Night Falls Ch. 01

This is my first attempt at putting my writing out for others to read. This is the story of one of my favorite role play characters, Kiara Victoria Draken, and the setting is in the country now known as Exeter in England. The year is 1292, and the place is the Manor of the young Lord Esiah Draken and his wife Iliana. I wanted to start with her birth and move on, as it would only do her justice if I did so because of the loved people that helped shape her. This will take time to write, 600 plus years of history, so this is an ongoing project. I hope you like it as much as I like the character. Feel free to give feedback, I am glad to have it.

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The night was cold, not the kind of cold that brought snow to the sweeping grounds in the countryside of England, but the kind that chills the air and got into the cool stone halls of the manor. It seemed that cold wind ran it’s way under the thick ornate wooden doors of his Lordship’s library door, chilling the room despite the raging fire in the fireplace. Only a few moments earlier, the screams of his Lady had ceased to ring through the hallways, long incessant sounds of torture as the woman brought forth her second child into the world. The wane cry of the newborn baby echoed on after in the young man’s head, still burned into his memory now as he heard a soft knock on the door. “Come” The soft masculine voice of the young Lord rose to bid the person enter.

The door opened to an elderly woman, still stiffly straight in her posture and immaculately groomed in a gray uniform dress, her silver white hair combed and pinned into a perfect knot at the base of her neck. The stiffness of the woman, formality suiting the placement in the house of a nobleman, melts upon her gaze on the young man before her. “Lord Esiah, the Lady has given you a daughter.”

The man pinched his nose as an odd sort of pain settles into his features. “Who sired this one?” He spoke out of turn, and knew it then. But the child was not of his creation; he was not able to sire children as they had learned some time ago. His words had an effect on the older woman he didn’t see with his position, pain darting across her face.

She obviously cared a good deal for him, like one would for a son. Her words came out soft and choked, and she cleared her throat before trying again. “Her eyes…the child is the line of the Queen Mother”.

Esiah looked up at this, his movement sharp with his surprise, an ungentlemanly curse coming to his lips at the statement. “The Lady chose a man of royal blood to sire her child? Is she mad?” His frustration was clear in his voice, hard and angry.

It was then that a man stepped out of the shadows, melted from them as easily as one would walk through sheer curtains, though they seemed to cling to the man just a moment too long to be natural. The man was tall and dark tanned with an underlying paleness, as if his heritage would demand his skin be rich brown but something else would take the golden tone to a cooler paleness beneath it. His long black hair settled around his shoulders haphazardly and brilliant blue eyes almost seemed to glow. He seemed more animal than man in the way he held himself, and in the subconscious impression he left on those who saw or dealt with him. He carried a rough beastial visage like a cloak though to most he would seem just as any other man honed and muscled with long hours of work.

The man moved across the floor to drop himself with feral grace into a leather wing back chair next to the young Lord, watching the youth’s face with a softer concern then what his appearance would naturally allow. “The sins of a woman cannot be brought upon the innocent head of a child, brother”.

The sound of his voice was rough, darkly bass in timber and intimidating to most. To Esiah it soothed over his wounded soul like a salve, a constant in his life that brought him strength. This feral man was his brother, a choice made by both, and by mutual adoption they were family. “Gareth, much as I know this, so will others. Bringing this child to the church to be christened Draken will be a marked mistake as all will know of her blood.”

Gareth, as he was called in this place and time turned eyes far too wise for his appearance to the man beside him and shook his head. “They will say nothing but for their own gossip and tired belittlement. They cannot afford to speak ill of the crown nor you. You are far too respected for them not to be silenced in their conjecture.”

Another knock sounded, a younger servant girl carefully negotiated the door, a small bundle wrapped in white blankets in her arms. She drops an awkward curtsy as she steps in, a second thought or automatic reaction to the formality of the house. The girl seemed to be too distracted in gazing down at the baby in her arms.

Esiah cleared his throat pointedly, bringing the girl out of her reverie to blush and stumble over herself as she brings the child and places the bundle into his awaiting arms. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the girl, not looking down at his new child until the woman had taken herself from the room.

Gareth, however, wasn’t so patient. Lifting himself to his feet, he leaned onto the back of his brother’s chair to look down into the cool silver blue gaze of the tiny child. A crooked smile took the man’s face, as the little girl’s gaze took the man’s heart.