Celeste's life is far from the enchanting fairy tale one might expect from a princess. Her father, a ruthless and self-absorbed king, leaves a trail of death and destruction in his wake. To seal alliances and maintain his power, he arranges for Cele...
I spend extraordinary hours on this wooden chair. Everyone has their own way of getting through difficult times. Whether sitting on a chair for long nights is a good way I don't know, but it works. Looking and sketching puts my head in a different place. Not having to think about the next step, the next kill. Puzzling, I would almost call it.
Yet I will never quite manage to step out of reality again. My eyes slide to my right wrist. I always knew that black magic had a high price, but how high that price would be was never clear. The moment the onyx Walmut brought its power into my lifelines was the point at which the payoff began. For a long time, it was unclear to me what that peculiar, immensely painful, black dot on my wrist was. I thought I only had to pay for sending blood. When Sio Flori got a knife in her back, literally, it became clear to me that this was not just Walmoet's payment.
My lifelines were burning because of black magic. According to old stories, the same thing happened to Yang. His lifelines could not handle the amount of black magic and started burning under the pressure. It was one of the things that drove the brother to madness. Some say he could no longer speak by screaming in pain, his throat completely worn out. If stories are to be believed, by the end he had almost no skin left on his arms and was missing several fingers. Fortunately, that stage is still far away.
My right forearm is covered in black veins and by now my left wrist too does not remain empty. When it started, the pain went away after my lifelines absorbed the magic. Unfortunately, now I cannot get rid of it easily. The black veins keep growing whether I kill someone or not. The burning pain is always nagging in the distance in the background, getting worse little by little.
Stories from the past tell me there is no cure. All you can do is quit black magic and hope your lifelines mend. Since that is not an option, I have accepted that this is the price the gods are making me pay.
'How long have you been awake?' I look up from the sketches and see Novak standing in the doorway. I hadn't noticed that the sun was heading for the horizon. The morning had moved into the sky unnoticed. Apparently, that was enough for Novak to wake up.
'Just a moment,' I reply as I light another cigarette on the almost melted away candle. Novak slowly approaches my side in only his loose black trousers. The black hair still peaks in all directions and his red eyes look anything but bright. He comes up behind me and bends over the sketches. I take a puff of my umpteenth cigarette before Novak snatches it from my fingers and places it against his own lips.
'What is that raven doing among the sketches?' he asks, pointing to one of the latest sketches in the corner. He blows out the smoke and returns the cigarette. I put the thing between my lips as I grab the sketch from the table. A raven in a dark corridor, nothing more, nothing less.
'No idea. I draw what I see,' I reply simply. Carefully, Novak takes the piece of paper from my hand and studies it thoroughly. I tap the ash from the cigarette as Novak puts the sketch back on the desk.
'It almost looks like they are experimenting on him.' I look straight at Novak. His eyes move slowly over the papers as he mutters to himself. Looking more closely at the drawings, I don't quite see what he means. I see it more as if they are torturing him.
'Why?' I ask as I push the cigarette out into the overflowing tray. Novak leans further forward and grabs several papers from the pile.
'The injections in the eyes, arms and his back, the black eyes, black veins but especially these.' He picks up one of the last sketches that I could never quite place. It's two severed raven wings on a table with all the needles in them. I never quite understood why they were lying there. Nor was it an image I wanted to keep in my head for long. It made me vomit.
'I don't know exactly what they are doing to him, but it has something to do with that raven,' is the last thing Novak says before standing up. He has a point. The raven is new in my dreams, but not a coincidence. I want to ask Novak further about his theory, but Alisha appears to have more important things on her mind.
'Breakfast!' she shouts through the house. Novak turns around without saying anything and walks towards the door. I remain seated on my chair while lighting another cigarette and make no move to get up.
'Are you coming too?' asks Novak as soon as he stands in the doorway. I just blow out the smoke and nod.
'Yes,' I lie with a smile. He merely nods before walking out of the office. I have not been hungry for months and my taste is not improving either. You could blame it on the amount of cigarettes I smoke away but I know better than that. I lift my hand into the air and let the door fall gently into the lock without having to get up from my chair. Two new blank sheets of paper also come my way through the air. I do grab the pencil from the table myself before I start writing down the patterns between the drawings.
Injections
Black veins
Black eyes
Boy with black hair
Raven
Dark corridor and room
I look from the words to the sketches. At least one of these points appears in all the drawings. Maybe Novak is right, they are experiments. But why? What do they want to achieve with it? Who is doing it? And above all, who is the boy and why did they grab him?
As much as I want to stay in this chair, I realise that I am not going to find all the answers I am looking for here. There is a bookshop in the village, if Novak was telling the truth at least. Not only does my knowledge not extend far enough but my cigarette supply is starting to seriously dwindle. Sighing, I get up from the chair, put out the cigarette and blow out the candle.
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