Book One of the KARDIA Trilogy; Queen of Hearts

CHAPTER ONE

As the carriage kept going I felt tired and bored. I decided to take a nap so as I could get ready to embrace that place they all emphasize as my new home.
    My short nap was interrupted by the bulky voice of the man.
"Rise and shine beautiful!" He exclaimed as his eyes beamed at me. I gazed at him warily.
   I stretched myself a bit before I got of the car. As I stood out of the carriage I took a few seconds to recognize the place before me. It was deserted and ahead of us was the tallest wall I've never seen in my whole entire life of growing up.
   "Excuse me?" I asked warily. "Where are we?"
He chuckled again this time much more higher. "Home my dear girl." He said to me. "Use the card to show you the way. Use your power to open the gate."
    He said as he climbed on his horse and left. I sighed. What is this? Where is my mother taking me to? A new place known as home , a weird home to be exact, with a tall wall like the Jericho one.  Use your card . I said to myself. I opened my bag pack and took out the card. I gazed at it for a few seconds and realized it had a code. I gazed at the wall, and how the bricks had been designed. All I had to do was press the right brick to reach my destination. I sighed and exhaled deeply because I shouldn't mess this up. Who knows where I'd land?

I closed my eyes and focused my fingers on the card as I trailed the code on it. I felt it at the tip of my fingertips and I formed a brick way to open the gate. When I opened my eyes I felt the intuition leading me to the right bricks to push .
     "Okay, here goes one." I whispered to myself as I held the first brick. It moved a bit. I exhaled and inhaled.
       "Two," I said walking toward the second brick. Just like the first it moved.
    "Okay. The last one. It better work." I said hopefully as I touched the last brick. After seconds a trail formed on the bricks and the bricks started moving. After a while I was welcomed to a very tall building glaring at me with gray, red, black and white colors emanating from its walls. I took my luggages and walked inside.
     After walking a few steps away from the wall, the wall enclosed it's path once more waiting for a next arrival. I gazed in front of me , where a huge tall building gazed at me with it's gray, black, white and red colors. The bolded letters were HOUSE OF WAZDRA. I sighed with frustration. I gazed at the card from my mom and gazed at the building again. A curious mind like mine had a lot of questions that needed answers and staring at this building wasn't going to give me any. So I walked towards it, only to meet a long corridor as an entrance. The corridor had people in it and most of them were of my age. As I climbed  the stairs most of them gave me peculiar glances that I could not fathom. But anyway I couldn't get answers from peering eyes for they were uncomfortably gazing at me.

I asked one of the teenagers where I could definitely do a registration and he showed me around the corner. I muttered thanks and walked towards the corner only to meet a wall staring at me. I kept on getting frustrated more. What did that person think I was, a fool? I sighed woefully as I closed my eyes to allow relaxations. My intuition felt life beyond the wall. I opened my eyes only to see a door in front of me. At first, it wasn't there.
   I walked towards the door and opened it. I met a shelf full of books and candles and bottle jars with things I didn't know. I walked in and beside the shelf was a woman busy writing something on a pice of paper. I cleared my throat to get her attention.
   "Have a sit," she said as she kept on focusing on her paper. I sat down and waited.
     "Etheldreda Nathan." She said as she took off her glasses and kept them on the table as she brought all her attention to me. "I'm so pleased to see you here."
   "Oh. Nice to meet you too." I replied hesitatingly.
"I don't think if we've met before.."
    "No we haven't." She interrupted me. "I was informed of your arrival." She said as she beamed.
   "Welcome to the Wazdra recruits my dear. My name is Silvia. And I would love that if you call me by my name. No need for formalities."
   "Wazdra.." I said to myself. She smiled at me genuinely . "You'd love it here. Audrey please show her around the campus." She said as she went back to her writings. I gazed around to see a third party but there wasn't any one else around .I was about to call her name when...
   "Hey!" A girl's voice said behind me. I turned around half astounded. She wasn't in the room..
   "Am Audrey." She gave me her hand. I shook it. She laughed as she said. "It's a trick. Don't worry, you'll learn about it."
  "Oh." That's all I managed to say.
"Well we don't have all day, please follow me." She said enthusiastically as she walked towards the door and opened it for me. I got out and as she closed the door , I was very anxious to know about this strange place.
  "So what's your name?" She asked me
"Etheldreda." I sighed. "Ethela in short."
  "Okay Ethela. Welcome to the house of Wazdra where magics get to know their potentials and live a new life that they belong in."
  "Magics?" I asked as I chuckled sarcastically. "Wow. More surprises."
  "It's not surprises. I mean have you never felt out of place when you was at your parent's home?"
  "I was, but I never thought to be a magic..really.." I said as I rubbed my temples. This is going to be a long day.
  "You have a powerful force Ethela. You staying back at home would have arised worry to the white witch ministry."
   "So there is also ministries here?" I questioned dumbfounded.
  "Two. White and black. White deals with clean magic but black uses dark magic."
  "Okay." I said as I exhaled loudly. Will I be able to take all this.?
  "I know it's too much to take in, but because this is where you belong, everything will fall into place." Audrey reassured me.

