Tea splattered across the oak table and Madalina was quick to withdraw her chair so that the dark liquid would not stain her white dress.
She watched as the man who had come to the Chantilly manor withdrew his hands, biting the inside of her cheek in anxiety. He was tall with a pale complexion and dark hair that hid his pointed ears, even when it was slicked back.
"You will regret this rejection, Dame Chantily. Mark my words."
The man stood and stormed out of the room and the house soon after, making Madalina exhale a breath she didn't know she was holding. She made eye contact with her mother and gave her a smile, watching as she called for the maid to tidy the mess that lord Teloran had made.
"Are you alright, my little dove?" father asked, and Madalina's gaze turned towards him instead. He was a thin man with slicked back gray hair and a large mustache, half-moon glasses settling on the bridge of his nose like they had always been there. His ear piercings glinted in the candlelight.
She smiled at him and answered with, "Just fine, father. He wasn't the first to tell me I would regret my decision."
"Nor will he be the last. Do you know how many men I rejected before I met your father?"
Her mother was a larger woman with cherry-red cheeks and snow white hair. Her face was round and she was wearing a pink dress with a little ruffle at the bottom. She looked quite worried at the moment, until her daughter shook her head.
"I'm afraid I have no idea, mother."
"It was twenty-six proposals before I met Lutharis."
She couldn't stop the little gasp that left her, her eyebrows raising in surprise. "Twenty-SIX?"
"Trust me, I had the same reaction." Lutharis laughed, and Madalina laughed with him. Talindra's face flushed pinker than before, nearly matching her dress.
"I'm very particular, and you know that."
"I know, it's just — it's kind of funny." Madalina stood, collecting herself and wringing her skirts in between her fingers, a habit that her mother hated.
"You and your father will tease me half to death," Lady Talindra Chantilly complained, and Madalina smiled.
"I believe I will excuse myself for the remainder of the night." And as she left, she heard her mother and father discussing their dinner plans.
Going up the heavy oaken steps, Madalina sat in her favorite windowsill that she had turned into a reading area, and picked up the latest of her romance novels.
Before that, however, she examined her dress in a floor-length mirror to make sure none of the dark liquid had stained her.
Madalina was a slim, dainty looking little woman with high cheekbones, off-white eyes, and hair as stark and pale as the snow outside. Her dress hugged her at all the right spots, giving away the slight build of her body without being too revealing.
Her ears were decorated with golden piercings, and her hair had been pulled back into a large bun with a few strands hanging off the back.
Her dress was white to match the rest of her appearance, and it was decorated with delicate pearls and lace around the torso. The bottom fanned out into layered, lace tiers through which her dark boots were nearly visible.
Like her mother, her cheeks were rosy. Her nose was small and sloped downwards, and people had often compared her to a porcelain doll when she was young.
She made a little satisfied noise and covered the mirror back up with a wave of her hand, before sitting at the nook that she had built for her reading endeavors.
The blankets were woven with slumbering cotton and were made by a local farm witch. They were purple in color, and the pattern gleamed and made its own light that was soothing to the tired mind.
Her pillows were made of goose down, and as she settled into her favorite spot in the entire manor to read the next chapter of 'But You're A Nobleman,' she soon found her off-white eyes drooping.
The words began to blur together on the page.
Madalina fell into slumber easily, though at the back of her mind she wondered what he had meant by living to regret her decision.
The moon fell through the window sill, bright enough to wake the young woman — combined with the very distinct smell of SMOKE. She coughed and leapt out of the bed she had been put into, her eyes tearing up as she inhaled.
She hurried to the door and held a cloth handkerchief over her nose and mouth, even as the heat from the thick, black smoke continued to rise throughout the manor.
She had to get to her parents' room!
Madalina rushed down the hallway, using some of her magic to light the way as a ball of ice floated in her free hand, glowing bright blue. She waved it away as soon as she got to the heavy oaken double doors which bore the crest of Chantilly upon them.
"Mother! Father!" Madalina cried out, banging against the door as hard as she could. But there was no answer from within the master bedroom, and to her shock and horror, it was locked from the inside.
"Damn it! Mother! FATHER! PLEASE!"
The wood above her groaned and she looked up just in time to see a beam falling straight down at her!
She screamed, dashing out of the way and glancing at the staircase. There was nothing to be done but get out!
The stairwell was engulfed by flame, and so she had to resort to trying a window. The
Chantilly manor was surrounded by perpetual snow, so if she could just pry the window open, she could jump into a snowbank.
Madalina tried all the windows she could, but they were all jammed or locked. The fire kissed her ankles as she ran about, losing hope as the minutes went by.
No matter how much ice she conjured, the flames traveled higher and higher still. She resorted to the only way out she could think of — Smashing a window with a nearby chair.
Madalina Chantilly, however, was not known for her strength.
She threw the chair against the glass until her arms were screaming for respite, and though cracks had formed against the window as fine as spider webs, it did not break.
She was so busy trying to escape that she failed to notice the door behind her fall — it landed atop her slim figure, knocking her out cold. In an instant, the world around her faded into darkness.
Madalina didn't even have time to scream. It wasn't until the cleanup crew came around that they even found her unconscious body, still reaching for the chair.
She was taken to the nearest infirmary, but she wasn't out of the woods just yet …