บท 301: Violet: No Other Way But Forward

2 November, 1348. Thierre Manor, Duchy of Orravalo, Islia

Violet sat on her bed and looked, unseeing, at a thin, jagged crack in the stone wall. Sancia sat on her own bed nearby, staring at her elder sister. Violet could see her opening and closing her mouth repeatedly as if she wanted to speak but kept losing her nerve.

Violet couldn't care less. She didn't care if no one ever said a word to her again. She wanted to drown in her own silence.

Ilse had never opened her eyes or spoken again since the first day she'd fallen ill. She'd lingered for days and had only breathed her last four days ago, during a sunrise of rare beauty.

Her body had been buried quickly to avoid the risk of further disease.

Violet had watched as her sister, wrapped tightly in layers upon layers of linen, was lowered into a hastily dug hole. There had been no time or money for a coffin.