Chapter 269: Violet: Bloom
Violet never ended up finding out what ti her twin made it to bed after the costu ball. She knew it was very late and very dark when she heard their bedchamber door open and Ilse slip inside. She listened silently as Ilse fumbled while removing the priceless costu.
When Ilse finally crawled into their shared bed, Violet lay utterly still and with her eyes tightly closed.
The following morning, Ilse tried to ask Violet about her health, having noticed she’d retired from the banquet hall so early.
"Oh, don’t you worry about ." Violet replied briskly. "I made a full recovery after getting a good night’s sleep. I’m back to feeling well again."
"Are you sure, Vy? Shouldn’t you see a physician just in case? I was quite worried when Her Majesty told
you’d left so early."
"Yes, I’m very sure." Violet made it clear with her tone that the conversation was over. After that, she refused to say another word about the ball.
Ilse got the hint, so that night was never ntioned by either of them again. It was almost as if it had never happened. But of course, it had.
In the years and decades to co, whenever Violet looked back at her past, the woodland ball always stood out in her mory as a defining event.
The first thing it did was clearly mark the shift in each sister’s path at court.
It had already been Ilse’s spring. The ball had rely confird that it would also be her sumr. Without a doubt, she’d managed to make herself the prettiest, liveliest and most popular young woman at court. Not to ntion, the most desirable.
And when will my season co? Violet asked herself the sa question over and over in the days after the ball.
Perhaps it never will, the little voice in her head would always reply nastily. Not all flowers get the privilege of reaching full bloom, do they? So are just left to quietly wilt in a corner, quite forgotten.
The very worst of it all was that Ilse had never intended for things to work out the way they had. It wasn’t in her nature to plot and sche her way to the top. She had simply gravitated there through her kindness and warmth. People genuinely wanted to be in her friendly company. And now that she’d beco so beloved, her sweet nature remained unchanged.
Violet was actually taken aback by the scale and speed of Ilse’s success. She knew beauty was an important asset of course, but was it really all that n valued in won? Didn’t they value intelligence as well?
Ilse wasn’t intelligent. Violet told herself it was cruel to think such things about her own twin, but there was no point in denying the truth. Ilse simply wasn’t clever or canny. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could sche and plot alongside her man and help him achieve all his ambitions.
Violet was. Why didn’t that count for sothing? Or were n all such fools that they were blinded by a lovely smile and a shapely figure, and didn’t care about anything else?
The second thing the ball did was mark the start of a gap opening between the once inseparable twins.
It was a gap that started out tiny but nevertheless grew steadily as sumr progressed. Every complint that Ilse received, every invite extended to her but not to her sister, made the gap a bit wider in Violet’s heart.
Little by little, it beca a chasm.
Ilse of course tried to include twin in as much as she could, such was her nature. Whenever she was asked to join a picnic or an impromptu gathering, she’d always insist Violet be included too.
But these efforts at inclusion didn’t make Violet feel grateful. Just the opposite. She didn’t want Ilse’s favours or half hearted invitations.
She didn’t want to see the dismissive and pitying glances the courtiers aid her way because she was the plainer girl. The girl who was barely tolerated, and even that was only because she was sisters with the beautiful girl.
No. Violet wanted to be considered the preferred Thierre girl.
As the distance between the sisters began to slowly grow, she felt the old steady resentnt she’d always felt for Ilse being fanned into actual dislike. The dislike grew and grew, wrapping its tendrils around her heart and choking off the love she’d once felt. Violet tried to stop it, tried to rember all the twins had shared over the years.
She was powerless to stop it.
The girls who’d once been so close that they almost knew each other’s thoughts, now had unsaid words between them.
The sisters who had once stayed up late each night, whispering their every thought about all they’d seen and done, now had conversations that were shorter.
Violet often wondered if Ilse noticed the growing gulf between them. Sotis, a wistful look would cross Ilse’s face when the two girls were alone. She’d look as if she wanted to say sothing else, but never did and then, the look would vanish. Maybe she found it too painful or awkward acknowledging the change.
Violet actually preferred it that way. The thought of Ilse forcing her to talk about it, made her want to cover her ears and run off. She knew Ilse wasn’t really the one responsible for the new quiet between them.
Because Ilse hadn’t changed. Violet had.
She had stopped seeing Ilse as her confidant, as her ally and friend in a friendless court. She now saw her twin as a rival. The two of them were fighting for the sa prizes and Violet was damned if she was just going to give up without a tussle.
She needed to think about her own goals and forget what her sister needed. It wasn’t her responsibility to help Ilse out anymore.
Because she seed to be managing just fine without Violet. Better than fine, actually.
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