be malicious, whatever it was, but that didn’t mean it would be fun.
For her anyway.
As she opened the book
to the bookmarked page, a puff of purple-hazed smoke sprung from the book. She jerked
backwards, as did Cassius, but nothing dangerous jumped out of the pages, and nothing
was set on fire. And there were no canaries.
Instead, when the
smoke cleared, she found herself looking at a clump of what looked like tawny
coloured hair.
She glanced up at Cassius
and couldn’t tell if he looked more relieved or disappointed.
“Is that human hair?”
He frowned. “Well, it
wasn’t supposed to be in the book.” He picked up the coarse hair and
held it up to his face, eyes crinkling at the corners in mirth once more. His
eyes glittered in the light of the single lit lantern that stood beside the
desk. “How do I look with a beard?”
She did her best not
to smile—it would only encourage him—and glanced down at the pages instead.
There were sprinklings of a pale dust-like substance. She pressed her fingers
against the traces, and the soft, ashen texture clung to her skin.
“You got into the spell
dust again.” She brushed the dust off on her skirts. “I thought you weren’t
allowed any out of your lessons.”
Cassius put the hair
on the desk. “I was supposed to practise infusing spells into it,” he said. “I was
practising infusing spells into it.”
Isadora raised an
eyebrow. “In Guildmaster Margaretta’s study right after dinnertime?” She picked
up the clump of hair. “A spell for a beard?” When he shrugged again,
disinterested, she sighed. “You realise if I hadn’t caught you, you would be in
so much trouble?”
He rolled his eyes and
shut the book, before dancing around the desk and snatching the clump of hair
from her. Then he skipped onto the circular mural rug that depicted a long-ago
battle that covered the centre of the room. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be more careful
next time.”
As he pranced towards
the door and stuffed the hair into his pocket, she huffed. “That’s not
the lesson you need to take away from this!”
It would never stop
him. Trouble coursed through his veins, but she could put in an effort at
least.
He was also definitely
not as put out as someone who had just failed a prank should be. Or, rather, as
Cassius normally was.
“You can’t use it in
any of Mishal’s books either,” she added as he reached for the handle of the
door.
Cassius froze. It was
only a momentary hesitation, but it gave him away. He turned back towards her,
attempting to compose a neutral expression. He was quite bad at it. “I wasn’t—”
“You were.”
“Wasn’t!”
She gave him a pointed
look. Cassius scowled. “But Belle,” he tried, as if emphasising her nickname
would endear her to him. “It wouldn’t even work on him—”
“You can’t do something
else either.”
He rolled his eyes and
turned away, opening the door without a care as to who might be in the hallway
beyond. “Neither of you are any fun,” he muttered.
She could recall more
occasions where Cassius disagreed with such a statement than she had fingers,
but she wasn’t about to say anything. It also was no guarantee that Cassius
wouldn’t spell something of Mishal’s anyway, but he did listen sometimes.
Sometimes.
Isadora followed him out
of the room and, as she had begun to shut the door, the tell-tale clicking of
shoes tapping against the wooden floors began to rise in the hall. She pulled
away from the door and found the Guildmaster herself approaching. Mishal was
walking at her side. His mother, Hanna, beside him. Her own parents were on
Margaretta’s other side.
Cassius hovered at her
side as they approached. Instinctively, she stepped closer as if to shield him.
It was Margaretta who
spotted her first. She didn’t hesitate, though surprise flashed across her
features. When Mishal spotted her, he stumbled, though immediately recomposed
himself and if she hadn’t been looking at him, she’d never had noticed.
“Isadora,” Margaretta
greeted. “Just the person we were looking for.” Margaretta nodded in
acknowledgement as she stopped in front of Isadora.
“Guildmaster,” Isadora
said warmly, and dipped her chin respectfully. “Lovely to run into you, as
always.”
Mishal was ignoring
them entirely and had taken to scowling at Cassius. It was deepened by the way
the wall sconces cast dark amber shadows over his face. “What are you doing
here?”
In return, Cassius stuck
out his tongue. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“If you’re getting
into trouble, yes!” Mishal was bristling now, and Cassius looked about one comment
away from kicking him in the shins. Mishal, of course, proceeded to scoff. “Oh,
but I’ve forgotten. You exhale trouble.”
Before Cassius could
do something foolish, she grabbed his shoulder and squeezed gently. “You know, I
believe Ember was looking for you. She mentioned something about her latest
project with Laska.”
If Cassius suspected that
she was bluffing, he didn’t show it, happy to accept the lure of seeing his
closest confidant. He gave Mishal the stink-eye as he passed, because he
couldn’t stand not to have the last word or action in one of their
confrontation. Mishal pretended to raise his chin, flare his nostrils, and look
haughty. He probably thought he looked more mature.
Generally, he did, and
he was. Now was not such a time, nor was any of his confrontations with
Cassius.
“Please, we have much
to discuss,” Margaretta said, as Cassius disappeared around the corner they had
just come from.
He had gone silently, not
a single footstep disturbing the creaking spots in the wood.
Margaretta shifted
forward and opened the door to her study. If the thought that Isadora and
Cassius had been sneaking around inside had crossed her mind, she said nothing.
And it wasn’t as
though Isadora couldn’t have explained. She’d dropped a few books off at the
library after dinner—though her ulterior motive had, admittedly, been to see
Ashael, who had given her a flower he had pressed when it was still warm
outside—and was on her way to find her sister. But if her parents were here, it
meant Alanna was likely accompanied by someone else.
It would mean she’d
have to explain Cassius though, and she didn’t truly want him to get into any
trouble.
She followed her
parents into the room, her mother gifting her a warm smile and her father pressing
a quick kiss to the top of her head.
Margaretta had lit the
bronze chandelier and it filled the room with a much more brilliant light than
the single lantern had. Isadora tucked back a wispy strand of her dirty blonde
hair that had been too short to gather back. The Guildmaster’s Study always seemed
too large for any one person to inhabit. It made her feel like a child, barely
past her mother’s waist, all over again.
word count:
1,606
I really enjoyed the prologue, so I'm excited to see where this goes.
Points: 60
Reviews: 47
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