Chapter Two of "The Charismatics"

[image error] I had a really fun time designing this temporary cover on Canva. I strongly recommend using this for your social media designs--this one was completely free. The only downside is that I used this program for Cruel's cover as well, and their designs are not 300 dpi (which is necessary on CreateSpace for a high quality print cover). So don't use this program for print books or you will regret it. But for e-books, it's great! Per request, I've decided to post the second chapter of my debut novel, The Charismatics . If you haven't read the first chapter yet, find it here. Also, if you want to know more about Ambrose, the main character, I wrote a Character Blog Tour post about her and the world I've built here. SO far I've heard:

-The main character (Ambrose) and her invisible friend, Roan, are funny and have an interesting relationship.

-The world building is exciting, but some more details are necessary to flesh out the various cities, as well as the juxtaposition between the nobility--who are the rich and live on floating islands called citadels--and the denizens, who are the poor who live on the ground below in villages called urbs. So I will work some more on that.

-That it has reminded readers of Neil Gaiman's Stardust and Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, as well as the movie Ever After. I can say that I classify that my book has supernatural elements, a heroine who is "finding herself" and trying to use her position for good, and a corrupt governmental system that is close to be overrun. It is a very precarious civil climate, and the readers of The Charismatics will be seeing a world full of secrets that is on the precipice of a major war, not only between people but between worlds.

In other news, I've tinkered with CreateSpace for my short story, Cruel , and have a proof coming in the mail in about ten days. I plan on making a YouTube video of me opening it, ONE because I will probably freak out to see something I've written in actual print form, and TWO because I want to show you guys what a book looks like when it's been formatted, edited, and had a cover designed by one very technologically-inept person--ME. There are bound to be mistakes but I want to show you guys just how easy (and hard) it can be to self-publish your work! So stay tuned for that.

As always, please subscribe to my newsletter if you are inclined. I'm sending another one out in a few days and it's got book recommendations, song recommendations, and will have some special prizes in the near future (I'm thinking of raffling off some signed copies of The Charismatics and if you're subscribed, you'll have a better chance of winning).

Please share your thoughts with me on the chapter below; I will be starting the third draft on October 2nd with the responses I received from my beta readers, and then it's off to my editor, the wonderful Lauren Wise with Midnight Publishing. It's all coming together, and it can come together for YOU TOO.

