It was the night before Luminara, and the city was alight with intricate lanterns and globes of ethereal light. Wooden stalls lined the market square adorned with exotic potions, spell-infused trinkets, and enchanted artifacts. From her position on the roof, Elara could hear the sound of distant marketplace chatter mingled with musicians playing haunting melodies that echoed through the ancient architecture of the stony city. With a heavy sigh, and a long breath, soaking up the spices and smells coming from the city below, she slowly turned back to the wooden hatch leading to the rooftop. “I shouldn’t hope for tomorrow as I won’t be going”, she thought to herself as she stepped down the ladder to the attic below, wincing as she used her sprained wrist to leaver herself down.
Elara was a slender woman with a slight figure, however her loose clothes covered most of the bruises. She had lost a good deal of weight over this past summer as they had less and less money since her husband lost his job and turned to drinking what little of their savings they had. It was only due to her skills with a needle and thread that they were able to survive this long but this did not stop her husband coming home late at night expecting a large cooked meal on the table, stinking of ale, with lipstick stains all over his collar, shirt and other unmentionable places. She made her way to the kitchen to start getting dinner together, a lamb leg, potatoes and carrots for him, and a carrot for her. She had tried mentioning the drinking and the disproportionate meals but every time she was met with a hand to the back of the face and a loud, “I am the man of the house and you will have food on the table when I am home. What I do during the day is none of your concern”.
She heard a loud bang on the door and with a start, she dropped the wooden spoon she was using to stir the pot.
“Who is it?”, she cooed.
“Open up Lara, Ali is legless again” shouted the voice outside. She strode to the door making sure not to trip on her petticoat and flipped open the latch, peeking her head slightly through the gap between the door and frame. Seeing her husband being held up by his two drinking friends, (she didn’t bother to learn their names) she opened the door wider to let the three gentlemen over the threshold. Alistair was a towering man at 6 foot 3, however at this moment, he was hunched between his two friends, his head lolling from side to side, with his hair, tunic and clothes all soaking wet and stinking of ale.
“Thank you gentlemen”, she said gratefully. “I’ll take it from here” as there plonked him into a wooden chair at the kitchen table.
“Are you sure Lara? We could barely move him from the stool let alone get him here.” One of the men stated, concerned.
“Oh yes he’s been worse than this, I’ll be fine” she sighed. The men left without another word and Elara closed the latch of the door, turning to her husband who was now snoring in the chair on the kitchen table. She grabbed a hand knitted blanket from beside the fireplace, wrapped it around her husband. Sauntering over to the stove, she ladled out two bowls of stew for her husband and set them in front of him. She took her solitary carrot and went up the stairs to the bedroom so that she wouldn’t disturb her husband.
Crunching away on her carrot she couldn’t help but think, looking around at the aged books on the shelf in the bedroom and the wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling, that she could have better than this, she deserved better than this. All the books she had read and the tapestries depicting scenes from Eldoria’s rich history showed such strong and courageous women, and there was her with a roof, a carrot and a drunkard for a husband. With that spiralling depressive thought she got into bed and settled down to sleep.
Elara awoke to a large weight atop of her, thinking that she must still be dreaming, she tried to bring up her hands to push the weight off of her but she couldn’t. Slowly she opened her eyes to see her husband on top of her, staring at her lifeless form, his hands solidly grabbing on to her wrists.
“Morning love,” He said with a snarl. “Where’s my breakfast?” This was not the first time she had woken up like this and she had resigned herself to this not being the last.
“It’ll be ready when I’m up my love,” She stated with a tired sigh.
“I should think so too! I should have breakfast when I wake up, not when you’re lazy enough to get it for me!”
“Yes my love,” she said defeatedly. “Can you please get up so that I can make you breakfast?” He removed one of his hands from her wrist and used the other to leaverage himself to stand beside the bed. It took all of her will power not to scream in agony as she felt the sprain pull. Releasing her hand, he stood with his hands on his hips, tapping his foot.
“I’m waiting!” He said expectantly. She climbed out of bed, walked towards the chair in the corner to put on her dressing gown, and no sooner had she put her arm through the first arm, her husband took her by the neck, slammed her into the wall and ripped off all her clothes.
“You are my wife and you will not cover up around me!” he roared. As she was now uncovered, hands down by her sides, he let her go and she made her way through the bedroom door downstairs. She scuttled towards the basket by the fireplace where they kept the eggs and grabbed 4 eggs. She broke 3 eggs and started cooking an omelette for her husband, who was now sitting at the table, cutlery in hand expectantly. Towards the end of the cooking process she felt an overwhelming dark presence behind her causing a chill up her spine and with a start she apruptly turned around and saw her husband sitting at the table.
“What?” He demanded.
“I thought….” She questioned.
“Don’t think, just cook!” he ordered. She turned back around to the omelette, flipped it once and served it on to the plate. She took the plate to her husband and without missing a beat he shouted, “What is this?”
“It’s your breakfast.” She said calmly.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“It’s crap!” He yelled. “Every single day I ask for breakfast and every single day I have eggs, eggs, eggs!” Before she knew it Elara could see a flash of steel and a knife was pressed against her throat, so close that she couldn’t even swallow.
“I should kill you right here,” he whispered. “Noone would miss you, you know. Noone at all.”
Her hands were trembling now but her mind had started to drift elsewhere into a deep dark chest where it couldn’t think, it couldn’t hurt and it couldn’t scream for help.
“That would be too quick though, too easy. I know!” Slowly and surely he moved his knife to her forehead and began to etch out the letter ‘A’.
She felt a searing pain move across her head, as he serrated her flesh with the instrument. There was something in her eyes, which she knew was her blood dripping from the wound, when she took a ragged breath and she was no longer herself.
