𝐀 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍'𝐒 𝐋𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘 - Cinderella AU

XVII - all these rules that i see

xvii.

ISADORA TREMAINE HAD BEEN MISTAKEN when she had assumed that the King of Angria-burly, hard and built like a principle warrior-would seat himself in the comfortable and warm carriage he had summoned for the journey.

Instead, the only occupants in the beautifully spacious and colorfully cushioned carriage, were Isa herself, her son and Lucy, as well as a trunk full of every important belonging of Isadora and Archie that they may need for the few weeks of their stay in Angria, and a stringed sack full of Lucy's own belongings.

They had set out almost as soon as she had said yes, and the airy exhale of relief King Alexander Casimir had breathed against her facial skin had lit her heart in it's warmth. But she hadn't had the leisure to dwell in it, for he had instantly separated and strode on over towards his guard to talk business and to ask him to fetch the carriage.

Behind her then, Lucy had appeared, quickly ushering Isadora inside as she was changed into a fresh gown for the journey, her travelling cape draped over her and a warm coat grabbed for Archie, who had still been saddled on the stallion Augustus' back in the chateau gardens.

"You look flushed," Lady Tremaine's words had eclipsed in her senses then, when her mother had appeared at the door of Isa's chambers, watching the commencement of the haste of departure with stoic grey eyes.

Isa hadn't been able to tell if the woman had acquired all the information by listening in to her conversation with the King outside, by interrogating Lucy as the maid had sauntered upstairs to pack, or by the King himself. But judging from the lady of the chateau's hard demeanor and iron posture, Isa had a hunch that King Alexander Casimir had spoken to her mother, when she herself had been occupied with the fairy godmother-and not in overtly polite terms.

"Do I?" Isadora had breathed, hardening up her walls, not wanting to let her mother's envy-sweltering inside the woman's sharp grey eyes like molten iron-destroy what she had been feeling inside.

It was an ever ongoing battle, Lady Tremaine viciously pressing her to seize every single benefit that she saw in life-claiming always the guise of a mother thinking of only the best for her daughter, and then going red with envy when Isa was bold enough to agree and brush herself up against what her mother had initially wanted her to have. Mon Dieu, Isadora thought, keeping her eyes on herself in the looking glass as she fixed her hair, adjusting pins, it must be a raging, ruthless battle inside Lady Tremaine's frame every single day.

But that battle translated outside, Isa knew that all too well. That fight and bloodshed always translated outside, spewed out through sharp and brutal words directed at her-if it was envy that sliced at Lady Tremaine's heart, then the victim was always Isadora.

"We too shall join you in Angria in two days time."

"Remember, daughter, if nothing comes of this," The woman spoke then, a single sharp nailed finger reaching upwards and gently tugging out a loose curl from behind Isa's ear to frame her face.

She sucked in a breath, she hadn't realized her mother had ventured this close to her.

"You will be ruined. And if that happens, do not take solace in the fact that you have the chateau to return to, because you don't. I will not have our family name tarnished beyond repair."

Isadora Tremaine exhaled an airy laugh, shaking her head as she tried to muster up her indifference. Her indifference was her only support-beside the love she had for her four year old son-in life, because it kept her pain away, it barred it from consuming her.

"Goodness, mother," Isa's eyes flashed as she bore them into Lady Tremaine's icy grey ones, refusing to back down.

"What a sentiment. I dare say even the bard Shakespeare would not be able to conjure up a farewell as despicably warming as yours. Give me leave to revel in it, for I had always believed that even the town streets have a much more attractive charm than a roof cursed with your company."