Riley
Agnes and Edna were waiting for me in my room when I opened the door. Agnes was the first to pounce on me.
"Milady!" She exclaimed happily. "We watched you play the uldreyin from the next room, you were truly enchanting, you were captivating, everyone was watching you sing and play, and everybody adored you. Truly magnificent! Even the queen congratulated you! This is better than I could ever have hoped for!" She gushed, her eyes sparkled with glee. I was really glad to have someone in my life who cared so much about my prospects.
"Milady, you were truly brilliant," Edna said sincerely.
"Come Milady we must decide what you want to wear for the ball tonight..."
She took out the three ballgowns she had packed in for me and laid them out on the bed. I opted for the simplest one since I wanted to save the fancier ones for the next two nights. Edna then brought out a box of jewels for me to choose a pair of earrings, a bracelet and a necklace to wear tonight. I chose a set of pearls and diamonds that complimented the cream colour of the dress.
Soon after, there was a knock on the door and some servants brought in a meal of beef stew and roast potatoes for me to eat before the ball started. I tried to eat as much of the food as I could so that I wouldn't go hungry, but it made me feel a little queasy to eat the same type of stew, again, which made me wonder if sending Agnes or Edna to fetch some food from my house would be rude. After I was finished, Agnes and Edna helped me into my dress.
I then left them and walked down to the ballroom. I walked past huge white lounges and black and white marbled floors until I finally reached the ballroom, that was decorated in silver finishings and light blue paint, beautiful and intricate chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and a thousand candles and silver torches lit up the room.
When I entered the ginormous ballroom, there were already quite a few people there, huddled in groups and chatting while sipping on wine. I saw Cornelius standing with a group of other young noble gentlemen, including Lucian, so I thought I would go over to them, but just as I began to step towards them Lavinia stepped into my path and blocked my way.
"Lady Riley Delton... isn't it?" She asked in a croaky voice as if my name was something bitter and hard to swallow.
"Yes," Alice told me to be wary of her, so I wasn't really in the mood for a conversation.
"You know, being able to play the uldreyin and sing a little, isn't everything a lady needs to be..." that same thin heartless smile slithered across her face. I was also a little flustered by her random statement, what was she trying to say...
"Well, what..."
"First of all..." she interrupted me, "noble ladies shouldn't walk around with such disgraceful posture..." she said, cocking her head at me and looking at my chest, sneering at me for my lack of medieval etiquette. "Secondly, most ladies wouldn't be caught dead wearing the simple white frocks that you do..." I thought about the white dress I had worn when I had arrived, I knew it wasn't the fanciest dress but it was definitely above common standards, and how dare she judge me on my dresses when she was the one dressed like one giant, overdecorated pink cupcake!
"And thirdly, just because you have connections with the Marcellus's doesn't mean that you are the highlight of this society, what really matters is that I am a second rank noble while you are just some peasant who got lucky in the Mage tournament..." she was almost shaking with rage-filled passion while she was trying to degrade me and drag me down. Her eyes were furious and her face was contorting into a sour scrunched up ball. It spoke volumes about her character that she was willing to speak to me like this after not even having one conversation with me. If this was back home I probably would have gone off on her, but this was Gismead, so rank was everything here, she was the second rank while I was the third rank, so any kind of outburst from me would have been seen as me stepping out of place, so I decided to stay calm and just watch as Livinia got this out of her system. I would teach her a lesson one day.
"...I will soon be married to Lord Sinjin and become part of the Von Esterheim main family, and when that happens I won't stand for some wretch like you grabbing people's attention with your cheap music and sad little white dresses!" She was literally seething; her face had gone bright red and her mouth was pinched tightly with anger. Looking at her face, I couldn't believe that I had thought she was pretty when I saw her earlier today, right now she looked just really ugly, in more than just the physical sense.
When I didn't react to her little outburst, and just calmly stared at her, she seemed to become even more enraged. "In case you didn't understand! Soon I will be a Lady of the first rank and won't mind crushing you in the public eye, so you had better apologize to me for playing for everyone earlier in my place. If you do, I won't be as harsh on you as you deserve." Her eyes had an evil glint to them, I could see the malice in her, she stretched out her slender pale hand that was sporting a large pearl ring (it was customary in Gismead for the guilty party to kiss the ring of the person who had been wronged)
Did she actually think I would kiss it...?