She took me to the classes where she explained each had a group of eight students only. This is because most of the recruits need to learn about their magic potentials fully. She said in our class I was the seventh recruit, so one to go.
  She emphasized that each class had its library with all the books needed to learn different kinds of magic. That is white magic.
  "And the black ministry don't touch any white.?" I asked curiously.
  "They don't. They stick to dark."
  "Okay." I replied as I thought of how one decided to choose dark magic instead of white magic.
  She took me to the arena where most recruits did practices on their magic level for the monthly competitions. After the Arena she took me to the huge dinning hall, where each table had eight chairs.
  The place was huge and I had started to get tired when she smiled at me suavely.
  "What is it?" I asked her .
"This is the best part." She said as she took me to the library. I asked her why the library was important at this time and all she said was "you'll see." Well I decided not to ask any further.
  We walked towards the library and as we got in, I met people sitted being enclosed in huge books. Thinking of books, I love stories but reading this encyclopedia of magic..only tightened my stomach muscles.
She stood at the center of the room and motioned me to sit beside her. I took a chair and sat. After minutes, the whole lot in the library gazed at me simultaneously. I gazed at Audrey,with a scared facial expression and she gave me a smile.
  "It's an attention spell. " she whispered back to me. The people came to sit at the center forming a circle.
  "How have you guys been?" Audrey said excitedly.
  "Great." Some replied in unison.
"This is Ethela and she is a new recruit and she is in our crew, well Ethela, do you mind saying hi..?"
  I cleared my throat and smiled forcefully. "Hello guys, am Ethela and I come from England. Honestly I don't know what's going on.." I laugh nervously. "But I hope that as the day goes by I'll be able to fit in." I replied and exhaled .
  "Great." Audrey said as she gazed at the crew members.
"So it's time for an introduction."
  "Am Lilian." A girl with blonde hair said to me.
  "Am kian." The guy next to him replied. He had brown haired color, well trimmed,thin broad face.
  "Am Lester." The guy next to Kian replied. He had dark hair, was well hung and had enticing blue eyes. I blushed profusely.
  "Am Kayla." A girl with red hair and green eyes. Smiley face.
  "Am Adrian." Next to Kayla and the last guy. Brown skin color, dark hair and brown eyes.
  "Okay this is our team Ethela."
"Should we throw a party tonight?" Kayla asked enthusiastically. "You know for welcoming her."
  "It's prohibited. Right now parties are to be done after a team has won a monthly competition." Kian replied to Kayla.
"I think we should just focus with the monthly competition." I said valiantly. Audrey smiles at me.
  "Well. She's got the guts. I hope we win this time." Lilian said to Audrey.
"Yeah," Adrian replied.
All this time they spoke, my mind was wondering to what my eyes sought to see. Lester. He never said a word all this time just busy with his book. FOCUSED. I thought. He then glanced at me and when our eyes met, I couldn't gaze away. He smiled at me and he went on reading his book. I found myself intrigued with his smile that I smiled back dumbfounded.
"Well Ethela. Time to get some rest. The coming days are the busy days." She said to me as she headed towards the door.
"Nice to meet you all." I said as I walked away. They nodded silently and went on reading.
  As I got out the door, I kept wondering if really this is where I should be.