novelraw Chapter 130: Timing
Chapter 130: Timing
Chapter 130
The descent to the ground floor felt longer than usual, the silence of the mansion heavy with the unspoken secrets Clara had just dangled in front of her.
Isabella followed a pace behind the witch, her bare feet silent on the cold floors but her mind incredibly loud, still reeling from the staggering weight of Clara’s words regarding a "before" that shouldn’t exist.
Clara pushed open the double swinging doors that led to the kitchen, and Isabella actually stopped in her tracks at the sight of the supposed culinary space.
It wasn’t just a room; it was a sprawling, ultra-modern marvel that looked more like a high-end showroom than a place where actual meals were prepared.
The room was immense, easily the size of the entire ground floor of her father’s house back in the Blackwood territory.
The architecture was a seamless blend of the old world and the new—the ceilings were vaulted with dark, recessed lighting, and the walls were lined with cream-colored stone that seemed to glow in the soft afternoon light.
In the center sat two massive islands, their surfaces topped with high-tech composite materials polished to a dull, expensive, and sterile sheen.
To her left, a professional-grade range with a sleek, minimalist hood stretched along the wall, while to her right, rows of floor-to-ceiling cabinetry held enough designer glassware and fine porcelain to host a royal banquet.
Despite the modern appliances and the pristine, untouched look of the surfaces, the air here didn’t smell like the rest of the house—it lacked that pervasive, biting, and ancient chill that seemed to follow Lucian everywhere.
Instead, it smelled faintly of dried herbs, sea salt, and the lingering warmth of baked bread that Clara must have started earlier.
"Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies," Clara remarked, though her voice lacked its usual sharp bite as she moved deeper into the room.
She didn’t bother closing the heavy swinging doors behind them, leaving the wide arched entrance gaping open.
From Isabella vantage point by the primary prep island, she realized she had a perfect, unobstructed view through the doorway and across the hall to the base of the grand staircase.
The architecture was deliberate—a wide, open line of sight that felt both grand and dangerously exposed.
If anyone walked through that hall or descended those stairs, they would be seen instantly, and they, in turn, could see everything happening within the kitchen’s stone walls.
It made the kitchen feel like a stage, and Isabella felt acutely aware of how small and out of place she looked standing there in a silk shirt that clearly belonged to the Master of the house.
"This is... it’s huge," Isabella managed to say, her voice echoing slightly against the stone. This was her first time stepping foot in this part of the mansion, and the sheer scale of it made her feel even more like a nervous guest in a museum.
She looked around at the gleaming, state-of-the-art appliances, noting how most of them looked as though they had never been turned on until recently.
It was a bizarre realization. In a house full of vampires—beings who had no need for the sustenance of mortal food and survived solely on the lifeblood of others—a kitchen of this magnitude was an absurdity.
"It was built to serve as decoration," Clara said, as if reading Isabella’s bewildered thoughts. She began pulling ingredients from a walk-in larder with practiced efficiency—fresh rosemary, thick cloves of garlic, and a heavy cooking pot.
"Marco was the one who saw through th mansion building, he seems to likes things to be aesthetically complete. A mansion of this caliber requires a kitchen for the sake of the architectural blueprint, even if the inhabitants have no use for a stove. Up until we arrived, Isabella, this room was a tomb of stainless steel and empty cabinets. There wasn’t so much as a grain of salt in this wing until I had to stock it for both your sake and sometimes mine."
Clara set the vegetables on the island and looked around the space with a critical eye. "Vampires do not eat, and they certainly do not cook. This entire wing was a beautiful, functional lie."
She pushed a sleek black knife toward Isabella. "Let’s see your cooking skills."Isabella reached for the knife before stepping up to the massive island, the sleek composite surface reflecting the soft, recessed glow of the ceiling lights.
She felt exposed, not just because of the open double doors behind her that offered a perfect view of the grand staircase, but because of Clara’s piercing, white-eyed gaze.
"Marco has a penchant for perfection," Clara added, her voice dropping into a smoother, more reflective tone as she began to wash a bundle of dark leafy greens.