I looked her straight in her cold eyes, looked at her outstretched hand, stood there for a moment just for dramatic effect - and so that I could enjoy the flabbergasted expression on her face - then swiftly walked past her. I didn't turn back to see her reaction, I only daydreamed about how shocked she must have looked.
I joined Cornelius and Lucian who were talking amongst a group of knights, they introduced me to their friends in the knight's Order, who were all charming and gentlemanly. They were all very interested to meet me and complimented me on my healing potion, and congratulated me on winning the tournament.
While we were talking the ballroom started to fill up and more of the guests flooded in, Alice arrived wearing a beautiful light pink dress that had a corseted waist and golden beads and threading. She looked stunning, and as soon as she entered all eyes were on her, the knights were practically drooling as she gracefully walked towards them, I didn't miss the infuriating glare that Lavinia gave her or the nasty looks that Lavinia's group of girls gave Alice. Alice didn't pay them any attention and just basked in the glory of being the best dressed.
She walked over to me and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and the others with more formal nods. She had arrived just in time, because a moment later music started playing, a whole orchestra of musicians appeared in the ballroom and started playing a very cheerful upbeat song.
Alice was soon swept away to the centre of the ballroom by a knight asking her to dance. Cornelius and I stood next to each other in comfortable silence as we watched them dance, and a few others join them on the dance floor. The kind of dance they were dancing was called 'the victory of Girannon' a dance composed by one of the kingdom's famous musicians who wrote it after Girannon had won the war.
The dance involved a lot of skipping and shuffling and was quite tiring, but I couldn't hide the fact that I wanted to dance, especially after Agnes had spent many hours drilling the moves into my head.
I was distracted by the sight of Livinia talking animatedly to Sinjin, while Sinjin barely acknowledged her presence, our eyes caught for a second before I looked back at Alice, still dancing with one of the knights.
"Lady Riley..." my head snapped to the cool and stern voice behind me. It was the knight that Prince Geoffrey had brought to my house the previous week... Lord Gawain Smithson.
"Lord Gawain," I said smiling, he was standing a few feet away from me and now I could appreciate his fantastic maroon coloured hair and dark brown eyes (just like mine).
"May I have this dance?" He asked, looking down on me in an imposing yet earnest way. He towered over me at what looked like 6ft 5 inches, he had broad and bulky muscles and a distinct blackened scar that went halfway across his temple, yet his hair was neatly slicked back. He was that rugged and tough type that I had always seen on the covers of Ancient-Rome-inspired movies or more mature Wattpad books, but at the same time he was very neatly put together, I thought that maybe he imposed strictness and tidiness on himself.
I jumped at the chance to dance, and nodded eagerly at his offer. He extended his arm for me to hold and I took it happily, we then walked onto the dance floor and joined Alice and her knight in the dance.
Gawain was a surprisingly good dancer, despite his large build he was very light on his feet, which I supposed was due to the fact that since he was a knight, he was a master at combat and fighting. You had to be agile and alert when fighting, so I guess that this was the reason such a large man could move so well. I could also feel the sheer power he had; from his arm that held the back of my waist and the large hand that cupped my own in the air as we danced, I could feel the strength he possessed, through the firmness of his arms to the power in his hands, I supposed that if he wanted to he could snap me like a twig at any moment. He was definitely strong enough to do so.
I wasn't sure why I found him so easy to talk to but I did. Everything I wanted to say just flowed out, and everything he said was interesting to me, I realised that he had a kind of hidden charm, his stern and rugged look paired with his good dancing seemed to make me feel comfortable around him.
After the song had ended and we were finished dancing we headed over to one of the empty corners of the room to talk privately.
"I believe you have met my younger brother Braxton." He said sipping on his glass of wine. The image of the maroon-haired knight I had seen with Prince Kristopher and Alucard on that day in Willow's town came to mind.
"Ah Yes! He has the same hair as you." I remarked. He grinned slightly.
"Yes, the Smithson family all have this colour hair, dating all the way back to our ancestors."
"But Lord Braxton's eyes are a much lighter colour than your eyes," I noted as I looked into his dark brown eyes, the same colour as mine, as I recalled Lord Braxton having light amber eyes which were a bit strange since the people of this world usually had matching eye and hair colours within families.
