Chapter 26
Wild Rose
Sins Wrapped in Silk
The Jewel of the Diadem, the cardinal dancer, a laurel that shakes mountains and threads its way through the fabric of time itself—this title, ancient and precious, speaks of power, grace, and a beauty that both terrifies and captivates. She, who bears this name, is no mere dancer, no fleeting performer on a stage, but a swan. This crown was originated by Anastasia Moretti, the Diamond herself, born of a lineage steeped in legend and untold glory. She was the embodiment of everything that moved, inspired, and broke with a single gesture.
Each year, the Academy crowns one ballerina—chosen from the graduating class—who has earned the right to bear the title bestowed upon her by an assembly of the elite. Their judgment is absolute, their approval as decisive as the lifting of a sword before battle. Before the night ends, we shall all step through the iron-clad gates that guard the grounds beneath a sky stitched with a thousand stars. At the promontory’s edge, we shall gather, cloaked in jewel-beaded ensembles that shimmer like forgotten constellations, catching the eye of the moon and holding its gaze, as we bid our last hurrah.
It is there, in the stillness of the night, that the Angle Dance unfolds, an ephemeral rite that marks the end of one journey, and the beginning of another. Those who are fortunate enough to witness it know they are seeing something that cannot be replicated, something rare and magical. The Jewel, crowned in her glory, is said to shed Oscar-winning tears, to embody a sorrow and a joy so deeply intertwined that it stains the air with the gravity of history itself. A portrait of gilded opulence will soon be added to the lineage of dancers, their legacy immortalized in the hallowed hall of mirrors, where time stands still and their names echo on.
Swans are said to be revered mythological creatures, their feathers representing grace and unyielding strength within the walls of Haven Academy. They are the living epitome of the art, their wings sweeping through the air as effortlessly as a pirouette, and their song as flawless as the dancers they honor. They are the untouchable ideal, the unreachable pinnacle.
A similar reverence resides in Sebastian’s gaze as he looks at me. He sees me through the lens of something far greater than myself, a title that stretches beyond time, beyond the physical world, into something more ethereal, more immortal. It lifts me and leaves me hollow all at once, as though being seen through such eyes is to be known in a way that escapes reason, a truth that cannot be spoken, yet exists all the same. And still, I crave it. I long to be seen in that way, to be his.
Birds of a feather
A bride dressed in sil k
Chains bridle reins
Graceful harmony
A poetic piece inscribed onto my flesh, a needle dipped in ink and cursively written on my thigh. It’s outlandish to take another woman’s words and make them my own. But how can l not, when the old journal preaches a poet’s grave heart. Between the pages of it are such deeply rooted devotions and devastations.
I feel solemnly staunch to Anastasia’s thoughts and prayers. The way she talks about her son and husband is a tearsmith tale. She employs words like a weapon. I found the dusty aged thing in my room, which l came to know was once hers. Under one of the floorboards were not only her tears dried on paper but pictures and letters that paint the past.
Since then, when stars sprinkle the sky and nightfall clouds the Earth, l open one letter and read it like a lullaby. Her and Zakaria’s love story unfolds between the tips of my fingers like wild flames. I should not be reading their most vulnerable moments to one another, yet I cannot help but thrust myself into their history.
Zane
My Sweet Anastasia,
How blissful, how profound, this life we’ve woven together.
And how deep the promises we etched into the fabric of our souls, promises bound not by the frailty of time, but by the eternal beating of our hearts.
I asked to know love, and without hesitation, you gave it to me, unblemished, unremorseful, fierce in its purity.
In your arms, you carry the child you once dreamed of, a small, perfect dream come to life.
Under still waters, I breathe without fear ,
like a blind star, unknowingly drawn to the shimmering blue beyond.
And when I stand in your presence, I am never lost.
Not when your gaze is my compass, your touch my steady guide.
My feet, muddied and worn, tread across paths that only we know,
while in my hands, I carry the daisies I plucked from our garden, the simple, fragile things that bear witness to the eternity we are crafting.
I watch you twirl our little one, the joy of his laughter filling the air like music, the kind of song that only the heart can hear, but one that vibrates across the universe in a melody all its own.
I long to give you the world, the stars, the endless moon,
for you have shown me a galaxy, vast and endless, within the depths of your love.
And in that boundless expanse, I find myself, anchored, whole, and more than I ever dreamed I could be.
How precious indeed is this life of ours,
a world we created with our own hands, and the quiet promise that, together, we shall hold it forever.
When words were too great a mystery to be spoken, they wrote their unsaid thoughts on paper. And like a fragile heart, their love was silvery and sweetening. But one letter in particular stung like a wasp. They knew my mother.
