Nocturne Academy (Book One)

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

However many times she had tried to find an alternative way in, she had always been unsuccessful: this sickening voyage was her only option.

She picked her way through flesh and bone, her singular oar slicing the water as it met with the surface of the lake macabre. This was her second time making this trip; and she was still not accustomed to the stench of rotting human flesh: the bodies of those whose spirits had joined, not The Kingdom, but the dark Underworld for which she was now headed. Humans, whose lives were so short; so unfulfilled: she could hardly see the purpose of them. Her exile had been ordered at least one thousand years previous, and, yet, she barely looked a day over sixteen.

It had taken her long enough to find the entrance to this place again; and, after her first visit had meant her banishment from her true home, she prayed, no longer  to The Kingdom above, but to those awaiting her arrival, down below, that he would accept her. After all, there was nowhere else in all the worlds that she was at least partly welcome.

She had forsaken her position in The Kingdom; one of the highest, as an angel of the Seraphim, to save her beloved. And now he was locked away from her forever: it would have been a better bargain to leave him with him. At least then, he would be dead, not still waiting on the other side of a door that would never open for her.

Him; the angel, left on The Kingdom, watching over the planet with a benevolent eye. And her; cast out and left to right her wrongs: exiled to Earth forevermore, to walk this planet until the end, when her life would be re-evaluated: re-entry, or obliteration. They were her only two choices. They were.

However, even though the other angels above had considered her return, she understood the severity of her crimes; how they would weigh down on her shoulders until the end of time: the Underworld seemed to hold better prospects.

And, however much she tried to deny it, that hint of darkness inside of her; that shadow of the Underworld that curled its fingers around her soul, would not loosen its grip: it was buried deep within her. She knew that it would never go away.

As she neared the shore: a pile of bones rising out of the water and leading deeper into the caves, her eyes came to rest on a shadowy figure, standing to the side of the docks. It held a long, curved knife in its spindly black hand; made of a metal that she had never seen before, on neither Earth, nor The Kingdom she had once inhabited. It was an object of pure darkness: something only found in the depths of the Underworld.

The nose of the boat hit bone with a splintering crack, but the wooden vessel did not sink: some kind of dark force must be holding it together, she thought, as she stepped from the boat, planting one shaky leg after the other across the bones and past the figure.

She emerged from the dock into a large chamber, with a high ceiling that seemed to tower miles and miles above her: she did not doubt that she was far further into the Underworld than she had been last time. On her first visit, she had only just managed to pass the front gate before he had spotted her, whisking her away to a remote cliff top, on which they had made their deal; and, ultimately, sealed her fate.

She didn't think that calling for him would be an appropriate way to request his presence; after all, she hardly knew what he liked to be referred to as. The king? Master? Or simply his true name? Hades.

Yet, she soon found that summoning him was uncalled for: he was approaching her as the thoughts whirled through her brain, yet she hardly noticed him until he was almost standing before her.

His mere existence radiated power and darkness; like an aura: a force that seemed to completely surround his being. She could only see half of his face; for the other was shrouded in darkness, and the only light in the cave came from a small gap in the rock above, allowing a single beam of soft yellow to fight its way through: the only thing in the Underworld that wasn't simply black or white.

One factor that made her believe that she would fit in perfectly: she had always appeared as a monochromatic individual: black hair, pale, almost white skin, and dark eyes that hardly held any colour at all. She couldn't remember a time when she had been any different: after she had been cast out from above, they had stripped her of her long blonde hair and pale blue eyes - the physical characteristics she shared with her twin - and had replaced both with the colour black.

That was her colour now: black. Black as night, black as the shadows which hid her darkest secrets. She had come to appreciate the anonymity and secrecy that the colour brought; how it shrouded her in darkness and protected her from those who would destroy her. She had fallen in love with the emotions that it made her feel: the way it manifested in her thoughts and called to her. She couldn't stop it: it was part of her now.

And it was all his fault, his doing.

"You have returned." he spoke, his words slicking across the space between them, a tone so alien she hardly understood it "And it seems you bring with you the burden of your crimes against the Kingdom." He glared expectantly at her, as if encouraging her to speak, but her words were locked up in her throat: no sound would emerge from her lips.  Instead, she simply nodded, her eyes struggling to meet his through the darkness.

"Your exile has made you stronger, my dear." he continued, and, though he did not move, she felt his presence all around her; his aura of evil circling her body "Soon you will be ready." The smile that curved his perfect lips made her heart skip a beat: she had almost made it. The Underworld was going to accept her into its ranks: she would finally be able to leave that hell that the humans called Earth.

"I will not let you down." she said, their eyes locking together as she spoke. His mouth curved into a smirk, and he turned around, his back to her. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and she could see how pristine every curve of his shoulders were; how amazing he was.

"But, how do I know that I can trust you?" his sudden question took her by surprise: she did not know how to react. She had betrayed the Kingdom and served a thousand years of her lifelong exile sentence on Earth for her crimes: the Kingdom would never again place its  trust in her. Wasn't that proof enough that she was no longer on their side?

"I betrayed the Kingdom, did I not?" she asked, her voice emerging a little shakier than she'd have liked. But it was no use trying to correct herself: what was done was done. And maybe he liked it better if he knew that she was slightly afraid of him. It must make him feel powerful, she thought.

"Yes, that you did. And I commend you greatly for that, my darling." he replied, his back still to her as he spoke, but his words seemed to caress her skin; as if they were actual physical forces that you could reach out and touch "However, that is still not the proof I need."

It was then that he finally turned, exposing his face entirely to her. It was, at once, the most beautiful and most horrifying thing she had ever witnessed: one side of his face was perfect; like the best sculptor in all the universe had shaped it from the highest quality material and had spent a year on every little detail. The other side looked like the same sculptor had taken a sudden turn and swung a chisel into each piece of his fine work: not one inch of pristine white skin was left unscarred by the deep lacerations that covered his face. A single black eye shone through the crisscrossed lines of white and red, flared with hatred.

"You will prove your worth to me, before I accept you into our ranks." his voice rang out across the cave; a deep, guttural sound that made every word resonate in the pit of her stomach long after he had spoken it "There will come a time, my darling, when I will require your service: when I will truly desire your spirit, to spend an eternity at my side. Only then, will you be able to show me exactly how much you long for a place here in the Underworld. There will be a time when wars will rage between the living and the dead; between good and evil. And you, Stella Matutina, will be able to decide who you belong with. Who knows what horrors another million years or so will bring? Who will you side with then?"

His final question echoed in the darkness as the ground erupted beneath her, and she tumbled backwards into the abyss.