He found her at last beneath an uneven bulk of snow, her plum hair inarguably recognizable. Their lanterns illuminated very little, but the king commanded their steadfast obedience, shouting until his throat tasted of iron. Hyacinth and his knights tore through the wood, five flickering specs of gold in the night. She went limp just before the sky turned black as pitch, the thunder of hooves and the bellows of men left without answer. Her body held little warmth, but Ivy didn’t bother coveting more, unfeeling of the elements even as her vision splotched silver and gray. How lucky was she to find a friend at death’s door- a blessing from somewhere unknown, far beyond the deceitful haze of Elusia’s borders. She would carry them both to the other side where endless warmth awaited. It had accepted her amenity, burrowing further as if she were a deity proffering absolution from the anguish. The rabbit stilled, though its heart remained scampering, nudging its twitching nose into the pads of her fingers. “I am here, I always have been, I always will be.” Again and again she repeated the self-soothing phrase, uncaring of the blood that stained her bodice. She curled around it, rocking in a way Mother never did, whispering the words she often spoke across the vanity. It calmed the moment she pressed it to her chest, blinking owlishly up at her. Snow gathered in her hair, her mouth, her eyes, and still she swaddled the creature with patient, practiced motions. She unfurled her shawl without further thought, draping it over the rabbit heedless of the way it writhed in its failed attempts at escape. Ivy gasped at the sight, mournful urgency calling her to act with haste. Its left hind leg lay limp, the skin flayed from the bone, puncture wounds littering its flank. The animal lay rigid with terror, eyes wide and black, mouth gaping to screech its final cry of desperation. Ivy tripped over her own feet, crawling the rest of the way until she knelt before the gaunt form of a wounded rabbit. She spotted quickly the crimson stain at the base of an eroded outcropping, the only shock of color in the endless white. It egged at Ivy’s inner disquiet with its urgency, calling her to stand on unsteady legs and hunt the forest floor for its source. It was better to be thrown to the wilds than to the gluttonous maw of the people, Ivy was certain.Ī noise not far off cut through her plaintive brooding then, shrill and sporadic. Heartbreak had found its home in her, leaving her forlorn and resolute. She was half a decade of age, and Ivy already battled the court for Mother’s love. She hated that dress, she hated how the Lords and Ladies leered at her. Ivy squared her jaw, curling her numb fingers into fists. It landed with a soft thump, the sound barely heard above the thrashing winds. The brittle bough of a nearby tree cracked, groaning formidably before it tumbled into the ocean of snow below. She should have stayed behind, she should have allowed the ladies in waiting to stuff her into the starchy cotton dress Mother so loved to parade her about in. She was going to die out in the Elusian tundra, alone and cold and hungry, far from the Solmnic border she sought. Snow seeped through the last layer of her crinoline, and fear struck her for a moment. She trembled with the cold, breath coming in short and labored Ivy’s teeth clacked so loudly it was the only sound she could hear. The wind howled its malevolence, the storm so dense that Ivy could hardly see beyond the tip of her nose. She wandered until she could no longer stand, slumping over against a narrow trunk of pine. She clutched at her pleated skirts, stumbling against the blizzard’s westward gale, crystalline tears freezing along the tips of her lashes. Small enough for the royal guard to miss her amidst the dunes of snow, fast enough to reach the shrouded Shadowy Moor before nightfall. Ivy had been young when she first ran away from the castle.
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