“I think that’s enough for today, my mind can not harbor much more formidable stories.” Naseria shuts the thick centurion book and shuffles it in her bag. “I can all but feel my blood curdling.” She shudders. “The past is in truth, ugly”
After class, we had lunch in the garden and locked ourselves in my room. And as I peek outside, l realize just how long we have been going over the articles we found. The sun has set and stars are slowly filling the sky. A blackboard lies on the floor, between us. Plastered with notes, connecting dots and pinned chronicles and annals, which all frankly appear much more bemusing than it actually is.
“My limbs feel limp, unlike the curdling of others’ blood.” Miro pops his neck, ridding it of strain.
“I can feel the mockery, Miro.”
“Good ‘cause for a second there, I thought I had to voice it.” His lips stretch to a boyish smirk.
I wonder if he ever misses his voice. On most days, he acts like the loss of it was a walk in the garden, and on few of them do l see past his guise. Hidden behind the deprecating humor and sarcasm that laces his wounds.
“St Parish honor the Blood Oath, Zakraion Woods heed the sacrificial lamb, Bouretherna institution houses the Creed Paragons and, well, question mark on what the fourth circle is —,” I think out loud. The articles mentioned about the Oracles Of Gryclusm. And while we know of only the Stamatoties and their four clans, I question where the Gryclusm comes in place and what they are.
“— Oracles Of Gryclusm surely is not the fourth circle, but somehow it’s linked to the larger scheme of plays, right?”
“The chronicles say little, so hopefully Ann might know a thing or two.”
I nod, hopeful.
As soon as the rooster crows, we’re taking a small visit down north to pay Lady Anne a visit. In a small town outside of Sybactus, a weekend getaway, if you may say, is brewing. Who knows what we will find but I hope the odds will be for us.
“Last night I went down to visit Holly” Naseria gazed out the window, her mind drawn so far off.
Their adoration for her is a testament of how much she sickeningly loved the most to bits. She cared unfeigned, and she cared with everything she was. My mother was pure personified, smothered with warm words and soft embraces. And for such a paragon of virtue, the woman who birthed me to be reaped away from me so viciously is a cruelty that old Nick himself has never experienced.
Miro’s mother passed away when he was young, while Naseria’s mother was one by title alone, leaving my mother to become theirs in every way that mattered. She nurtured them as if they were born of her own flesh, loving them with a depth that spanned lifetimes, as though she had held them from the very beginning. Holly was God’s gift to this world, a light that touched all who knew her, and she was my father’s truest friend.
Naseria sighs, the heaviness settling in my pit, a reflection of hers. “I read her Twelfth Night ”
“If she weren’t asleep, she surely would have fallen into one” Miro signs, and staggers himself off the bed and into his boots. The corners of my mouth twitch. Mama loathed classical literature like she did watching roses die.
“And do not forget the sailor curses she would spill under her breath.”
How can I, when I was the nuisance she chased around the house. It’s a shame to know what love is and lose it. My childhood was magical and soft, yet now all I know is the roughness and brutality I’ve suffered from the hands of others. To be held in one’s palm and suffocated like an ant would be almost comical if it weren’t misery clothed in animosity.
A knock echoes through the room as Mariah steps in, pushing my bedroom doors open.
“Good evening, Odessa. Mr. Moretti has requested your presence in the gardens for dinner.”
“Thank you, I’ll be out soon.”
She nods in acknowledgment and quietly closes the door behind her.
Naseria packs up what little is left and when I wave them goodbye and watch the car lights disappear into the night, I make my way to the glasshouse. Just like my first night, the place is lit with candles and the table is decorated with blossoms, along with the ones hanging above. The aroma of freshly cooked food smears the air and I can not help but water at the delicates and wine splayed on the mahogany table. But I suppose it’s nothing compared to the man seated at the end. He sips the alcohol in his hand seductively with his eyes never straying away from my own.
His shirt stretches over his arms, revealing the tattoos hidden under the charcoal material hugging his neck. Every night he enters my room and every night I let him. The cloudless belief that it is to my will is a false understanding, or more so a lie I tell myself. Sebastian doesn’t seek my sanction to enter my room or to, maraud my life, for that matter. The man bursts through locked doors because a key simply is not something he will willingly question its meaning. Rules do not apply to him, and I do not doubt neither does the word alone. Sebastian lives in his own world and how the thought to be part of it sends my head swirling.
“You’re quite a breathing enigma.” I say, as he stands and with the gallant manners of a butler he pulls my chair for me to sit.
“And here I thought I was as open as a book can get.” He whispers into my ear and shivers marr my skin to his rich accent and gravel voice. Rough fingers slowly wrap around my throat, holding me to a bruising touch. “And here’s a thought —” his hold tightens and I do notfight against him “— the feel of your breakable neck in my hand makes me long to do wretchedly cruel acts to your delicate flesh.” His calloused words flatter moths in my belly, rolling and swarming so viciously.
