Givens was quick to make a hasty retreat. Once she dismounted, gripping her staff, she watched discreetly from beneath her hood as he absconded in the direction from which they came, fleeing her side and rousing a cloud of dust in his swift exit. Likely anxious to report back to Don, to inform him what had transpired in the woods.

            Elle hadn't time to dwell on that as a horde of bodies merged in a fury towards her, elbows and shins knocking as her neighbors fired a maddening barrage of questions that she met with committed silence.

            Is he ghastly? He is maniacal? What happened? Where did he keep you? What did he do to you? Were you tortured? Were there others? What things were you forced to do? Tell us! Tell us what happened!

            They were horrid. All of them.

            She would tell them nothing.

            Keeping her head bowed, her eyes sought wildly for an escape, an overwhelming sensation of panic squeezing at her chest at their frenzied questioning and thundering nearness. No matter where she stepped, a body barred her way, wedging closer, insisting on answers.

            Thankfully, Elle didn't have to endure it for long. Amidst the chaos and clamor, she heard her mother's voice before a reassuring grip cinched her waist, hauling her through the mass of bodies. A wave of relief spiraled through her as she was ushered from the throng of villagers barking closely at their heels.

            It wasn't until the door lumbered shut, once wrapped in her mother's warm embrace, that she managed to reel in a shaky breath.

            With her head buried against her mother's shoulder, inhaling that familiar earthy fragrance, she began to softly cry, not realizing until that tender, fairly rattled moment, just how much she had missed her family, her mother especially.

            "Elle!" her sisters cried in unison, scrambled into the room, rushing to flank her sides.

            She sniffled, her eyes smarting with more tears. She had wanted to ease into this moment, to brace for their shock and disbelief. To prepare for the appearances of her loved ones, faces that she would at last behold, but the feelings welling up inside of her were too extreme, too compelling to be subdued, easily melting away her inhibitions and hesitation.

            With an emboldening breath, Elle raised her head, and pushed the wool away from her face.

            Almost immediately, her mother and sisters recoiled in alarm, a series of heightened gasps sweeping the room.

            Elle assumed she looked frightful, but their synonymous expressions did not register through her watery gaze, for she was too stunned to notice anything other than the array of beautiful faces gaping back at her.

            Fresh tears flooded her eyes as an indescribable feeling sprang through her chest. It was much like that moment in the woods, when she had roused to a startling, blinding light. It rendered her in awe, her heart soaring with exhilaration. A breath seizing in her lungs as she absorbed every stitch of clothing, color, and fascinating feature greedily to memory. She had always wondered, tried to imagine, but nothing could ever take shape past the nothingness of her sight – and now, nothing would ever equate to the wondrous moment of seeing her mother and sisters for the first time.

            Standing abreast to one another as they were, it was easy to determine that her sisters bore a staggering resemblance to their mother, Cora. Where her hair was considerably dark, theirs was remarkably lighter. Having espied the sun, she could only liken their tresses to the bright sunbeams combing through the trees. Their eyes favoring pools of water, just like the deep, bottomless sea that consumed her dreams. A captivating blue, she noted.

            What is blue to you?

            It is the weeping of the downhearted and the hopeless; it is a tranquility belonging to the sea, and a breezeless sky.

            Hopeless. Downhearted.

            Their ocean-like eyes were replete with both as they gazed at her in a synchrony of alarm. Mouths agape with arrested breaths.

            Her mother had gone painfully rigid and unnaturally pale. Esme stood frozen just beyond her mother's shoulder, having receded a few paces, her eyes wide and fixed exclusively on her battered face. Elsa pressed her fingers to her lips, her rheumy gaze lurching back and forth between Esme and their mother as if willing them to say something.

            How could she temper the panic in the enormous blue staring back at her? How to put into words what had happened? What she suspected? What she feared?

            "Oh, Elle." Elsa muttered, unable to smother a whimper, her expression rife with horror.

            With their focus rapt on her bruises, they had yet to realize that she could see them as clearly as they could see her.

