Rudy J. Winters

₊˚⊹⋆ Raspy voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Smooth voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Gravelly voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Honeyed voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Silky voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Husky voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Breathy voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Nasal voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Melodic voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Monotone voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Scratchy voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Throaty voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Whisper-soft voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Booming voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Crisp voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Musical voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Warm voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Cold voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Sharp voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Lilting voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Drawling voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Tinkling voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Thunderous voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Delicate voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Commanding voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Timid voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Trembling voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Steady voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Crackling voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Brittle voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Rich voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Thin voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Reedy voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Sonorous voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Whiny voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Cigarette-worn voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Youthful voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Weathered voice

₊˚⊹⋆ Crystalline voice

°˖➴ SHOW THE EVIDENCE, not the time!! don't say "three months later" and have everything exactly the same. Show the evidence: the houseplant is dead now, there's a new coffee shop, their hair is longer, the season changed, the relationship shifted

°˖➴ People don't pause their lives!! during your time skip, other characters didn't freeze. They got new jobs, started dating someone, developed opinions, had experiences. When we come back, there should be GAPS in what your POV character knows

°˖➴ Anchor it with a CONCRETE detail!! "The last time she'd been in this room, there'd been snow on the ground. Now the garden outside was screaming with roses." Give the reader something tangible to mark the passage

°˖➴ What DIDN'T happen is interesting!! "Six weeks and still no word from him" or "Another year of birthday candles she didn't make wishes on" sometimes the time skip is defined by absence and waiting

°˖➴ Compress boring stuff, expand important stuff!! "The trial took three months" can be one sentence. But the five minutes after the verdict? That might be three pages. TIME IS ELASTIC in fiction, use it!!!

Seraphina: No

Now that I have art to go with this…

Characters of this dark romance belong to @rudyjwinterswrites

Before Trauma

Since you all wanted to read it, here you go!!

Chapter 1

Seraphina

The acceptance letter was a mistake — if not, a cruel joke. Gravenmoore Institute only chose Legacies, those with names worth remembering.

It didn’t choose Ordinary girls.

It didn’t choose girls like me.

Except…it had.

The envelope was black, sealed in wax the color of dried blood, and my name was written in a hand that looked disturbingly like my own.

My hands trembled as I peeled it open and pulled out the letter. It was written in the same mirroring calligraphy, signed with the Institute’s signature at the bottom.

It read:

Miss Seraphina Beauregard,

You have been observed.

The words seemed to rearranged themselves as I read, ink gliding like liquid across the page.

You have been weighed.

A pulse flickered beneath the letters — faint, like a heartbeat.

And, at long last…you have been invited.

My stomach dropped.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head as my eyes raced ahead.

Gravenmoore Institute extends to you its most singular distinction; admission into its sacred halls, where the extraordinary are refined, the monstrous are perfected, and the unseen are finally given form.

You are expected at the stroke of midnight on the first frost.

You will not be late.

My grip tightened.

“First frost?” I breathed. “That’s weeks away—”

The line beneath it twisted.

You are already late.

The lamp on my bedside table flickered violently, fluorescent light stretching thin and tall as if reaching for something unseen.

My heart began to pound.

“This isn’t funny,” I snapped, though my voice wavered. “I don’t know who—”

The next line appeared as I spoke, ink bleeding into existence.

You were not meant to.

The temperature in the room dropped sharply. My pulse roared in my ears.

I spun around, as if expecting someone to be standing there.

The bedroom was empty.

But when I looked back down at the letter, my hands shaking now—

There was one final line waiting for me:

They have already taken notice.

Do try not to disappoint them, Nightshade.

The words hit me like a curse.

Nightshade.

I didn’t know what it meant.

But something deep inside me did — and it was afraid.

A knock sounded at the door. I jumped — then saw it was my mother.

Her gaze was crystalline — pale as frost — sharp as a blade. I stiffened beneath it, my expression smooth as the surface of polished marble but tight at the edges, holding back my hidden apprehension.

“Seraphina.”

She stepped forward. That single movement held all the power in the room.

I fought the urge to step back.

I inclined my chin, lips pressed into a thin line.

When I didn’t answer, her tone sharpened. “I asked you a question, Seraphina.”

“Yes, Mother?” I responded, my voice deceptively soft.

“I said, who are you talking to?” She demanded, arms tightening over her chest, pressing into the material of her dress.

She had heard.

My stomach twisted.

She heard, but she didn’t know — for now.

“No one,” I replied, tilting my head. “I was talking to myself.”

My mother huffed. “Always in your head,” she muttered. Then her gaze dropped to the envelope and letter sitting in my hand.

Oh no.

“What is that?” She pointed a manicured finger at both items.

It was too late to hide them. I hugged them to my chest with one hand, taking a fraction of a step backward. “It’s nothing — just junk mail—”

My mother wasn’t buying it. In one fluid motion, she lashed out and snatched it, not caring that her nail had scratched the side of my hand, a light, angry red line drawn across the pale skin.

I bit back a hiss of pain, brushing it off on the side of my skirt, but my hand continued to sting.

She brought the letter up to her face, her eyes scanning the page. My stomach clenched, and I mentally counted down the seconds until she reached the bottom — and all hell broke loose.