So as always, keep writing and keep dreaming!
Like what you read? Subscribe to my blog/newsletter!
Want to support me as a writer? Donate!                                                                           Chapter Two
                                                                 Unnecessary Roughness
I follow Flossie’s footsteps around the twists and turns of the staircase, noticing the sounds of a crowd up ahead. When I burst into the hallway I collide with an old woman—the Duchess of Mantica, based on her enormous headdress—and she clucks at me disapprovingly.
“Excuse me, my apologies Madam,” I mutter before weaving through the hordes. Flossie’s disappeared somewhere—she was an extremely fast runner—and the hallways are now teeming with people finishing one event and attending another. Concerts and burlesque shows and gambling have been going on for over a month in Shinery’s citadel, their existence increased tenfold due to the Winter Solstice holiday. My attendance is frowned upon without my husband’s accompaniment, and Erik refuses every time I ask. 
     Servants carrying trays full of exotic liquors parade by as well, and the laughter of Shinery’s drunken nobility grates on my ears. I lock eyes with Judith, my servant friend, and she’s startled by my expression.
“Are you all right Tsarina?” she asks quietly, handing me a glass of champagne. I take it, the liquid shivering inside from my shaky hands.
“I saw, well, I don’t know what I saw… I mean, the servant boy…” I sip the champagne in hopes it will quell my nerves, and the fizz burns my nose.
“The servant boy? Was it Thomas? The boy transcribing at dinner?” Judith’s eyes flash angrily, and she seems to know the answer without me saying it.
“I have to go,” I say, pushing away from her. The nobles’ outfits overwhelm my eyes; hats with giant feathers and whirring butterflies, men in top hats that shoot sparks into the air; all the latest styles from the fascinator designer, M. Stanzel.
I follow the familiar path left, then right, then left again, and up a set of stairs to one of the northern towers. The night guard always locks my bedchamber door from the outside after ten o’clock, with Erik being the only other person with a key. He’s yet to use it in the year I’ve been here, and sometimes I wonder if the guard can hear me talking to Roan, or sobbing into the pillows when homesickness strikes. He must know that no husband visits his wife in that room, and I wonder whether he thinks I’m the defective one; unlovable. I tried in the beginning to be warm, welcoming, and sensual for my husband … I still try. My body aches sometimes for a gentle touch, and most days lately I feel so tightly coiled it’s uncomfortable. Not tonight though—the thought of Senator Rathe’s aggressive behavior against that poor servant has drained any sensual thought from my body like an open tap. I push open the heavy oak door into my bedchamber, searching immediately for Roan. His favorite forms lately have been furry and catlike, to ward off the biting chill. Although the floors are heated and a roaring fireplace comes to life with the flick of a switch, being in the highest tower of the palace puts me at a giant disadvantage for staying warm.
“Roan? Roanie?” I shout, looking in the sitting room, under the bed, in the closet—all of his favorite spots. He is nowhere to be found, and my heart accelerates. 
“No. No.” Maybe Senator Rathe swatted him somehow and he’s lying there, injured or even dead.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I say, circling the bedchamber a second time. I’ve never not known if Roan was safe, because he’s always been near me.
I start to cry, and hear footsteps coming up the stairs. I turn to the giant clock on the wall and nearly scream. It’s 9:59—one minute before I get locked in.
“Please sir, please not yet,” I shout, running toward the door and opening it to the guard who approaches. I’ve lately begun saying goodnight to him through the door, and though he’s never responded, I hope there’s some compassion there. He can’t lock it until Roan comes back—I’ve never been away from my companion.
“Please!” I shout again, startling the guard.
“Sorry?” he says, looking extremely uncomfortable to actually see me in my boudoir. He’s a middle-aged man, with a kind face and deep-set lines. He looks like a family man, weathered by hard times and hard work.
“Um, mister…oh my, I apologize, I’ve never even gotten your name—I know this is a strange request but I, um—I’m waiting for someone. And you can’t lock the door until they arrive.”
The guard doesn’t say anything, obviously miffed by this exchange. He frowns, and I realize he must know that Erik never comes to visit me here. So it could only seem that I’m waiting for someone else.
“It’s not what you think,” I blurt out, trying to salvage his impression of me, “It’s a friend. That’s it; I am just waiting for a friend. And they should be coming back any minute. P-please.” My voice shudders at the end, the anxiety for Roan’s safety threatening to crack me open like a child’s cogbox.
“There she is!” comes another voice from behind the night guard, and for a moment I’m paralyzed with fear that it’s Senator Rathe, come to have his revenge.
A white blonde head comes up and around the sizeable guard, and it’s Erik, stumbling up the stairs and reeking of mead.
“The woman of the hour!” Erik shouts into my ear, a cloud of mead-breath causing me to step back. I stare between the two men, a range of emotions roller-coasting through me. “Lakeman, your services are no longer needed,” Erik slurs toward the guard, flipping his hand dismissively in the man’s direction.
Lakeman looks between the two of us, obviously perplexed, and focuses his eyes on me for a few moments longer. He scrunches his eyebrows in a fatherly way, seeming to want to know if I’m all right with this. My heart pangs for a moment, to have someone worry about me this way—my own father died when I was still an infant. I nod my head slightly, and start to half-drag Erik into my bedchambers as Lakeman turns and walks down the steps. Erik’s too drunk to even close the door, so I leave it slightly ajar, saying a little prayer than Roan will sneak through soon.