"All of my family members have different coloured eyes, but the same hair colour." He informed me. Interesting...
"Do you have any other siblings besides your brother?" I asked curiously, knowing that noble families tended to be big families, such as the Von Esterheim's who had four children.
He nodded, "Yes, I have a younger sister named Lysandra." I also liked the way he talked; his deep voice languidly pronounced each word with precision and clearness, I felt like his voice could be a voice to command a great army and deliver patriotic speeches. "Tell me, Lady Riley, how are your magical studies coming along?" He asked.
"Everything is fine, I've been quite busy lately so I haven't been practising very much..." I replied.
"I believe your first exam will take place at the end of flowering." He confirmed, taking a slow drink of his wine.
"Oh yes." I was surprised that he knew that I had an exam, but then again he had been a part of this kingdom a lot longer than me. "I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do for the exam... the topic is quite open-ended..." I said remembering Sinjin's words, he had said that I had to create a new spell... that could literally be anything.
He took another slow sip of his wine and looked at me for a moment, his dark eyes scanned me, contemplating the risks and benefits about what he was going to say next. I stared back at him, curious about what he would say.
"Have you ever considered spelling artefacts...?" He asked his dark eyes seemed to well up with a greedy light.
"Spelling artefacts?"
"Yes." He replied, his sharp eyes honing in on me.
"No, I haven't... it hadn't even occurred to me that casting magic on artefacts counted for the exam."
"It certainly counts. It is actually a very revered use of magic... perhaps making an artefact of some kind might be to your favour." He said, he looked perfectly calm but I felt a subtle wave of persuasiveness from him.
"What kind of artefact?" I said wanting to egg him on.
"That's for you to decide..." he replied back grinning. "It has to be an original casting, of course, so you cannot do anything that has been done before, however, you can present an improvement on somebody else's spell... Lord Cornelius Marcellus spelt a marvellous sceptre that is able to double a persons fire magic if a fire Mage were to wield it." I saw his eyes light up fo a second, I could see the gleam of greed and desire in his eyes. "He achieved the highest grade possible in the exam... So perhaps you could do something similar." I contemplated it.
I would definitely be able to do something like that easily, I would just have to improve it, maybe spell it so that it quadruples the magical output... and spell it so that any type of magic user would be able to use it, not just fire mages. It was actually a very good idea, I was actually pretty tempted to go back to my mansion and make it right now, but I couldn't help the feeling that Gawain wanted to paint this seed in my head.
"If you do decide to go forward with this, I hope you will credit me as the person who gave you the idea." His posture was perfect, his head was held upright, he had a righteous and stern feel to him and yet I sensed a slyness coming from him.
"Of course." I didn't want to plagiarize him though. I took a large gulp of the Gismead wine and hoped Gawain wasn't leading me down a bad path. I thought that maybe I should just come up with my own idea, but the thought of creating an artefact like that practically had me drooling.
A fair-haired maiden with curled auburn hair approached our sofa. She had a nervous yet excited look on her face, and bit down on her pink bottom lip, as she approached her eyes were fixed on Lord Gawain, she shyly turned her head and looked back at a group of girls standing on the other side of the room. They were all huddled together and whispering animatedly as they watched her. When they saw her anxious face they gave her waves of encouragement which seemed to give the girl some courage.
She walked up behind Gawain and softly spoke. "Um... Excuse my..., my lord..." she was so nervous that her voice quivered as she spoke.
Gawain turned back to see the girl who had approached him, who couldn't have been older than 16.
"Yes." He replied, he was firm by not harsh, and his regal first rank noble demeanour emanated from him. The girl's eyes sparkled as she looked up at him, she obviously had a huge crush on him.
"W-Would your Lordship honour me with a dance?" She blurted out and gasped immediately after she had said it as if she was surprised that she had been able to ask him.
"What rank are you?" He asked abruptly. I frowned at his response, surely he wouldn't turn her down because of her rank...
Unlike me, she wasn't surprised at his question at all, she answered back readily as if she was expecting it.
"I come from a famous merchant family who has done many dealings with the Von Esterheim's, because of our contribution to Gismead we will be elevated to 5th rank nobles." She said primly as if she had rehearsed that little introduction before coming over to ask Gawain.
