𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 ✔

Chapter Two

Five days had passed since Bash and I had argued.

I had not seen him since then, nor had I intended to seek him out. I figured he was still either vexed with me, embarrassed of his actions, or perhaps he was just preoccupied with work, though it was most likely one of the first two. He had shown a side of him that I had never seen before and made me quite uncomfortable. I knew I was not innocent either, that I had been rather rude myself, but the way he had spoken to me had come across as if it were second nature to him, whereas my angry outburst was out of character and made me feel horrible.

Oddly enough, the longer he was absent from my life the more I had started to realize that his presence was not missed. And slowly a feeling of relief had started to wash over me, riddling me with guilt. Which made me wonder if he had ever really meant anything to me at all.

As it grew closer to my birthday, word soon went around that one of the seven girls that had been eligible for the next offering had committed suicide in the middle of the night. Silent chaos had started to erupt amongst the townsfolk, they began to spread rumors like wildfire, and many feared the age requirement would have been lowered if the number of eligible girls fell any further. These fear induced speculations passed from person to person until they overshadowed the fact that a young girl had taken her own life and caused most of the townsfolk to become more paranoid and resent the girl's family instead of offering them sympathy and support.

To make matters worse, the girl who had passed had been had also been poor, which caused me to be the only poor girl left in the basket of names. I had now been pitted against four girls from the wealthiest families in the town and one girl from the middle class. In truth, it was obvious I was most likely going to be sent instead of the others.

However awful it may have been that the girl had taken her own life, it was not uncommon. Many over the years had taken their lives out of not being able to accept their fate. Yet it never failed to anger those of the other classes. They were all looking for someone to blame, and they always started with each other.

They would start by ruining the family's social connections, business, whatever they could get their hands on. It did not matter who you were, it did not matter if these people sat next to you in church, or if they were even a part of your family, they would have had nothing to do with you if the social Elites decided to condemn you. They even condemned one another, anything to gain more power for themselves while keeping their names intact. The only ones thought to have been safe from the prosecution were the five wealthiest families in Du Ciel, but not even they had been guaranteed clemency.

That was the thing about this town. You could not trust a soul, for it was every household for themselves in the small world we were trapped in. The never-ending climb for a better social status was only a distraction the more fortunate people, where it was life or death for those lesser. It helped them hide from the fact that we were never going to be free of the curse, allowed them to pretend to be in control and have at least a sliver of the normalcy they once had.

Usually, the hostile market would not have bothered me. I had been used to the ever-changing social mood, yet I could not help but to dread going out in public after such disarray had been caused.

The women made it their job to know the names of the girls who were fixing to be entered into the basket of names. They liked to know who they needed to bully.

If the offering was left up to a vote of the people, all the poor girls would have been sent first and then they would have moved on to the lower middle-class before they dared send any of the wealthier people. I suppose that was why Monsieur Chambren left it up to chance. Otherwise, equity would have long been buried in a shallow grave and left to rot next to selflessness and remorse.