I wonder if Erik can see the outline of my heart through my dress as it pounds—I’ve been imagining this night for months and now that he’s here to stay the night, I barely know what to do with myself.
“Can I get you something? Would you like me to call down for some tea? Are you hungry maybe?”
Erik waves me off, mumbling incoherently and staggering into my bathroom. He stands in the doorway and slowly unbuttons his pants before proceeding to urinate into my bathtub.
When he’s finished Erik turns and approaches me, his silken undergarments bunching out of his pants.
“Aren’t you going to wash your hands?”
“What?” Erik replies, taking me by the shoulders, “What’s some ‘dirt’ to you? Always touching yourself and making me watch—”
He seizes the sleeves of my velvet smock and starts to yank them off violently. I hear the threads ripping and I try to wriggle out of his grasp, which only makes it worse.
“Ow!” I yelp as he continues to claw at the long sleeves, “You’re hurting me! I’ll take it off, all right? All right!?”
Erik lets go of me, his eyes bloodshot and wild. He looks like a crazed beast; one of those rabid poltergeists from the Forbidden that parents say come in the night if their children don’t obey their wishes.
“Hurry,” Erik slurs as he falls on my bed.
I walk into the closet, rubbing my arms where he grabbed me. I take my dress off gingerly and place it in the hamper for cleaning, inspecting the two red handprints already forming on either shoulder.
“Ow,” I mutter again, scanning the closet once more in the hopes that Roan might be tucked amongst the clothes, sleeping. I go over to the armoire and pull out the lingerie that I was supposed to wear for our wedding night. Technically I had worn it, waiting on the bed all night for Erik to arrive, which he never did. And never has, until tonight. Although his state of mind was not part of my fantasies of our married nights, I feel an overwhelming pressure to show him that I am desirable; a good wife to have. I slip on the white lace nightie and walk barefoot back into the bedroom. Erik has turned all the lights out, and the fireplace’s warm glow is soft and inviting. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
“Hello,” I say shyly, feeling his eyes on me like fingers and not sure that I like it. It will probably just take some getting used to; I remind myself to be glad that he’s capable of looking at me this way.
“Come here,” Erik says, his voice thick. I approach the four-poster and an errant thought of hiding in the bathroom until he passes out flashes through my mind. It’s not supposed to be like this…
Once I climb onto the bed, Erik throws me against the pillows, shoving his mouth onto mine. His tongue is slimy and foreign, with the horrible taste of mead, bitter and rancid, making me want to gag. Erik continues to kiss me, his tongue licking the outside of my mouth at times. I stifle a laugh, realizing that I’m probably no better at this sort of thing. Erik is twenty though, so I’ve assumed he might’ve had some practice with a few servant girls in his adolescence. Erik begins to suck at my neck, making loud slurping noises.
“Oh, um, that kind of hurts—” I mumble, and Erik murmurs something into my shoulder, where he’s biting the skin quite hard.
“Sorry, what?” I say, and Erik surfaces.
“I said, ‘shut up Ambrose.’ This is what you want, isn’t it? Me to come here and do my ‘husbandly duties’? Well guess what—I can’t. I can’t do that with you, even if I wanted to! And I don’t want to; you’re not the one I want, never will be!”
Each word is like a needle to my ears, and his hands shake with emotion.
There’s a loud slam off the side of the bed—it’s the dagger I keep hidden under my pillows, dislodged by the commotion.
The sound startles Erik and he stops, his eyes truly focusing on me for the first time.
“I…I’m sorry,” he stutters, getting up from the bed, holding a hand out on the post to steady himself. “I received some news tonight, bad news and I…”
Erik looks over at me and his eyes are glassy, like he’s near tears. I’ve never seen such a blatant show of emotions from my husband before. I’d almost feel bad for him if my neck and arms weren’t throbbing from his aggression.
“That doesn’t mean you should take it out on me.”
“I know that. I’m sorry. It’s just that she’s left me now, because of all this! This isn’t how I wanted my life to happen. Did you want your life to be like this?”
“Like what?”
“This!” Erik gestures to the two of us, the bedroom we stand in, and out toward the bay windows and the whole of Shinery.
I slowly slide off the bed and Erik backs away from me, looking guilty.
“Did I want to move here with barely a day’s notice and marry a man I’d never met? To a city I’d only heard of, surrounded by strangers who ignore me, you included? No, Erik. Can’t say I wanted any of this.” I walk to the bathroom and inspect my neck for marks. “But I did it because that’s what I’ve always done. Listen when I’m ordered. But I thought that maybe…you and I would be a team. That I would have someone to cherish and love me, finally.” The last part barely comes out as a whisper.
There’s no answer from the bedroom and I look to see that Erik is gone, the front door ajar, with a cruel draft coming in and rustling the drapes. I push it nearly closed, leaving a crack for Roan. I take the dagger and shove it back amongst my bedcovers before getting into the shower. Though nothing happened with my husband, I feel unclean. Broken. Rejected.
The hot water burns invitingly and I leave the lights off, curling up on the shower floor under the stream to watch the fireplace’s reflection dance on the bathroom mirror. Sobs rack through me, sadness because of my farce of a marriage, the cruelty against that poor servant boy, and for my courageous Roan--
“Lady?”
I sit up in the shower, blinking through the darkness. “Roanie?”
He flies over the top of the shower and changes mid-air into my favorite creature, a grey wolf. I cling to his coarse fur, crying as he nuzzles my neck and licks my face with his giant pink tongue.
