The fight lasted a matter of seconds. I remembered the icicles hanging precariously above our heads and how they shattered on the frozen ground at the end. Cosette flung herself on top of me, her willowy chest shivering uncontrollably with each hammer of her heart.
The boys’ feet scampered away, chasing pebbles down the path with a kick of their toes. They had descended upon me with all the fury of wild animals, their ravenous claws tearing at my skirts and hair.
I was proud to say I had at least landed the first strike. The boy named Dier clutched his bleeding nose which was gushing red onto his palm, the same as mine. A bruise was forming along the hollow of his eye as well and I spat blood as he and his decrepit minions scuttled down the path.
Dier halted, his ears craned like a wary stag’s but his gaze eventually fell on me.
“I hope I broke it,” I said.
The boy’s shoulders tensed. He flicked his gaze over the trees one last time and tore after Cosette’s brother.
The hallowed hall of our desecrated palace fell into an eerie silence. The boy’s assault had only lasted a few seconds before the icicles dropped.
I flattened out like a pill-bug on the unsympathetically rigid earth. There were a few good scrapes on my knees that burned from hitting the gravel. Each wound was quickly scabbing over, but that didn't ease the unpleasant pinch of the December winds.
“I guess we’re lucky they got scared off by their own stories,” I said.
Snowflakes dusted my crown and small, brittle branches were shoved through my hair, a mimicry of a laurel that I took great pains to remove.
Cosette dragged her palms back, hot breaths of air flashing white as they escaped from her lips one after the other. She buckled at the waist and quickly buried her sorrowful features in her hands.
“I’m so sorry, Acel.” She sobbed.
I tried to sit up quickly, too quickly and paid with a moan in my chest.
“I took us out here. I didn’t help you. I’m a coward.” She sobbed again. Some of her red curls had been matted to the tear-stained cheeks of her face. Crystal droplets shimmered in Cosette’s hair as the coils shook.
“It’s alright,” I whispered and scraped my dress along the gravel embedded in the snow. “You were afraid.”
She bit her lip, her tiny, fragile fingers grasping at the hem of her cloak. I grabbed one and stumbled to my feet.
“Come on. You haven’t seen Sylvan’s pen yet.” With my arm slung over her shoulder, we shuffled at an agonizing pace past the last arches of the ice palace and onward to the illustrious alabaster walkways of the Lalumiere’s garden.
Frost clung to the sculptures and a frozen stream of water enshrined the fountain. Their sightless grey eyes cast indifferent glances at the two pitiful vagrants who wandered up to the stables.
The pen creaked open as Cosette and I shoved our combined weight onto its hinges and they screeched remorselessly.
The fawn looked up expectantly as we collapsed in a heap on the hay.
Cosette panted breathlessly, gulping down the sweet, dry smell of the yellow hay threading through our hair.
I held up my arm for scrutiny as the grey clouds above reflected light into the stables. The marks I thought I had endured weren’t as apparent in the light. Perhaps I could muster up a convincing lie for my sisters and the Picouxs.
Cosette clunked her head against the wooden walls and stroked a hand down Sylvan’s flank.
"Acel, you aren’t scared of anything. Not a bear, not even Gotthard,” she whispered despondently. “I was terrified.”
I wish I could take heart from her praise, but I was weakened. From the dredges of Eliert’s story and cloaked in the shadows of my mother’s sick room, a terrifying monstrosity had clawed its way into the darkness behind my eyelids and buried its fangs into my memories.
"What is Netvor?" I asked in barely a whisper.
I had travelled clear across the kingdom, and suddenly that name was everywhere. What if my mother’s story meant something? What if it really existed?
Cosette lolled her head to the side. The coarse strands of her curly hair grinded against the stable doors.
"It spoke to Dier once. Gotthard said it sounded like a man's voice."
She bit her lip and tucked her knees to her chest.
