Handmaiden Duchess

ONE

ONE

A metropolitan city in present day Asia

22 year old Alessa Malatzar was scrolling through the bookshelves of the oldest library in the city, looking for a book on the history of the 'Chola Dynasty' when her eyes fell on a dusty, battered book lying abandoned in one corner of a shelf in the farthest corner of the library. Covered in a thick layer of dirt and some cobwebs stuck at its cover here and there, the book was making quite a ghastly sight for the eyes.

However, to Alessa, it seemed as if the book was pulling her and Alessa's leg started moving in its direction on their own.

Being a final year undergraduate student of Ancient History and World Literature, Alessa loved exploring the ancient world through the yellow, tattered pages for she believed those olden pages hold the power in them to transport their readers to a world they have never been to before, a world totally unexplored and ready to be traversed.

Alessa picked up the book —the book felt heavy in her frail hands— and wiped the topmost area of the cover clean with her palm where she thought the title would be. After multiple strokes of her hand, she had managed to almost remove the dirt, revealing the title of the book — the detailed history of the Kumbaj dynasty.

Kumbaj dynasty was the most glorious and prosperous era of the ancient Asian continent, and with its ruination, the glorious period of the Asian history had ended too, until it was revived by the Guptas, the Cholas, the Pallavas and other such dynasties and empires.

Ever since Alessa had read about the Kumbaj dynasty in her fourth semester, she had wanted to read more about this fascinatingly wonderful period. She had covered the important parts and facts in her textbooks, but she always craved to dig deeper beyond those courts and palaces, and glory and prosperity, and know the lives of people of the time, the everyday life of the age. For reasons inexplicable, she longed to know to that period as one would know the modern age they're living in. She felt that she needed to get as close to knowing about the age as she could, the era seemed to draw her to itself like the rain to the ground, and Alessa had no clue why she felt this way.

Thus, to Alessa it seemed that this book was just what she had been looking for all this while.

The book was quite thick and the leather bound hardcover was chipped around the edges. Weighing the book in her hands, she deduced it must be at least a thousand pages long.

She couldn't believe she had found such an important and fascinating book that she had been searching for, for a while now, simply lying there!

Alessa wondered how the book came there? She had been to this library a couple of times before as well but had never seen this book here. Did someone put it here recently? But looking at its condition, it looks like it's been lying here all this while, unnoticed and unloved.

Wiping the book clean from everywhere with her handkerchief, she whispered to the book, "Don't worry, I'll give you all the love and attention that you deserve!"

She then took the book to the front desk and after signing in the records, put the book in her backpack, and slinging the backpack over her shoulders, she walked out of the library.

Alessa took longer strides as she walked towards the nearest bus stand, she couldn't wait to reach her dorm room and dive straight into the book.

As she had skipped her breakfast to visit the library early in the morning (because the library would get crowded by nerds and students by 9 o' clock in the morning, thus she had preferred to go there before that), she bought a sandwich on her way to fill her tummy before she revelled into the world of one of the most magnificent periods of the Asian history.

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It had been an hour and a half since Alessa had returned to her dorm room, and as decided earlier, had launched herself directly into unfurling the mysteries and secrets of the Kumbaj dynasty.

She had just reached the part where the Duke of Xinei was about to marry an aristocratic girl –Dareia Qwhan– who loved someone else and didn't want to marry the Duke but was forced to, when Alessa's back started to hurt from sitting in one position on the hard wooden chair for so long. She looked up from the book and stretched her back and limbs for a while.

A yawn escaped her lips and Alessa realised it was her nap time. She had woken up earlier than usual, so she needed to nap for a while to get refreshed before resuming her reading.

Not wanting to get up and lie down on the bed, Alessa put her head on the book as she slowly traveled into the world of dreams, her head filled with the details of the ancient Kumbaj dynasty!

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A huge commotion broke outside the dorm room which woke Alessa up from deep slumber.

Opening her groggy eyes, Alessa wiped the drool from her mouth away when suddenly her eyes fell in the mirror and what she saw made her lose the remnants of sleep and completely blew her mind! She couldn't believe her eyes, and would once look in the mirror and then down at herself but nothing made sense to her whatsoever.

Alarmed, she looked around but the strange, unfamiliar view around her made her panic all the more.

Alessa shut her eyes and opened them again but the sight in front of her eyes remained the same. She rubbed her eyes wildly but nothing happened and the result was the same as before.

Dread started to settle in her veins as Alessa stood frozen in her place. Her mind could sense that something was wrong, very wrong but she couldn't quite pinpoint it.

She knew she needed to do something, to find out what exactly had happened with her but she couldn't seem to move from her spot. She felt rooted to the ground, unable to move or blink.

As she stared at her reflection in the mirror, one of the biggest thoughts plaguing her mind at the moment was that she didn't have a mirror in her dorm room in the first place!

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Do let me know what you all think of the very first chapter of the HANDMAIDEN DUCHESS in the comments! Also, don't forget to press the star button, for each and every vote and comment of yours makes my day tbh!

Also, there isn't any fixed update schedule as of yet, I'll post as and when I write the next chapter. But I promise to be consistent and post regularly after a while. My apologies for the inconvenience.