Born From A Divine Gamble

It was dark outside, she could barely see the training grounds bellow. There were no loud sounds to disturb the night. A few bugs were flying around her and a great deal more down there. She chased them all away by flailing both of her arms their way. In part because they annoyed them and in part because she needed to let off steam.

She couldn"t believe she had really done that. She had wanted to tease him for fun but then she ran instead of staying to watch his reaction. Now she didn"t get to see his confused face and it would be awkward when she"d see him the next day. She should have stayed after kissing him but no, of course she had to run away!

She was so frustrated with herself she wanted to throw something down from the balcony.

Not only that but she just knew her bit of teasing would backfire on her. No one had to know! She needed to tell Emp to shut up about that first thing in the morning tomorrow because if Aglaya learned of this, she was the one who would be teased until the end of times.

It had been such a good day too, why did she have to end it on such a stupid note?

She released a sigh, got back in the room and threw herself onto her bed after slamming the door shut. She stayed sprawled there for a while, motionless.

She wondered how Emp felt about it.

Knowing him, he was probably not as restless as her. Perhaps he"d like her to do it again?

No way! She wasn"t doing that again!

Maybe just possibly if he asked really nicely.

No way! Her father would kill them both! She was so dead!

She rolled on top of her bed to calm herself a bit.

Maybe he"d be upset instead. That would be better for them both.

Would it?

It wasn"t even a real kiss, it was just a peck on the cheek. She gave the same kind to her dad. There was no reason to be upset about that sort of kiss.

Right?

She never got fl.u.s.tered like she just did by giving those to her parents though.

She groaned and rolled in her bed again, tangling herself in her hair. They were getting a bit long. The out of control kind of long. Maybe she should have someone cut them shorter with a big knife. Her father wasn"t there to stop her anyway.

Now wasn"t the time to think about her hair though. What she really needed to do was to go to sleep. To do that, she needed to stop thinking about that stupid kiss. Who cared about a single small peck anyway.

She needed to think about something else, anything at all.

She struggled to free herself from her hair and got back up from her bed to get rid of her clothes and change into her night robe. It was a loose white dress made of silk that fell all the way down to her ankles. She often got her arms stuck in the long sleeves at night but it was still convenient since it was often too hot to bother with bed sheets in the summer. Tonight though, she"d hide herself in the covers, It was still cold enough before the new year.

She finished undoing her hair and arranged it neatly at the head of the bed before laying on it herself. She still had not found a way to keep her hair from getting all messed up by her sleep. It always ended up in a jumble and it took her and her servants hours to fix them.

If she kept them tied up, it made an uncomfortable knot under her head. If she threw them out of the way and onto the floor, their weight tugged at her head in an annoying way. There was no other solution for her than to leave them between her pillows and the bedhead and hope that she wouldn"t get herself stuck in them by moving too much in her sleep.

It happened all the time too. She"d wake up to find her hair strewn all about and the top half of herself tied up with them.

While she was grabbing the thin sheets to pull them over herself, her eyes fell onto the ring Emp had given her. Her hair would surely get stuck on it if she kept it on. It would be smarter to remove it and place it on the night table until tomorrow.

The kiss she gave him came back to her mind again and she decided against removing it. She didn"t want to. She might regret it in the morning but for now, she didn"t care.

She liked that ring a lot, not only was it the most complex and interesting she had, it had been gifted by Emp.

She wasn"t sure she would be able to convince her father that Emp was a good suitor, it would be very hard. He would need to do something pretty heroic for it to work. He had a good start but her father had some ridiculously high standards. She was almost certain that he"d say that it was just some momentary feelings on her part and that she would find her actions ridiculous in the future. How was she to know about that though? She wasn"t some sort of seer who knew the future.

Maybe she should go to the temple of love and take a prediction from there. Maybe they"d know what to do.

She could hardly see the ring in here. She had no candles in her room because it was all too easy to set fire to hairs. She had to raise the ring close to her eyes to look at it more easily in the dark.

He had said that the ring changed according to what he felt right? Wasn"t the ring even prettier now than it was before? Maybe it was just her imagination, or an illusion of the dark.

What was she even doing now, she was supposed to think of something else and sleep.

She placed her head on her pillow and fixed the ceiling.

There was a mosquito hovering mindlessly close to her ceiling. She must have let it in when she went to the balcony earlier. Should she call a servant girl to get rid of it? She didn"t want to get bitten in her sleep but she didn"t want to get back up either. It would take ages to neatly place her hair back into the bed.

She watched it move about for a while, half trying to figure out what to do with it and half trying to put herself to sleep by loosing herself in its flight.

