To Drown In Icy Depths

Eveleen of the Aurelian House

First of all thank you everyone for choosing to read this story. :) I really appreciate it, like, a lot. Probably more than I should lol. I promise it's gonna be worthwhile and I won't like, stop writing halfway through or anything like that, so please sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Love you guys!

I watched in silence as Eveleen's body floated into view, levitating several inches off the ground, her quartz coffin held aloft by Mavka enchantments.

The coffin was open, as this was the tradition of the House of Aurelia, and her ineffable beauty was displayed to all in the rapidly darkening evening. She was even more striking in death than in life, if such a thing was possible.

Eveleen had always possessed a sort of ethereal beauty, her face and features so delicate, her movements so graceful, that she did not seem human. She shone like the Antaraxia Star. And in the philocaly starry-eyed country of Elysian, this orphic fairness was a source of pride and wonder.

But even a stranger could have seen that her time in Abluvion had changed her.

The honey-kissed tint of her skin was gone, replaced by a livid paleness. Her blue eyes, blue like cornflowers and forget-me-nots and sapphires, were closed, but if they had been opened, they would have been washed out and almost grey. Her lips were purple, and her dark brown hair had darkened to black.

Yet she still retained a certain majesty, her cheekbones pronounced, her lashes thick and her hips slender. All of the things that I lacked.

Eveleen floated by.

Of course I had been jealous of her while she was alive, I still was, even as her corpse levitated down the path to the mausoleum. How could I not be, when she was the pinnacle of beauty? And I, though I would have been passably pretty if it had not been for the strange pale red birthmark over my left eye, was always left in her shadow, taking every discarded compliment thrown in my direction, like a scrawny child eating the scraps off the table.

And Eveleen, perfect Eveleen, was not only most beautiful, but the eldest and therefore in line for the throne of the House of Aurelia. Not that I wanted that sort of responsibility, but it was just another thing in a long list of other things that she possessed, and I did not.

Little Elide, pretty, evanescent, young.

I was not really young, only appeared to be so because of the drawn out youth of the head families of the seven houses of Elysian.

So while I looked, and by Aurelien standards was, sixteen, had I been a normal civilian I would have been older; a woman.

But even if I had been twenty-three by Aurelien standards, I would always be the baby of the House of Aurelia.

This too could be attributed to Eveleen, not that it was her fault for being born first, but then again, it wasn't her fault for being beautiful either.

This was wicked of me. Wicked that my thoughts were consumed with jealousy when my older sister was dead. Wicked of me to dwell on my stupid vanity when Eveleen's corpse was levitating towards the family mausoleum. I should have been devastated by her loss, just like my parents and the rest of the Aurelian House.

But there were few memories, happy or sad, that contained her. There wasn't much to miss in short.

That sounded cruel, but it was true.

Eveleen's childhood had been sacrificed for her education. Lessons that taught her how to be a lady, lessons that taught her how to rule the House when she became the Lady, lessons that taught her how to be a good wife to her future husband.