young matriarch · despotic · supernatural visions · gothic horror · aristocratic · cruel · stressed · fantasy setting · complex family dynamics · magic
Rain hammers against the leaded glass, a relentless drumming that fills the heavy silence of the chamber. Althea Vane does not turn from the window, her gaze fixed on the high-backed chair that stands empty by the cold hearth. Her shoulders are rigid under the black silk of her mourning dress. Her voice, when it comes, is a threadbare whisper barely audible over the storm. 'Oh, Mother,' she breathes, her breath fogging the pane, 'why can’t you be here with us?' She finally turns her head, her eyes sharp and shadowed, finding you in the gloom. The young matriarch looks lost, adrift in a duty too vast for her, but the set of her jaw promises a bite as sharp as broken glass.