“I’m so s-s-sorry for leaving you there,” I say into his neck, tufts of fur sticking to my lips. I rinse them off in the water and Roan starts to laugh as I continue to spit fur out of my mouth.
“Don’t even think of apologizing again,” Roan says, “Because I’m fine. My goal is always to keep you safe, and running from that disgusting man was exactly what you should have done. Now get cleaned up, because I have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” I say, standing up and rinsing the rest of his fur from my front.
“Lady?” Roan asks as I slide the door to let him leave.
“Hmm?”
“The door was open. It’s way past ten o’clock. Why didn’t the guard lock it?”
Roan shakes off the water from his fur as he stands there, spraying the walls and tub with droplets. I consider lying to my companion to spare him any guilt, drying myself with a fleece towel.
“It’s a long story,” I mutter, changing into pajamas and checking the door—it’s still unlocked from the outside so Lakeman hasn’t returned, and I can’t lock it from the inside.
“Shove that chair under the door handle,” Roan says from the bed, and I do as he instructs, though I doubt any more drunken intruders will make their way into my chambers tonight. I plan to sleep with my hand wrapped around the dagger, just in case.
“So where were you?” I ask when I’ve tucked myself under the comforter. “You weren’t stuck in Rathe’s ear that whole time?!”
“No, I wasn’t. But that ogre did knock me a good one, and I must’ve fallen into his lapel somehow. I woke up and was just about to leave when I heard a voice I recognized.” He stops and averts his yellow, wolfy eyes.
“Who’s voice?” I ask, and Roan still doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to tell me.
“It was your uncle.”
“What? Uncle Harland’s here? But why hasn’t he come to see me…”
The pain is apparent in my voice; it stings when my favorite family member has come to Shinery and not even bothered to say hello.
“Maybe he just got here,” I continue, “and he’s going to surprise me for the Winter Solstice. That could be it, right? He knows I love surprises.”
Roan is quiet for another minute, which doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Well, maybe … but it sounded like he was leaving tonight.”
“Oh.”
The thought of the two men having a civil conversation—now that I know what a twisted man Senator Rathe seems to be—makes this night feel even stranger.
 “So what were they saying?”
“I’m not quite sure. Something about King Aero, and how Uncle Harland’s work is nearing completion. Senator Rathe seemed jealous, and your uncle asked if he was still experimenting. He said no.”
I think back to his conversation with Thomas tonight; that odd contraption he tried to use on the boy.
“So he lied.”
“I guess so.” Roan shrugs his wolf-shoulders and licks my cheek. “Then they started talking about something called ‘Exodus.’”
The word is foreign to me. “Exodus?”
“Apparently some group calling themselves Exodus has been staging rebellious acts in a few of Legalia’s cities the last few weeks. Senator Rathe said they caught a few of the denizens who were involved, but can’t seem to find any of the actual members.”
“But why would anyone do that? Legalia is meant to help everyone. Give them jobs, protect us all from the uncivilized places.” The words sound hollow to my ears, even as I say them.
“I guess the selection ceremony for your handmaidens is mainly ‘to quiet the denizens’ rumblings,’ in Senator Rathe’s words.”
I chew on a fingernail, lost in thought.
“So my uncle didn’t say anything about plans to see me?”
“No he didn’t. I’m sorry, Lady.” Roan changes into a massive snow leopard and his whiskers tickle my cheek. “Your turn now. Tell me why your door was still open tonight.”
I was hoping Roan forgot about that. “I don’t want to. You’ll feel bad.”
“Now I really need to know.”
“Fine. Erik came to my chambers tonight. He was drunk and he started kissing me, but it hurt—”
“He hurt you?” Roan starts to rise from the bed and I grab his scruff.
“Stop! Stop. What are you going to do about it, anyway? He’ll barely feel a thing.”
He turns his leopard face to me, fangs bared. “I can turn into an elephant and sit on him! He’s bound to feel that!”
I can’t help but giggle, which enrages my companion even more.
“Roanie, calm down. It’s all right. He stopped after a minute and apologized. Then he started going on about some other woman, and how she no longer wants him or something, and asked me if I wanted any of this.”
Roan comes back and curls up next to me. “Another woman?”
“Apparently.” My voice is tinged with sadness.
“And you promise he didn’t hurt you?”
I shake my head. “Not physically, at least.” My chin starts to tremble and the prickling of tears returns to my eyes and nose.
“Oh Lady,” Roan says, nuzzling me. I wrap my arms around him and we settle further into the blankets.
“I don’t know what to do about any of this. I’m so confused.” My head feels like its whirring like the wheels inside a Lineator. 
 “Go to sleep,” Roan says, noticing how my eyes droop with exhaustion. “We’ll figure all of this out in the morning.”
“We will?”
“I have no idea. But it seemed like the right thing to say.”
Just as Roan says this I hear the footsteps of the night guard returning, following by the loud click of his key in the lock. I don’t know if Erik told Lakeman to return, but the guard seems to wait a moment, checking to hear whether I’m all right, before going back down down the stairs.
                                                                                             ***
An hour passes and I am still awake, my arms and neck aching slightly from Erik’s roughness. Roan sleeps next to me, his stomach rises and falling, dreaming his leopard dreams, whatever they may be. Never have I felt so confused about the men in my life than in the past day—Erik, Senator Rathe, my uncle—leaders meant to protect those in their care. Yet I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve been lied to; never questioning before whether Legalia’s motives were in my best interests. That stops tonight.
“No more,” I whisper out loud to solidify my decision, curling my hand around the dagger under my pillow, a gift from a man who might be involved in Legalia’s secret experiments. An uncle I barely even know.