Maybe it was fine to leave it there. After all, she wouldn"t die of a mosquito bite. There was no reason to alarm herself with this. She slowly drifted to sleep thinking about the fly.

She woke up later thinking she heard a noise in her room. It made her gasp in surprise and she bounced in her bed in confusion. The first thing that came to her mind waking up was to wander where that noise came from and what it was. Only after those did she finally ask herself the most important question, why did it come from inside her room?

She fearfully looked around her room to pinpoint the origin of that noise. It was hard to see through the curtain of her disheveled hairs and the obscurity but she believed that if something was out of place, she would notice it right away.

First, she noticed her balcony door was still closed. This meant that whatever it was had already been here or came from her main room. Maybe it was just one of the two servants but why would they come in so late at night? Or maybe it wasn"t so late, she didn"t know how long she slept for, it might have been only half an hour.

She saw that the mosquito was still there. Why are mosquitoes so dumb, there"s nothing on that ceiling, go away! She scolded it in her head.

Her eyes continued their tour and finally landed on a tall shape close to her door. It was too dark, she couldn"t see what it was. It was taller than her two servants though!

She froze in fear, staring at the thing. What should she do? Scream for help or wait for it to leave? Maybe it was just something dumb like a coat hanger, she needed to calm down and look at it properly. But she had nothing there! No coat hanger, no furniture of any sort!

There were some scratching sounds coming from it, with no other noise in her room, it seemed very loud. She felt like that noise wasn"t what had woken her up but she couldn"t figure out what it had been.

She had cold sweat under her blanket, she was so scared. This was the second scariest thing she had ever seen. If she screamed right now, would she get immediately attacked? Even if she wanted to, she doubted she"d be able to scream, in her state of panic. It seemed that at this moment, only her heart wasn"t turned into stone, in reverse, it was beating extremely quickly.

Didn"t it hear her waking up earlier? Why had it not moved when she gasped? What was it doing? at this moment, she had the impossible hope that someone like her servant, Aglaya or even Emp would barge into her room to bring some light to what the thing was. Maybe save her from it too.

The thing moved!

There was the rustle of clothes and a louder clicking sound as a feeble spark of fire blinded her. After her vision adjusted to the new light, she finally discovered what was in her room.

It was a man, a bald one. Someone she knew, a teacher that looked like he had not slept in years. She didn"t remember his name but she believed he was the potion teacher, or something like that. He held a candle on a small holder in his left hand which illuminated a bunch of weird drawings on her wall. Was he the one who made them? Were they some sort of magic thing? Was that the thing that made the scratching noises?

The most important question of all was, what was going on?

The man wore a set of black clothes, leather pants and a many-pocketed mage vest. He harbored a smile he probably wanted to seem rea.s.suring but in the dark with only the lower half of his face lighted by his candle, it just seemed more creepy.

A s.h.i.+ver ran down her spine. She was much too scared to ask him why he was there.

The teacher walked closer to her bed and spoke in a well articulate manner.

"I"m sorry, I didn"t mean to scare you. I was drawing the spell circles on the walls and I dropped the candle by accident."

His words seemed so absurd and in such discordance from the current situation that she finally broke out of her stupor. She loudly yelled her complaints. She was still frightened but there was no way she could let that ridiculous statement be.

"What do you mean you didn"t mean to scare me! By all the G.o.ds, what are you doing in my room in the middle of the night?"

"I just wanted to have a private conversation with you. A nice chat away from all the ears of your friends."

Did that man have some brain damage? Intruding in someone"s bedroom at night just to talk? She had no good or bad impression of him before but now, she marked him as a worthless undesirable creep.

"Get out!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

The man brought his free hand to his ear with an exaggeratedly pained face, as if to mock her.

"Do not scream so loud, it"s painful to the ears."

"Get out!" She screamed a second time, just as loudly.

The man didn"t seem impressed or put off at all by her outburst. He continued to speak in a calm manner.

"Even if you do that, I"m not leaving and no one will hear you. I just finished placing wards on your walls to block all sounds from escaping or entering this room."

A new wave of fear washed over her.

"What? Why would you do that?"

"Obviously so that we won"t be disturbed. Here, I knew you"d be upset of my intrusion so I brought you some flowers and a small strawberry cake as an apology."

He bent down a fetched a box he must have brought in with him when he first came in. Opening the lid, he revealed the two items he wanted to give her. This didn"t appease her at all however. The mosquito hovered over his head as if to remind her she was still in the real world.

"I don"t want them, I just want you to leave." She told him after gathering her courage again.

