The Vault: Lavender - Prologue

Many writers have a backlog of projects, ideas, and books they want to write. I'm no different. This is a story I've decided not to make my main project yet. It will be one day.

For your enjoyment today: The prologue of one of my favorite WIPs. Lavender.



Nightshade had been waiting for the perfect time for her escape plan. Now her time was up and she was going to have to adjust for it. The baby was coming.

The King of Light, Richard, had been keeping her in a room connected to his own since he’d found out she was pregnant. He had been trying to get her to claim the child was his and become his mistress. Nightshade couldn’t do that to her husband. She just couldn’t.

Each contraction flared her magic up and was more and more difficult to keep quiet through. The guards would figure it out soon.

She had to get out now.

Richard had told her his plans and she refused to let him follow through with it. So Nightshade waited for her next contraction so she’d have the juice to knock her armored keepers into the worse nightmares of their lives.

As she waited she heard Richards words echo around her thoughts. “I’ll raise it, or give it to someone who wants one. You’ll never see it unless you leave your husband.”

He’d threatened to start a war over it. Nightshade couldn’t figure out how she’d ended up in this situation.

Another contraction started. They were getting too close together and she knew it was now or never. The blue aura of her nightmare magic erupted like a solar flare and she sent it through the door. Thuds could be heard as the guards collapsed, the door creaked open.

She ran as well as she could as her body tried to force the baby out. It was so ineffective that she briefly reconsidered killing the child to save it from a seemingly unavoidable fate.

No. She couldn’t think like that. Reassuring herself that she could save this little life, Nightshade continued into the hallway. She had to support herself against the wall.

Once the contraction passed she tried to break into a full run and just couldn’t. Until she remembered something else Richard had said. “I’ll bury your precious kingdom in a war your husband couldn’t possibly win.”

More and more of his threats reverberated almost as painfully as the cramping from Nightshade pushing through it all and navigating the halls at breakneck speed.

“If it’s a girl she could be raised to be the perfect wife for my son,” He’d said, grinning at the horror Nightshade had responded with. She’d met the son and he’d been a terror, even for a toddler.

Another time he’d asked, “How do you think your dear Night King would respond if I sent him a baby sized finger?”

A new contraction started and Nightshade felt a gush of liquid between her legs. She didn’t have any experience with childbirth but didn’t think that much blood was normal. None of this was normal.

She couldn’t keep from screaming from the crippling pain.

Someone had to have heard that. Many someones must have. She needed to keep going, find the stairs, but she couldn’t move at all.

The contraction ended. Nightshade still writhed on the floor where she’d fallen. She was being torn in half. Her hand ventured up her dress and she could feel the head of her child.

New panic set in. Richard wanted this baby so much she knew her safety was guaranteed right up until the moment the child was out of her.

If only she could find those god damned stairs!

Footsteps clicked against the stone walls and she dragged herself away from the sound. A trail of blood and water followed her progress.

Finally she saw where the steps started and prayed the door to the outside were close to the bottom. She begged any power that existed that she’d make it in time to leave the privacy wards making it impossible for her husband to find her.

All she had to do was make it there before-

Just as her body pushed the rest of the baby out a group of guards came into Nightshades faded vision. She was too late unless she was willing to do something desperate.

Going for it, she used the last of her magic reserves to decimate the troop. Unfortunately that took the rest of her physical energy too.

The guards started hallucinating their worst fears. Nightshade could barely manage to pick up the child still attached to her uterus by the umbilical cord and lived her own worst fear.

It was a girl. A girl with a magical aura of green smoke burning Nightshade where their skin met. The smoke made her eyes glow, and smelled so acrid it was no wonder Nightshades hair started curling.

Trying to get to the stairs and save this perfect little creature, Nightshade pushed inch by inch.

She didn’t make it.

When the King of Light saw her, she was simply a shell. The guards had found that their attempts to pick up the girl ended with their armored gloves melting like the flesh of the arms she was encircled in.

The King was alarmed at how powerful the baby’s magic was. He smelled the acid of her magic from the front doors.

He wasn’t sure what he would be able to do about that, but he did know what to do with the body of the woman he’d wanted so badly in his bed. The idea twisted his mouth into a smile the captain of his guards shuddered at.

Running his hands through his blond hair the King said, “Get the visiting Bloom Mother.”

A guard ran to fulfill the command. The captain turned back to the child still melting away at Nightshades corpse, but kept his eyes on his King.

“Isn’t it the one that has calming magic?” There’s barely a touch of fear in the captain’s voice. Fear that was out of place for one that had seen war and been on ships sinking far from the coast of the Land of Light.

The King chuckled. “If she can calm a storm she should be able to calm a babe, perhaps she’ll be willing to adopt it.”

He looked from the child, down the umbilical cord still attached, and observed where the cord changed from the green aura to the blackening of where the magic didn’t reach.

Voice as dark as his intentions, the King said, “Nightmare magic this powerful will need a strong hand to control.” His eyebrows lowered. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“We haven’t been able to get a good look, Majesty, but we believe it’s a girl.” The guard who answered was one with melted gloves. He was kneeling on the floor with a first aid kit, still treating the burns on his fingers.

The answer slightly brightened the Kings expression. “It seems my son will have a powerful wife indeed. One who will rightfully gain the Land of Darkness unless that king of theirs has a son before she’s revealed. Once the girl is taken care of I have a plan for that.”

A few of the men in armor who had remained in the hall looked at each other. One of the newer recruits shivered at the cruelty the King implied.

Then the Bloom Mother arrived. “What is so important I was dragged from my bed,” She asked. She saw the scene but didn’t react. She really was the perfect person for the job the King wanted her for.

“Can you get the child safely, we are struggling and need to clean this up.”

The Bloom Mother, her magic a soft yellow that glowed through the acrid aura of the creature, was able to lift her without visible harm. She needed no further instruction.

Richard, King of Light, his Royal Majesty, ignored the looks he was given when the corners of his mouth curled more. “Clear out, I’ll take care of it from here.” He glared at anyone who dared linger.

It was only when he was alone with Nightshade, her body torn from childbirth and melted from magic, that he showed any emotion that could be described as real.

He woke up his own magic. White wisps spread from his fingers as he touched over each wound and restored the woman to her natural state. Some marks remained, but they didn’t dull her beauty.

For a few moments he just looked over her. Her hair, too melted to salvage, was still the sleek black that had originally drawn his eye and attention.

His fingers traced her thick lips that seemed so delicious even in death. They followed her soft jawline to her delicate neck. Even after giving birth she retained a shapely form.

A lone tear made a wet line down his cheek. This was the woman he should have married, and had desperately wanted by his side. Even if she didn’t want to be there.

The King shook his head. He whispered to the body before him, if no one else, “How do you think your husband will react when I send you back to him like this? When he reads the note telling him I’ve kept his daughter?”

Almost gently, he lifted Nightshade and turned back towards the quarters she’d killed herself to escape.

He set her on his bed. The one she could have chosen to sleep in those past months but refused. He changed into his sleeping robes and laid next to her, pretending just for a minute that she was simply sleeping.

Those eyes would never open again, though. He knew if they did they’d be round and big and the same blue of her magical aura. Another tear fell from his lashes.

For one night, no matter how disturbing he knew it was, he would pretend that he’d gotten everything he’d wanted. Not just the child, but the mother he could never look away from.

For just one night he was going to have the object of his affection and admiration next to him.

Then he’d put the best of his threats into motion.

One day his hold of the little girl the Bloom Mother would take back to the Land of Beauty would give him the keys of all three Lands, and he’d strengthen them enough to even take on the Shadow Realm.