Gawain nodded, "I will come and find you in a few moments." He had agreed to dance with her. The girl could barely keep her happiness inside of her, as she curtseyed to him and then skipped off back to the group of girls, a bright smile broke out of her face, and I couldn't help but find her sweet. "She's quite brave to come and ask me for a dance," Gawain said as he raised one of his eyebrows into an amused expression.
"Well, I'm sure many young ladies ask you to dance..."
"Certainly not." He said, directing his arched brow towards me, now.
"No?" I asked. Surely many of the ladies would ask him to dance, not just because he was a Smithson but because he was very handsome.
"Definitely not. It is not conventional or proper for a lady to ask a lord to dance."
Oh yes, that's right. Very different era I was living in.
"It was especially presumptuous of her since she herself is not a noble yet..." His voice was laced with irritation now.
"So then why did you accept?" I asked confused at his line of reasoning. He grinned a slight grin as he said,
"Courage shall always be rewarded." Yes, he was a military man, through and through. "Well then Lady Riley, I must leave you for a dance." He placed his empty glass of wine on the table and then stood up, he then bowed his maroon head down at me and then left. I watched his large form walk away to the other side of the room, where the young girl was waiting eagerly for him.
I sat for a while and watched as they danced, hand in hand, to the jolly tunes of the mini-orchestra. Her cheeks had turned a bright red and her eyes were fixed upon his face, she was completely absorbed in him, whereas Gawain was just being polite and kept a straight expression on his face, he was just going through the motions of the dance while she was in heaven being able to dance with the man she had s crush on.
I smiled sadly as I watched them, I hope she wouldn't get her heart broken if she tried to pursue him, if the hope that this one dance will be the end of the infatuation she had for him, otherwise I am afraid that he would trample on her aspirations quite ruthlessly.
I got distracted from my thoughts when I saw Alice approaching me, I was glad to get to spend some time with her, even though we were interrupted every five minutes from a suitor wanting to dance with her. She politely turned them all down so that we could chit chat for a while. We spent the rest of the night talking. I told her about what Lavinia had said to me and she groaned in disgust.
"How dare she call herself a Lady? Well not for long anyway..." she smirked slyly.
"Not for long..." I repeated confused.
Alice snickered at the thought and then told me, "Well her entire family consists of Healing Mages that charge large sums of coin for their jobs. They used to be the most renowned healing family but ever since Your potion was released into the market their business has halved." Alice grinned meanly at the thought.
"Alice that's terrible... my potion is going to put them out of jobs," I said feeling guilty, I had never considered that my potion would increase unemployment.
"Oh Riley, haven't you heard of the debts that people get into because of requiring the services of families like her's?" She questioned me exasperated. My mind thought back to what Lucian had told me on one of my first days in this world. He had said that his father had to leave him and his mother to go and pay off his debt...
"They run a deplorable business by healing their poorer patients and then demanding that they pay an impossible sum of money. Commoners usually have to sell their houses to pay off their debts and if they can't they wave to work off their debts by becoming farm workers and farming medicinal materials for them, without pay for years on end, until they have paid off their debt through hard labour. The farms are horrible, the workers are worked to the bone and many die there, they get very little food and since they don't get paid for their work they can't buy amenities. The imbecile thought it was funny to boast about her families business to me. That day I told her what I thought about her family business and I completely cut ties with her, that's why she hates me."
I was horrified, Alice had just described a type of slavery to me. I couldn't believe they were allowed to do such practices.
"And the royal family allows this?" I still couldn't quite wrap my head around it.
"They were the most respected healing mages in the kingdom, even if they didn't like it, there would be no means of healing anyone if the Royal family shut down their practice." She saw my horrified face and kissed me gently on the cheek. "Don't worry Alice, with the healing potion you have already halved their business so much fewer people are being put to work at their farms." She squeezed my hand and tried to comfort me, but I was too shocked to even process it.
"What kind of healing do they do that the potion doesn't cover?"
"Well, poisonings, the extraction of foreign bodies, diseases, things that aren't just open wounds."
"I'm going to make all of those."
"What?"
"Everything that they still heal people for. I am going to make potions that make their business completely futile."
Alice just stared at me.
"I'll make potions so that nobody will ever need to go to them for healing ever again." I was absolute in my decision. I would wipe out their business. I would thus put an end to the slavery they were employing at their farms.
That night I went to bed determined to make a change and furious at Lavinia and her family.