            How did she go about explaining the impossible without them thinking the worst? She had been racking her brain for answers; pouring over every possibility. The events surrounding her vision were an enigma, and were just as complicated as the feelings that plagued her heart. The harsh, feminine voice in her head just before the burning in her eyes – she didn't think it a mere coincidence just minutes after departing Rossetti Keep. Don had sent her away abruptly for a reason, and she strongly believed that reason, or person, had everything to do with her functioning eyes.

            She was fortunate enough to have escaped the villagers' attentions. Too preoccupied in feeding their curiosities, they hadn't seen her face. A plight she was more than happy to avoid. But now she was faced with the challenge of explaining everything to her family, and was unsure how to move forward, how to convey the unthinkable sensibly.

            "What has that monster done to you?" her mother's gentle lilt broke with concentrated pain, her eyes pushing and pulling at all the bruises that were visible.

            Elle's heart lurched, and she parted her mouth to express plainly that it was all a terrible misunderstanding, but before she could utter a word, the door behind her flew open. She stiffened as a gust of cold air swept across her vertebrae, announcing her father.

            The room fell eerily quiet.

            Her sisters slid vacillating glances from her, to their father.

            Her mother visibly swallowed, her hands twisting in the wool covering her midriff.

            Gleaning their shared looks of alarm, her father shuffled around to face her, saying with a frown, "Daughter?"

            Elle held her breath as she turned to greet her father, gripping the lapels of her cloak as a way to anchor her quaking hands.

            When their eyes met, she was amazed to find that his were anything but blue, in fact, there was no light color to be found in the deep irises that coasted over her features with mounting alarm. They were dark, and full of shadows.

            Her father went uncannily still. His chest blooming with an enraged breath as his expression turned a mottled shade of red. "I'll kill him."

            "It's not what you think," Elle hastened to say, "He didn't –"

            "Elle?" her mother's incredulous inflection drew everyone's attention, and Elle's in a way that was unequivocally direct, supporting the thought that had dubiously taken shape behind the iridescent sheen of her eyes. The blue there glazed over with astonishment and disbelief.

            "What is it, mother?" Elsa queried, confusion furrowing her fair brows as she cast a worried glance to Esme, who shrugged in response.

            Pressing a hand to the column of her throat, her mother took a tentative step closer, the bruises momentarily forgotten as she asked in a breathy tone, "Darling ... can you see us?"

            Everyone startled, their breaths hitching loudly.

            "What?" one of her sisters exclaimed sharply.

            Unease crawled through Elle as she did a quick sweep of their astounded faces. There was no turning back at this point. No uncomplicated way to go about it. Would they think her unnatural? Something to be abhorred?

            With slight hesitation, she nodded.

            Their apprehension and surprise was instantaneous. Their bewilderment and incredulity, palpable. It filled the room like a dark cloud, promising an unpredictable storm. Multiple eyes flitted in all directions, their minds working furiously to make sense of it, but still they said nothing.

            Elsa crossed her arms against her chest and gripped her elbows as if to ward off evil, as though it would seep from their woven walls at any point. Her father stood to the one side of her, unusually quiet and brooding.

            "That cannot be," Esme sounded aghast, easing around their mother, appraising her in a way that made her feel as though she was a stranger, an interloper.

            "I knew something was different about you." Elsa remarked.

            "Apart from my eyes," and my heart, "Nothing has changed. I am still your sister, your daughter."

            "Is the beast a wielder of dark magic too?" Esme sneered, but Elle detected a touch of fear beneath the contempt.

            "Keep your voice down, Esme." Cora admonished, casting a concerned look towards the door. "You mustn't say such things. You are making a hasty assessment when we know nothing of what has taken place."

            "Should we not be alarmed?" Esme retorted, "Our formerly blind sister has returned with her vision whole, and her face and throat bruised in a manner that suggested she was viciously attacked." Her sister shot her a glare, "Was he too much of a coward to deliver you himself?"

            "Don is not a coward, sister, and he did not do this to me." Elle stated emphatically, her eyes spitting fire.