"Don"t be like that, I jut want us to have a good time."

He placed the box on her bed and sat himself on the other side of it. How dare he sit on her bed! She didn"t want some strange man there, but then again, there wasn"t really anything she could do about it for now. It wasn"t like she kept a weapon with her at all times.

She was afraid of where this was all going but she kept the hope that she"d be able to distract him long enough for her to dash out of the room. For now, she could only listen to his nonsense.

"How could I convince you of my good intentions? Here, look into my eyes, see that I"m not lying."

Now she felt much more angry than scared. She was still very afraid but the situation was so strange and was progressing so slowly that she managed to recover some of her wits.

She looked up to his eyes while thinking of a way to get out. His eyes where jovial but had a dark color and his smile was soft but in the circ.u.mstances, disturbing. He had raised the candle in front of his face so she could see the flame sway gently in between his eyes.

"I only want the happiness of everyone, you have to trust me. Calm your heart, there is nothing to fear here, there is nothing wrong going on. We"re just going to have a normal conversation. I am a trustworthy person, a teacher."

It was true that he was a teacher after all, what could he possibly do to harm her. She lost interest in him and somehow focused on the flame of the candle instead. That thing should not be above her bed because it could be dangerous but she found some calm by looking at it.

"You"ve had a long day of shopping, I understand you are tired so you can be at ease and relax. Your thoughts are heavy, sluggish even, no worry, I won"t mind, I understand."

Mable sank back down on her pillow. The moment he left, she would go back to sleep. She thought that this event had woken her up for good but apparently not.

"It"s true I"m tired. If you understand that then go away."

"But I"ve come this far just to have a talk with you, at least hear me out, it will not be too long I promise. Your friend told me you are a very fun person so surely you will accept my puny request. You"ll see we"ll have a lot of fun."

Something was wrong. Why was that flame so tall? She agreed absentmindedly while she kept her eyes on the candle.

"Good, should we introduce ourselves properly first? You know who I am right? I am Ninoslav Miramor. I"m a teacher, some of your friends are in my cla.s.s. Will you allow me to hear your name as well?"

Something was very wrong.

"Mable."

"But what about your family name? I gave you my full name, why not do the same by courtesy."

Alarm bells rang in her head. She wasn"t supposed to tell anyone. Aglaya reminded her almost every day to not do it. She had no intention of doing it yet, why did she want to say it so badly? Her heartbeat accelerated once again. What sort of trick was this, what was happening?

In panic, she activated her self-magic. It cleansed her whole body from anything foreign but consumed a lot of sugar in exchange. The longer she kept it active, the more she craved pastries and sweet fruits.

Running the energy throughout her body, she felt clarity come back to her and her sleepiness fade away like smoke. He was casting manipulation magic! That horrible freak! If not for her family"s self-magic aptly called "clarity and purity", she would have fallen in his grasp completely in no time at all.

She was horrified by the realization and barely managed to stammer and answer.

"I I w-won"t tell. I won"t tell!"

"Hmm, maybe you are indeed too tired to hold a proper conversation. Maybe the cake will do you some good. Here, take a bite of it, it"s really good and I have some beverage to go with it. I made it myself, it"s delicious."

All her hair stood upright when she saw him fetch a sealed bottle from a pocket of his vest and present it to her with the cake box. He was a master of potions and illusions! There was no way eating either the cake or the clear liquid in the bottle a good idea. Her heart bounced into her chest and she gulped in apprehension.

There was another thing she understood with this though, he kept the candle were it was. Did he not notice she had escaped his spell? Was this her chance to escape?

She had no intention of remaining here to see what sort of mad thing he was planning. She pretended to grab both the cake and the bottle but hurled them both at him the second she had a hold on them.

"Ah!"

He yelped in surprise and protected his face with both his hands. The cake flew into the candle and extinguished it before bursting in big chunks and dirtying both his face and clothes. The bottle bounced onto his arm before spilling its contents all over her floor.

While this was happening, she threw her covers away and dashed towards the door. The room returned to darkness the moment the cake hit but Mable knew her own room well enough to find the door even if she was blinded. This must have been the first time she thanked her room for being so small.

Not small enough.

Her hand reached for the handle when she was suddenly pulled back. The man tugged on her hair hard and she fell on her back on the wood covered floor. Her head knocked on the ground hard and she felt dizzy, under the boards, there was stone. The noise this painful fall made was loud but she knew from his word that neither of her servants would hear this.

Betrayed by her own hair again! It was so long the end of if still went across half her bed. It had been easy for him to grab a hold of it, even without seeing anything.

