Chapter 2 Just Another Day In My Life
Ten minutes later, he was done and I was lying there with blood trailing down my legs and tears trailing down my cheeks. I was in the worst kind of pain imaginable. And the slightest attempt (no matter how minuscule) to bring my legs together intensified the pain even more.
" Go clean yourself up." My father said getting up to pull on his breeches.
" There should be no evidence of..... this by morning." He added waving his hands over the blood-stained bed clothes before striding out, tying his breeches as he left.
I finally let the tears fall as I slowly and gingerly sat up in bed, clapping my hands over my face as sobs wracked my entire body.
With tears still in my eyes, I forced myself to get out of bed, trying my best to ignore the fire that burned between my legs as I stripped the bed and hurried behind the house to wash them and clean myself up before going back to bed. I never did get any sleep that night.
I was so lost in my thoughts I didn't realize I was home already until I tripped over one of the flower beds in the front yard. I had to let myself fall on my knees to balance the bulky basket on my head and make sure its contents didn't fall on the ground. Of course, I sustained a pair of colorful bruises on both knees to add to the array of bruises all over my body, I didn't mind though, it was much more preferable to what my mother and Vienna would do to me if any of their precious food items had touched the floor.
Grunting heavily, I got up and dusted myself as much as I could with one hand while the other hand held up the basket before rushing in.
" What took you so long?" Vienna demanded from her perch on the divan as soon as I stepped in.
"I'm sorry," I said hurrying to the kitchen to set down the basket. It was particularly heavy and I was quite anxious to be free of its weight.
" I had to wait for the butchers to open." I hurried back to the living room to continue my explanation to Vienna.
" Hmmmmm." She harrumphed, dismissing me with a wave of her hand.
" Be fast with the meal and come trim my nails and brows, tonight is Lestrange's coming-of-age party." She said,
" Goddess be praised," I muttered to myself as I hurried back to the kitchen and set about unpacking the basket.
In the not-so-distant past, being a second later than I was supposed to have earned me a series of punishments ranging from a slap across the face to being stripped and whipped.
She must be in a good mood. I decided.
I suppose I have Lestrange to thank for that. He was her current beau and today was his
nineteenth birthday.
" You're coming with me." Vienna declared two hours later just as I had finished helping her dress and was about to slip out of the door.
" What???" I asked, all thoughts of the blissful evening I had been dreaming about for the past two hours evaporated into thin air.
With mother at the Halfad manor for a family meeting and father at a council meeting that would certainly stretch into the early hours of the morning, I was looking forward to being on my own as soon as Vienna left. I was so rarely left to my own devices that whenever it happened, it felt like the goddess had bestowed a smile on me. I could sit and have a meal, have a normal bath and go to bed early- pure bliss, and now Vienna had ruined it all with a single sentence.
"Do not make me repeat myself." She said in a steely voice that had me hunching my shoulders and looking down at the floor. She had been in such a good mood all day, and unless I was hungry for a beating, it would be beneficial for me to keep her in a good mood.
" Lestrange is my current beau......at least for now." She said flipping her hair over her shoulder and bending to look in the mirror as she applied rouge on her cheek.
" I can't show up at his nineteenth birthday party like everyone else." She added.
" I need someone to carry my bags and fetch my drinks when I ask for it." She continued, dabbing red pigment on her lips and smacking her lips to make sure it was well absorbed before turning to scoop up her cloak and bag from the bed, tossing the latter at me, she slipped her arms through the former, before taking one final spin.
" Come on." She urged, striding out and slamming the door behind her.
Clutching her bag to my chest I hurried after her. Just like the cloak, it was lined with wolf fur which made it extremely expensive and valuable. So valuable in fact that only three other women ( not counting my mother of course) in the whole Golden Lamp Empire had similar bags or cloaks.
Vienna's had been in the family for centuries, passed down to the first daughter on their nineteenth birthday, which meant it was mine by right. Not that I ever expected it to come to me. I knew Fania Halfad-Samaf would never entrust her family's treasures to a weakling she hated, and she had proved me right by giving them to Vienna on her sixteenth birthday, ten months ago.
For the second time today, Vienna startled me out of my thoughts by jerking her bag out of my hands, that was when I caught sight of the carriage in front of the house.