            "Don?" her father bristled, all eyes careening to his reddened face, "You would dare speak his given name so freely, daughter? After what he has done? What he had demanded of us?"

            Elle stiffened, feeling her father's reproach like a physical blow. Before all of this, she wouldn't have had the temerity to speak against him. Always the dutiful and complacent child being led about with her head down. Prior to this, she would have meekly accepted whatever her father deemed necessary, but no more. She was done accepting her fate at the hands of others. Through with people making decisions on her behalf, and tired of silencing her voice and not being heard.

            For once they would listen to her.

            Taking a deep breath, she bolstered her courage to fully face her father, dark eyes clashing angrily with an equally darker pair. "What he has done? Have you no accountability here?" she paused, inhaling a tremulous breath, "And I would chance everything for him, even my heart."

            Her mother and sisters gasped, as if horrified. Eyes widening with shock.

            A similar emotion vaulted across her father's seething expression, his dark eyes narrowing infinitesimally, "What are you saying? That you ... love that monster?"

            Elle held his gaze, unflinching in the intensity of his advancing fury. "You were quick to surrender your daughter to reputed monster."

            He winced, a deep look of regret and pain passing fleetingly over his exhausted visage, but he was quick to recover, that rage rearing aggressively in the shadows of his eyes. His jaw hardened. His nostrils flared.

            She felt his ire like a static on her skin. To see it, and to be confronted with it, made her instinctively want to shrink away.

            Steeling her spine, and her courage, she held firm.

            "You will mind your tongue, child."

            Child. Was she a child when he had handed her over to an utter stranger?

            "Have I not done enough of that?" Elle shot back, tears of anger and resentment stinging her eyes, her hands curling into fists.

            Silence fell heavily between them.

            "Gareth," her mother chose that moment to step between them, placing a comforting hand on her father's inflated chest as if to placate the tension. He blinked to awareness, some of the rage bleeding from his expression as he peered down at his wife, "We know nothing of what our daughter has endured, a conversation we can revisit at a later time. What matters is that she has returned safely to us, and is home."

            Her father glanced at her, appearing almost wounded, perusing her bruises as if to say in a silent way that she had been anything but safe. "Aye, Cora ... but at what cost."

            Without another word, he turned and stormed away.

            His anger and cold reception, hurt. It was not quite the joyous reunion she'd had in mind, but she had anticipated this. Her family was confused. Wary. In shock. She couldn't blame them, but she would not be silenced or intimidated any further.

            Her mother stepped closer, her glassy eyes gingerly caressing her broken lip. With a breath, she asked as if to reassure herself one last time, "Did Lord Rossetti hurt you?"

            A knot of emotion lodged tightly in her throat as a burning stirred at the back of her eyes. She felt so defeated, so overcome with emotion that she could have cried a legion of tears.

            Not in the way you think. Elle wanted to say, but couldn't bring herself to do it.

            Instead, "He saved me from a fate that would have done irreparable damage had he not intervened. He is not a monster, mother."

            Cora offered her daughter a tender smile and gently brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, "I believe you, darling." Casting a pensive look over her shoulder where her husband had disappeared, "Your father's anger is misguided. I know it may not seem like it now, but his heart is full of regrets." She reached up and cupped her chin, "We are so relieved to have you home, my love ... and with your sight," she paused, her mind fumbling for the right words, "Indeed, it is nothing short of a miracle."

            "It is." Elsa spoke up, offering a timid smile of her own.

            Esme kept her silence, her expression hard.

            "Are you in any pain?" her mother asked.

            Just my heart.

            She lowered her eyes, and shook her head.

            "Do you want to tell us what happened?" Elsa encouraged delicately.

            Her sister meant everything. Her sight. The bruises. Her captivity.

            Although the latter had felt anything but, her family believed she had suffered immeasurably.

            Again, she shook her head. After the heated confrontation with her father, she felt depleted and incredibly tired, and unquestionably ill-prepared for that in-depth conversation.