Elara was within the dark abyss whereby there were no stars, no light, no moon and no life. There was no up or down, left or right but she could hear screams coming from somewhere.
“What’s wrong?” She shouted into the dark. “Are you ok?” To no answer.
Just as quickly as she had drifted into this dark place, with a flash of light, like opening her eyes after a long sleep, she was back inside her body and she was not prepared for the horror that awaited her return from the darkness.
Elara was speechless in utter horror. The room had been sapped of all colour, the light in the fireplace had gone, there was no red from the embers and all that could be seen was black and white. The only colour was a pool on the floor, the colour of embers, the colour of blood. She tried to remember what had happened, and to try to ascertain the reasoning for the absence of colour but she was drawing a blank until she heard a gurgling from above her. Mangled beyond belief, her husband, the man that had just been attacking her, was pinned to the ceiling wood beam above her, limbs twisted in otherworldly positions, with blood pouring from his mouth onto the floor creating the pool in front of her.
“Help me.” He mouthed, wide eyed, his head twisted backwards and he was slammed into the floor with some mystical force, so hard that he was unrecognisable.
Elara was stood like a statue unable to move. She had just witnessed the most unimaginable thing and she was now covered in what was left of her husband from head to toe. After all the beatings, the belittling, the abuse, she still loved her husband and she had just seen him killed, no murdered in front of her by a presence or being.
“M – M – Move.” She managed to whisper to herself. She wiggled her toes, her fingers and after feeling pain shooting down from her wrist, she forced herself to move one leg in front of the other to run upstairs. Once upstairs, she looked around trying to decide what to do, until she saw her reflection in the mirror. She was a mess and covered in blood.
“I should get dressed.” She told herself in a fugue state.
She sat down in front of the mirror and wiped off the blood on her face and body. Looking at herself in the mirror, on her own for the first time in years.
“I’m free,” she thought to herself suddenly. This was the first time she had realised that she no longer had to deal with the late night visits, the ripped clothes and the miniscule dinners.
“I’m free,” she whispered, almost not believing it herself She sauntered to her wardrobe to pick out a dress, the first time she had made a decision on nice clothing since she was a little girl.
She chose a red dress with black lace down the sides and around the neck with a built in corset and petticoat as this was her favourite. Once she was dressed she packed a few books into a suitcase, tunics, undergarments and trousers and made her way downstairs.
Dragging the suitcase down the stairs one by one, she kept her head to the ceiling, refusing to survey the bloodbath in the kitchen. Carefully making sure that she didn't slip on the blood on the floor, she tip toed through the sea of red and made her way to the door, struggling to keep the suitcase above the floor. Resting the suitcase on the front door and slipping on her boots, which miraculously were still as black as the monochrome kitchen, she lifted the latch of the door. Peeking around the corner of the door to make sure that the street was void of life, she slipped through the doorway and as quitely as she could, closed the door. The suitcase was heavier than she invisioned, dragging it down the street she could feel beads of sweat stinging her eyes and head. The wound on her forehead was surprisingly shallow and had stopped bleeding by now but it was still fresh and painful as the salt water dampened her brow.
The lights of a carriage, blared like the sun in the distance, solitary and still. Elara rallied herself and with her last ounce of effort, pulled the suitcase down the road for the last 10 metres. Panting, she took stopped moving and leant against the suitcase,
"Excuse me sir, but can a lady request a ride?" She managed to get out.
"Where are you looking to go to?" Said the carriage driver, below his large black top hat.
"Faliel if you can?" She enquired.
"I can take you as far as the Inn in Salia but I'm not going through Daria Froestia." He said with a shiver.
"What's that?" She asked.
Elara had never her the word before, let alone heard a word said with such fear and dread, that she was even questioning her desire to go near this place.
"It's called 'The Dark Forest' in your tongue," the man said. "There's monsters and horrible beasts in there and I'm not getting killed or worse for any fare!"
"Understandable," she nodded. "The inn in Salia then. How much would that be?" She questioned.
"Twenty Three silver coins." He confirmed.
"Wha - What? That's all my savings!" She exclaimed.
"That's the price, take it or leave it." He said matter of factly, as he slumped into his seat, almost as if he was ready to go to sleep. Taking out her coin purse from one of the pockets she had sewn into the dress, she emptied all the coins out into her hand and started to count them.
"Twenty Three silver coins and 2 coppers." She said sadly, "If I must." She handed the twenty three silver coins to the carriage driver's now outstretched hand. The man jumped nimbly out of the seat onto the pavement and lifted up the suitcase and made his way to the back of the carriage. She presumed that he had stowed away her suitcase in the back compartment of the carriage because he then shouted,
"What are you waiting for? Hop in!"
She timidly walked towards the side of the carriage and scrambled up the step, putting her hands on the metal and pulling herself up best as she could.
"What are you doing?" the driver said amused, coming round to stand behind her.
"If you hadn't noticed, I'm not a giant!" She exclaimed. With a swift movement, the man grabbed her by the armpits and hoisted her feet up on to the top step of the carriage.
"Is that better your Highness?" He said with a smirk.
"Well yes and no," she mused. "Now I can't open the door!"
He grabbed her again, moving her down a couple of steps, opening the door and lifting her up to the open lip of the carriage.
"Better?" He quizzed.
"Much," She said curtly, quite annoyed at being man handled and suddenly very tired looking at the interior of the carriage.
"Off we go then!" The man said as he slammed the passenger door shut, almost not waiting for her to get inside and starting to climb up to his seat. Elara promptly threw herself down into the seat, quite unceremoniously as the carriage started to move. She knew that the journey was about a days ride and as the sun was just peaking on to the horizon, she would be in Salia by nightfall. Making herself comfortable, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.