I didn’t have time to react.

She seized my chin, whipping my head forward so fast a wave of vertigo crashed over me as my momentum crashed. I rapidly blinked to clear the black dots swimming in my vision.

It still hadn’t fully cleared as she spoke, her voice cutting like daggers. “Is this some kind of joke?! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What—”

Her hand connected with my face, snapping my head to the side. “Faking a letter from Gravenmoore?” She growled. “Have you lost your mind?!”

My blood boiled, a twinge of recklessness shooting through me. I spoke before I could think. “I didn’t fake it!”

Big mistake.

Her fingers wrapped around my hair, tugging hard at the roots. I cried out, tears pricking at my scalp. “You ungrateful bitch!” She snarled, yanking me forward. “Come with me.”

I was helpless, stumbling over my feet as she dragged me from my bedroom to the living room, gripping my platinum blonde tresses like a leash.

“Stop—”

She cut me off as she suddenly let go, shoving me into the sofa. I looked up, rubbing the sting from my scalp, catching my breath.

Aurelia stood a few feet from the sofa, gaze flitting between me, the bruise on my cheek, and our mother. Her eyes held a rich, dark green depth, softened by pale highlights and the faintest cool undertone — the same shade as our father’s. In her hand, she held a black envelope, identical to the one I’d received, slipped through my window by an unseen hand.

My heart dropped.

No.

Her brow furrowed. “Why is she here?”

My mother’s expression softened, just a little and only for her. Between the two of us, Aurelia had taken her favor, her heart of ice thawing into something warmer. Despite my fire, I’d never achieved the same warmth.

Maybe it was the living specter of my father’s features on Aurelia’s face, from the long slope of her nose to the thick, dark hair that framed her face.

The death had hit Mom harder than she wanted to admit.

She’d never been soft. But Dad’s death had forged her into something sharper, more cruel. Whatever affinity she had for Aurelia paled in comparison for the love she held for my father — and when she died, her love followed him to the grave. Its ghost had returned, a vengeful thing that sat in my mother’s heart and festered.

Through my sister’s visage, she could vicariously remember her late husband.

But I…I was her grotesque mirror that she couldn’t get rid of — same blonde hair, but my eyes were hotter, glowing like amber with a flame trapped inside. I was her rage and grief personified, reflecting in every breath I took — and she hated it. Hated looking at me, and seeing her own vileness echoing back at her.

Even now, she didn’t look at me, her gaze fixed upon Aurelia. “She is here because of her own selfishness and jealousy.”

Selfish? Jealous?

My temper flared. “That’s not true, I didn’t know—”

“Silence!” My mother hissed, her glare demanding submission. “You don’t get to play the victim here. Not after what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t do anything—”

Her hand slapped my cheek again. “Enough,” she snarled, nails digging into my cheeks hard enough to draw blood. “Apologize to your sister.”

I sputtered. “Apologize—”

She spun me, shoving me to face Aurelia, whose green eyes stared at me, wide with confusion and innocence.

Oh, sweet Aurelia.

“Apologize,” she repeated, “for lying to me, for faking a letter from Gravenmoore.”

Aurelia’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. “She got a letter from Gravenmoore, too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Aurelia,” our mother snapped. “Of course they didn’t; she’s lying. She’s an Ordinary — what school would want someone like her?”

The words stung — not from their sharpness, but the truth beneath them. To be Ordinary was to be null — magic-less, hollow.

In our world, there was no place for someone like that.

Yet Gravenmoore had invited me. A girl from the same group of people they scorned. An outsider.

My mother’s grip tightened on my neck, shaking it again. “Apologize.”

I ground my teeth, lowering my gaze to the ground. “I am sorry, Aurelia,” I gritted out.

Her voice was soft — too soft, too gentle — as she replied. “I forgive you.”

My mother released her death grip on my neck as Aurelia accepted my apology. “There,” she said, her voice saccharine. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I said nothing, jaw clenched, fists balled tight. My nails dug crescents into my palms until they bled.

Good.

The pain was a welcome distraction from the rage.

Aurelia was the one to break the silence. “Mom?” she asked.

“Yes?” My mother replied, her voice softer now. The dichotomy — switching from a hellion to this gentle creature in the space of a word — gave me whiplash.

“If Seraphina lied about her letter,” she said slowly, like each word held weight, “how come it has the signature?”

My mother froze, my acceptance letter scrunched in her fist. “What?”

“The signature”

She snatched Aurelia’s letter, holding it next to mine for comparison. For a few seconds that stretched too long, she said nothing, staring at the parchment.

Then she exhaled, not as steady as before. “It is a mistake. Ordinaries do not get chosen by Gravenmoore.”

Her eyes lifted, meeting mine for the first time since she’d barged into my bedroom. “You. Pack your things.”

“You said—”

“I know what I said,” she snapped, “and I stand by it. I will not allow this mistake to perpetuate your…your delusions of grandeur.”

Before you say "Oh, Raine, since when are you selling out reblogs for people--" I'm not. They don't even know I'm writing this out right now. Obviously they'll know once I officially reblog it, but right now? Ha! No idea.

Anyways the reason I am reblogging this is because I really like supporting small authors. Not only that, but I legitimately feel like this is going to be really fucking interesting as a story. (It's giving me motivation to work on mine too, if I'm being 100% honest.)