"He believes that a King’s home should lack for nothing, even if the King himself has no stomach for the contents of the pantry. He designed this place to be a masterpiece of modern living, a functional lie that looked human enough to keep anyone from asking questions—back when Lucain was in slumber."
Isabella paused in the peeling of the garlic, the sharp, pungent scent of the cloves clinging to her skin as she looked up, her brow furrowing in confusion.
The word felt heavy and strange, a piece of a puzzle she hadn’t even known she was solving.
"Slumber?" Isabella repeated, the word tasting like dust on her tongue.
Slumber sounded like something out of the very fairy tales she had been reading in the library, something archaic and deep. "What do you mean, slumber? Was he... sick?"
Clara stopped her steady washing of the greens, her white eyes fixing on Isabella with a look that was almost pitying, though the usual sharp edge remained.
"Sick? No, Isabella. The Sovereign does not suffer from the petty ailments of the living. He simply... ceased. Over twelve centuries ago, the supernatural world was thrown into a silent panic. One night, the Great King was presiding over his court, and the next, he had retreated into the bowels of his estate and entered a deep, impenetrable sleep."
Isabella’s grip on the black knife tightened until her knuckles turned white. "Twelve centuries?" she breathed, the number throwing her off guard. She knew he was ancient, but twelve hundred years of sleep? That was an eternity.
That was empires rising and falling while he lay still. "You’re saying he slept for over a thousand years? Why? How is that even possible?"
"I thought he would be awake by the next morning," Clara continued, her voice drifting off as if she were seeing the moment happen all over again in the steam of the kitchen.
"Then I thought a week. Then a decade. But the years turned into centuries, and the King remained a statue of cold marble. No one knew the cause. There was no curse found, no wound that wouldn’t heal. He just woke up recently—actually, if my memory serves me, the very day he finally opened his eyes was the day you both met and that mark was formed."
Isabella felt a shiver race down her spine that had nothing to do with the mansion’s chill. The day they met? The timing felt too deliberate, too calculated to be a mere coincidence.
It made her stomach churn with that same insecurity she’d felt in the library. Was she just a biological alarm clock? A scent so strong it could reach through a thousand years of darkness?
"But why would he do that?" Isabella asked, her voice trembling as she tried to return to the garlic, though her hands were shaking too much to be precise.
"A man like Lucian... he doesn’t seem like the type to just give up and sleep. What could possibly drive a King to abandon his throne for twelve hundred years?"
Clara leaned over the island, her face illuminated by the sleek, recessed lighting of the modern kitchen, looking every bit the ancient witch she was.
"From my knowledge, and I have had centuries to ponder it, I believe he starved himself. He reached a point of such profound blood-thirst and... perhaps a thirst for something else... that he simply stopped. Vampires of his caliber can enter a forced dormancy when they refuse to feed. It is a slow, agonizing way to slip into the dark."
"Starved himself?" Isabella let out a short, disbelieving laugh, shaking her head. "Lucian? The man who looks at the world like it’s his personal banquet? You’re telling me he chose to starve instead of just... draining someone? He’s a bloodsucker, Clara. They don’t starve themselves out of guilt or boredom. They eat."
"You see a monster because that is what he shows you," Clara remarked coldly, picking up a bunch of rosemary and stripping the leaves with a violent snap.
"But a man doesn’t sleep for twelve centuries because he is full. He sleeps because he is empty. He was waiting for something, Isabella. Or perhaps, I may be wrong."
Isabella looked back at the open doorway, at the grand staircase that led to the rooms where that statue of marble now paced and breathed.
The memories of that night flashed through her, Lucain skeletal looking form. Truly he had came on her looking like a corpse but the idea of Lucian lying still for a thousand years, his body wasting away from a self-imposed hunger, made him seem less like a predator and more like a tragedy.
"And you think he woke up for me?" she whispered, the silk of his shirt suddenly feeling like it was constricting her chest.
"I think the timing is a question you should be brave enough to ask him," Clara said, shoving a bowl of vegetables toward her. "Now, stop gawking at the history of a man you are fated to and finish dicing."