Chapter 2

She’d been expressly forbidden to go, but Evelyn had invited her. Her cousin was everything she could have been. She was registered, wealthy, well-educated. A blossoming socialite in the Cerulian capital, a future full of choices and opportunities in front of her. Maybe she’d even get married. But since the two of them were kids she’d enjoyed spending nights with Aviva and her parents, even though their home was a shack compared to Evelyn’s parent’s manor. She was there so often that she was more sister than a cousin. So when she’d invited her to a gala in the Cerulian capital Aviva couldn’t help herself. She crept out the door while her parents slept, dressed in a gown that Evelyn had lent her, and felt beautiful and free for the first time in her life. 

It’d been sheer magic up until some boy had decided to try and corner her in the garden after she’d had a few drinks too many. She’d just wanted a breath of fresh air, a moment by herself to savor how beautiful and strange this entire night had been. She’d tried to talk him away but the moment he got aggressive Aviva had swung at him. It was a nice, satisfying punch across the jaw that had left her knuckles bruised and her heart pounding. He’d hit the ground with a pleasant thud and stared up at her in shock, his hands gingerly touching the spot she’d hit. 

“You filthy b***h.” The words had been spat as he scrambled to his feet, his surprise contorting quickly to rage and humiliation. “Do you know who I am? You don’t, do you? You don’t, are you even supposed to be here? Did you sneak in?” He came at her, his finger stabbing at her like a threat. It was more than a threat. It was a promise.

Aviva wasted no time in making a hasty retreat and desperately began looking for Evelyn. The satisfaction of the punch had given way to a sick feeling of worry. She was going to regret this. 

And she was one hundred percent right. That soft-faced boy was a member of the House Sen Seong, a house that had produced all of Cerul’s high priests. There were few higher in society and the news of the grope and rebuff had circulated with a dangerous quickness, spread like a virus among those who’d observed the altercation to any nearby cells. To the point that when Aviva finally returned to the ballroom she could already feel eyes on her. It’d only be minutes later that his personal bodyguards seized her roughly by the arms, pulling her out of the room with a full audience watching with amusement and dripping judgement. She was the highlight of the evening, they’d be chatting about this for years to come. It was Evelyn who’d ran after them, a vision in a pale blush gown, her dark hair tied in an intricate crown of braids, her face an oddly stoic mask that Aviva recognized as barely concealing her fury. 

Evelyn had talked the brutes into letting it go, and talked the boy into forgetting the whole matter. What she traded, Aviva didn’t know. Then it was just the two of them, standing outside the entrance of the vaulted gates of the estate, tripped over their apologies to each other. Aviva knew that if Evelyn hadn’t intervened, she might have lost the hand that had struck that miserable brat or worse. It was the Sen Seong house that made the laws, after all, and they’d become increasingly draconian in the past few decades. Evelyn had been in her tears that Aviva had been assaulted the very first time she’d come to one of her parties, that she’d almost been carried off. 

Neither one spoke of the storm on the horizon, black and inevitable.

Author's Note

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