“You make the voices in my head mad with covetousness.” He sounds offended and I feel aroused. I almost lean further into his touch before he takes his seat. The coldness that remains in his wake makes me abhor and crave for his warmth at once. A constant battle waged between the organ beating in my chest and the one caged in my head.
“I pity your struggle.” I curl the piece of hair that untangled from my ponytail around my pinky.
He lifts a wine bottle and pours the colorless liquid into my glass before placing it back down.
“Add a morsel of sympathy to your tone, and I might take your word for it.”
And as if my own hands are incapable, he picks up his knife and slices through my steak so effortlessly, coating each piece in rich béarnaise sauce. With a tenderness uncharacteristic of him, he lifts the fork to my lips, offering it to me. The flavors bloom across my tongue, deep and indulgent, unfolding like a secret meant only for me.
“But not when you do not feel. Wouldn’t that be pointless.” My eyes blink a couple of times.
That was a “poke at the beast” moment, because Sebastian does feel. His one byzantine character with the most labyrinthine emotions and serpentine thoughts. He can easily be a misunderstood soul, and what a tragic that is, because under all his harsh words and uncaring demeanour, is a man worth loving. Anastasia’s journals and letters have been somewhat a secret door to who their son truly is.
“As it is to lie.” He stares at me, yet his mind is miles away, wondering in a past he sees so well, like a freshly sculpted stone.
“And what have I told false off”
“I have spoken little, yet you know me as intimately as the dark veins threading through my arms. You were woven into my past, you stand in my present, and you will be in my future. I may be a riddle to many, but not to you, not when my mother’s journal carries the ink of my story, not when your gaze follows me as mine follows you.”
Sebastian feels like a long-lost lover, like indeed a past I knew before I came into this world. A kindred spirit l was left to wonder in search of in more than this life alone. The warmth and apathy l feel when his near is daringly familiar and old. I was caught in a buskin and along the break of clouds l found my way to him. But I’m torn, tarnished with a clown’s mind. He was never supposed to be the plot twist l see coming.
I cannot put into words what I feel and neither can he. It’s such a daunting verity for your soul to seek another like an old friend while your mind throws caution to the wind. How can my spirit lead when it can accept that Sebastian is not a good man. The blood bathing his hands and bleeding in his heart could paint me red and turn me into his own madness. The brute nestled in his soul won’t go away simply because I’m there with it, but it just might crumble me to pieces.
He feels, but can he love the way I want to be loved? His reins of obsession won’t let me be, I can run but the chains encased on my wrists will always thrust me back to him. My heart sees past the blood he walks into my room covered in, every night or the sanity he stalked me with. But my mind ponders at the reality of it and while I grasp the greyness of the matter, wrong doesn’t make it right. And neither do those cameras still hidden in my room.
“Tell me a story,” I whisper as he spears another piece and lifts it to my lips. There is something deeply intimate in the way he shares his fork, the same silver gliding between us.
“Many moons ago, there was a woman whose life was stolen by the venom of an ophidian. Her husband, shattered beyond words, sought desperately to mend his broken heart. So, he descended into the underworld, where he knelt before the shadows and pleaded for the return of his beloved.”
I reach for the glass of wine, but he takes it first, lifting it to my lips with deliberate ease. The gesture, gentle as a lamb, is a silent vow—a quiet claim of surrender he takes without ever offering his own.
“Hades agreed, but with a single condition, Orpheus must lead his wife out without ever turning to look at her. Yet, as temptation often weaves its way into fate, he stole a glance. Eurydice was lost to him once more, swallowed by the depths, never to return. Grief-stricken, Orpheus called for his own end in song, his sorrow echoing through the land until the wild beasts answered, tearing him apart and granting his final wish.”
“Do you think we’re destined for tragedy, forever waiting to fall?”
“Our story is not set in stone, Wild Rose. You and I are the writers of our end.”
But how can we not when we have so many dusted secrets and trails built before us. When our lives are buried in so much agony .
“Then allow me to know the parts you keep in the dark, to touch where the light hasn’t kissed and to hold the pieces you keep to your chest, then maybe, just maybe we won’t be so tragic a tale to tell.”
He stares at me a little longer before pulling the chain around his neck and giving it to me.
“My silence is never to keep you in the dark, but when you haven’t known of the immorality that I have, I’ll never stop trying to save what innocence you have left, but run Wild Rose, take a gander at the purgatory and for that I shall push you to the edge just to see how much you’ll scream for my help.”
“Will you catch me?”
“Always.”