Poor Cosette was so delicate and mild, she had no right having a brother as mean spirited as Gotthard. She was nursing the birds he had shot from the sky.
"My mama used to talk about monsters," I murmured. "She said the good faeries would protect me from them."
Cosette nodded her head. "Mine too."
Another grin had displaced the terror in her eyes and we rose from the ground after a few minutes of discussing our favourite faerie tales and taking turns petting Sylvan.
The afternoon receded with the fading light as evening encroached upon Dusek and we quietly escaped the Lalumiere property.
We weren’t far down the street when I saw Cosette fall back from the corner of my eye. Her gaze was directed straight ahead and I followed it to Dusek's head, Monsieur Thierri Imrich, who was walking straight for us with both of my sisters in tow.
“Acel!” Régine stopped in front of me. “You’re an absolute mess,” she cooed as her fingers grazed my scalp and knotted themselves in the locks of hair.
Belle huffed and glowered resentfully at me as I tried to pry myself from Régine’s mothering hands.
"So, there you are, Cosette! Your father has been looking all over for you," Monsieur Imrich smiled.
The lanky man would have been quite handsome with his jaw and distinctive eyes, but age had been unforgiving to these features.
"Is he?" Cosette murmured.
"Come." Monsieur Imrich held out a large, white-gloved hand to Cosette who was still clinging to my arm.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, won’t I?” I asked her.
The small pale fingers unclasped themselves from mine. "Tomorrow?" Cosette whispered.
Imrich put a hand behind Cosette's back to steer her in the other direction.
“We better have her cleaned before Marguerite and Gerard see her,” Belle said, tugging on her cloak as the bitter winds became restless.
I waved back at my friend, but Cosette’s thin frame remained incredibly still. Her eyes were trained on the ground and already too far away for me to say goodbye.
“Now. What happened?” Régine patted my head against her side as we walked. Well, I was still limping.
"I got into a fight, Régine." I sniffled and was made meek in the company of my towering sisters.
"I thought we gave up our old names, Giena-" Belle chastised. She doubtlessly would have preferred to walk ten strides ahead of her rag doll of a younger sister.
"Now is not the time," Régine murmured, thankfully taking my side even though she didn't have cause to. "Why were you fighting, Aceline? That's very un-ladylike.”
Not the most shocking revelation of the day. I had always been poor in my lessons on etiquette.
"They were being rude so I hit one, like a lady-" I hissed through my teeth.
Régine smirked.
"Papa is going to be furious when he sees what you did to your stockings." Belle continued to berate me, clearly not satisfied.
"It wasn’t my fault!" I hadn't cried a lot when the boys had hurt me, but I was biting back tears now.
Régine smacked both our heads. The clap echoed through the town and she didn't speak until it had faded into the wind.
"I know we haven't gotten along in the past, but you two don't really want to be fighting forever, do you? We were doing so well here, let’s not snip at one another again."
I cast a side glance at Belle who did the same, grasping at her arm.
“Especially if Régine has to move into a new house with Yvain Lalumiere,” Belle whispered, her sly gaze directed at me.
I held back a snicker.
Régine’s face wrinkled and she clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You two are both awful.”
“But you liked the flowers, didn’t you?” I hobbled to catch her.
Despite Régine’s best efforts, a timid blush flushed her cheeks and she smiled dreamily at the sunset on the horizon. “They were lovely.”
Régine giggled and patted my head. "But I told him I couldn’t court without my Father’s approval and I doubt very much that Papa would approve of a flagitious bon vivant like Yvain Lalumiere."
We cackled like three witches in winter and eagerly skipped up the steps of our home. However, the door glided seamlessly back before any of us had a palm open. Marguerite Picoux and Gaston, the cockeyed, old man from my first days in Dusek, walked out. Their faces dropped at the sight of me.
"Chérie, what on earth happened to you?" she asked, and Gaston crossed his arms in front of his chest, both of them waiting for an explanation.
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