"I didn"t expect you to break free of that spell so quickly, you surprised me. Will you come back here obediently now or do I have to use your hair as a rope?"

"Let go of me! I"ll tell everyone that you"re a pervert who goes into girls rooms at night and uses mind altering magic on them!"

Still laid on the floor, she wrapped her fingers around all the hair she could reach and tugged back with all her strength. It was kinda painful and she had the absurd fear that either her or him would end up ripping her scalp off her skull but if she wanted to run, this was the only thing she could do. Instead of bringing back her hair though, she just slid on the ground, getting even closer to him.

His calm voice came from her bed again. He didn"t seem more upset than that.

"I really just wanted to talk and see if you were worthy of being made into one of my wives but if you"re gonna be like this… I have to either make you surrender tonight or have you disappear before you can tell anyone about what I"m doing. Good thing I came prepared."

Make her disappear!!?

"W-what will you do?"

The dark shape of the man rose from the bed and closed in on her. She tried to crawl further away but he kept her there by using the hair like a leash. Her head throbbed in pain, her heart kept pumping blood faster and faster into it and the new bruise on the back of it, quickly giving her a huge headache.

"The plan was to ask you some questions and slowly gain your heart over time once I knew you wouldn"t cause me too much trouble but it seems I was unlucky. You"re forcing my hand here you know? Why did I even try this in the first place, I hate gambles. I"m a firm believer that everything should be thought trough before moving a single finger."

He came so close that she was now able to see his face clearly in the dark, he was a million times scarier now than he was before. He had dropped all semblance of kindness and now only determination could be seen.

As he crouched above her, she struggled and kicked towards him, keeping him at bay for now.

The candle he previously held in his hand was nowhere to be seen anymore, instead, he had…

"snip-snip."

She froze completely, turning as rigid as a plank. Fear drowned her head and all reason escaped her. There were no fragments of coherent thoughts left in her head.

"Oh, I didn"t, expect these simple scissors to be so effective."

Ninoslav sat over her belly with his legs on each side of her. She couldn"t hear nor see him though. All she saw were nightmarish memories.

She was walking alongside a beautiful river with her mother. A giant pincer burst out from the water. No guards to be seen around. The ladies scream, the river is supposed to be safe.

*snip* One of them is caught before the first scream rises. There isn"t only one pincer, others follow as fast as rain, picking everyone up like flowers in a garden.

*snip-snip-snip*

Horrified faces and oversized crustacean arms all around her.

Some get snapped in half neatly and only their legs remain, others just disappear as if they had never been there. A disgustingly wet snipping sound clacks besides her ear again, her mother isn"t there anymore.

There is only a pair of dismembered legs in her stead.

*snip-snip*

She"s going to die too.

*Snip* another one disappears.

She"s going to die!

*snip-snip*

She"s going to die!

She"s going to die!

She tries to curl up on herself to escape the memories but a man is sitting on top of her.

"I wonder what sort of man your father is. If I come to him and present our union as an accomplished fact, will he attempt to kill me from the humiliation or just accept it to hide the shameful truth? If I get you pregnant, there"s not much he can do right? Then I only have to worry about your behavior. I don"t know how you escaped my small trick earlier but it"s only a matter of time until I find a crack in your defense. I"m not a master just for show. Would you be surprised if I told you I"m actually an accomplished war mage? I"m one of the quickest spell caster of the empire and my illusions make sure that I never get hit by anything while I kill my opponents leisurely. In fact..."

The man kept talking on and on but Mable was lost much too deeply into her own delirious nightmares to ear anything of what he was saying. He tired himself quickly and came back on the topic at hand.

"… but first, let"s get a taste of that."

His hands reached behind him, under her dress and between her legs. He soon showed a confused frown.

"Wait, what is that? Don"t tell me..."

He changed hands and brought down the one that was holding the scissors instead and tapped them on what he found.

*Clank-clank.*

"Chast.i.ty? You"re wearing a chast.i.ty belt to sleep?"

He was visibly shocked.

"Where is the key?" He asked her sternly after his surprise pa.s.sed.

Still shaken, she didn"t answer fast enough to his liking. He brought the scissors up to an inch away from her eyes. All she could see was a gigantic pincer coming for her. She was transfixed by the dread those simple iron cutters brought her.

"Where is it!"

Her mouth opened to scream of terror but no sound came out of it.

***

(AN)I was forced to write the beginning of the following message here because the Author Thoughts section was just too small. pls don"t scold me.

Hey we"re finally at the first year anniversary!

What an awkward chapter to celebrate this on.

I"d like to thank everyone who are reading this again.