Serafina and the Splintered Heart: Chapters 31–41

The genteel murmur of the guests’ voices mixed with the sounds of rustling satin, pouring wine, and tinkling glasses.

What struck Serafina most was just how pleased the men were to see each other, to be talking and drinking, laughing and carrying on, like a great, gregarious flock of black-and-white jays cawing to each other, with no idea that a young boy of their ranks had buried a body nearby and that the fading, lost spirit of a dead girl walked among them.

The ladies wore long, full, shimmering dancing gowns made from satin, taffeta, and many other fine and luxurious materials, in dark purples, strawberry creams, peach chiffon, lilac, and blue—an endless variety of colors that reminded Serafina of the summer’s blooms.

Serafina watched the sometimes slow, sometimes flighty interactions between the young ladies and the young gentlemen.

Many of the ladies and older girls held embroidered fans, opening or fluttering them to signal interest to a possible suitor, closing or snapping them shut to signal disdain.

Many of the ladies and older girls held embroidered fans, opening or fluttering them to signal interest to a possible suitor, closing or snapping them shut to signal disdain.

Among the adults, the room was full of society types and fashion plates, industrialists and politicians, authors and artists, ambassadors and dignitaries of a nature that Serafina did not understand.

Mr. Vanderbilt loved Tannhäuser so much that he commissioned the famous sculptor Mr. Karl Bitter to depict an epic scene from the opera in the frieze above the Banquet Hall’s gigantic triple fireplace.

Mr. Vanderbilt loved Tannhäuser so much that he commissioned the famous sculptor Mr. Karl Bitter to depict an epic scene from the opera in the frieze above the Banquet Hall’s gigantic triple fireplace.

She remembered that Edison’s music machine had produced a scratchy, tinny sound that she hadn’t liked, but this, this live orchestra, was something else entirely.

“It’s not that. I just…” Braeden began, but then faltered.

In the next moment, the conductor of the orchestra brought the evening’s musical prelude to an end, everyone clapped politely, and then he tapped three times on his stand and lifted his white baton.

Little bouts of enthused clapping rose up among the guests, everyone happy that the time had finally come.

And she had fixed her long black hair up into an elaborate arrangement.

And then the two dance partners came together, holding each other in a formal and decorous fashion.

Their dancing started out slow and easy, synchronized with the gentle overture of the orchestra’s music and the movement of the other dancers, but when the waltz rose up to its full tempo, they began to move more swiftly, turn and turn and turn and dip, sweeping across the dance floor with astounding grace and beauty.

“Would you like to partake of refreshment in the Banquet Hall?”

Mounted animal heads hung on the hunter-green walls, and there was a small, rustic fireplace in the corner, glowing soft and warm with embers.

Braeden looked at Rowena and said, “I’m not going to help you,” as he pressed the point of a wickedly long, sharp hunting knife against the satin brocade of her dress, just where he could push it straight into her side.

“Oh dear, you have a knife…” Rowena said in her sweet Charleston accent, raising her hands, feigning dismay and confusion as she slowly backed up.

Uriah was the one bringing the storms, flooding the rivers, and tearing away the trees. He had come to wreak his vengeance on Biltmore.

“I’m tired of the fighting and the blood, the endless cycle of hate and retribution.”

Angry and disgusted, Braeden blew the ashes away contemptuously, as if to say, I don’t believe a word of this!

“Just stop this!” Braeden screamed at her, his voice shaking with indignation as the two of them got to their feet and faced each other.

“After you and the two cats struck me down during the battle for the Twisted Staff, it took time, but I came back, and I was stronger than ever. I’m not just a sorceress now, I’m a necromancer.”
“What is that?”
“I can sometimes speak to the spirits of the dead and the in-between.”

“You may be fast with your claws, but you sure are slow with the rest of it,” Rowena said in a scathing tone.

“You’re turning into quite a stubborn little grimalkin,” Rowena said.
“Better stubborn than dead,” Serafina retorted.

Waysa studied her from a distance, and Rowena studied him, the two of them gauging whether they could trust the other.

Long ago, many members of your tribe were driven by force away from their homes to the barren lands in the west, but a few stayed behind in these mountains, unwilling to leave their homeland.

She realized there were many more challenges ahead, and she knew full well that some of them might be insurmountable, at least for her, but at least they were climbing together now.

And when she did, it released its magic in a great cataclysm of heat and smoke and haze, and all the victims that had been captured in the cloak were suddenly set free.

I use a coercion spell to make the spiders do what I need them to do, and a twining spell to spin the thread.

“But isn’t a spider’s silk white or clear?” Braeden asked, appalled by it all, but beguiled by the gruesome details of the process.

Everything she had known, everything she had loved, was gone, incinerated by a prison of incessant darkness.

She could trust Rowena, stop fighting, and let her soul be pulled entirely into the Black Cloak. Or she could try to keep fighting in this storm of oblivion.

Despite all of Rowena’s duplicitous shifts and caustic moods, she had helped her talk to Braeden, she had helped her spell the letters in ash in front of the fireplace, and she had revealed the secrets of the Black Cloak.

Despite all of Rowena’s duplicitous shifts and caustic moods, she had helped her talk to Braeden, she had helped her spell the letters in ash in front of the fireplace, and she had revealed the secrets of the Black Cloak.

Then she exhaled, and her mind unfurled as the cloak sucked her soul deep into its void.

“Quit your mewling, girl, and get on with makin’ yourself useful!” she imagined her pa telling her.

Suddenly, the earth around her expanded with a great heave, giving way to her newly muscled girth.