            As if her mother understood, "When you are ready," she took her hands and gave them a reassuring squeeze. "Why don't I make you something to eat? You must be hungry. And let's get you warmed by the fire; you're chilled to the bone."

            Her mother's attentiveness brought Lucy to mind, and she felt an immediate pang of loss.

            "What about them?" Esme hissed irritably, gesturing towards the crowd just beyond the door.

            "They cannot know," Elle was swift to reply, noticing that her sister avoided her stare altogether. Why did their relationship feel even more strained than before? "I haven't an explanation for my sight, and given how quick they are to assume the worst, I think it wise to say nothing until we know more." She met their eyes directly, "I will not have them thinking Don did this to me and draw outrageous conclusions."

            She could see their burning questions hovering behind their unblinking stares, but mercifully, they said nothing.

            "I agree," her mother stated, "Say nothing to no one, girls. I will talk with your father."

            Surprisingly, her sisters consented, albeit still wary and unsure.

            "Come, my love." Her mother shepherded her into the next room where a bed of hay awaited her.

********************************

            Don was sprawled in a chair at the end of the vacant hall, reclined in a way that welcomed whatever the shadows saw fit to deliver, the white witch ... or the darker.

            Screams sounded in his mind, and he readily invited every anguished cry of pain. The smell of charred remains. The sting of spiraling embers. He let the haunting memories wash over him, reverberate unencumbered through his bones.

            This time, he would not render his mind insensible. He would feel everything, channeling that heap of dark emotion in preparation for what he intended to do, for what he was willing to do to bring her back.

            Resting against his muscled thigh, was a massive Claymore with a forty-two-inch blade.

            His father's sword.

            Take my weapon, son. Protect your mother. Love her always. Rhys Rossetti had requested with his last shallow breath.

            He had failed his father.

            Had failed his mother.

            But he would not fail her.

            Don couldn't remember last when he had unsheathed it, much less wielded it. When he'd been gifted with the weapon, he hadn't an ounce of violence in his heart.

            Two decades ago, his weapon of choice had been fire.

            This time it would be steel.

            The flames in the hearth flickered and dimmed, and he knew without lifting his head that the shadows had produced a witch.

            "Have you considered my offer, dark one?"

            Don snickered beneath his hood, "Is that what we're calling it?"

            Veda sighed, "My request, then."

            He leaned forward, bracing an elbow on his knee, "Where is your declining half hiding?"

            A pause. "I know not."

            He glowered, "Her men?"

            "Again, I do not know."

            Irritation flitted through him, "What do you mean, woman? Is it not your gift to know these things?"

            "I know many things, beast, not all things. I thought we had established that. If we are to form an alliance of sorts, should we not be more ... pleasant to one another?"

            Don let out a harsh, clipped laugh, "Pleasant? Would you still think me pleasant once I drive this blade through your sister's treacherous heart? I should be clear; I'll not be gentle about it."

            Veda fell quiet and he felt those ice-blue eyes assessing him. "You have made a decision."

            "Begrudgingly," he remarked, then added as he rolled his shoulders, "But I do not fully trust you and we need not feign pleasantries in this fragile alliance. I much prefer your indifference, icy one."

            She gave a half-hearted shrug, "Suit yourself."

            Don raised his head and with his right hand, shoved the hood back, exposing his scarred face, saying in a tone that was more monstrous than man. "Bear in mind, witch, you sought me out. In this endeavor, I'll not hold back."

            Wintry eyes stared back emotionless, giving nothing away, but he sensed an uneasiness about her. A restlessness beneath that cool exterior. "I ask that you give me a chance to reason with her, one last time."

            "If you think that will save her," his misshapen mouth twisted into a sly grin, "But we both know it won't."

            "If I fail –"

            "When you fail ..." Don pushed to his full height and stalked towards her, dragging the tip of his sword purposefully across the stone floor as he closed the space that divided them. "The privilege falls to me, and I will shred her heart as she has done my face. Tell me, have you come to terms with her death yet?"

            She arched a brow, "And if you die?"

            He flashed her a grin, "Have you glimpsed my demise, ethereal one?"

            "Perhaps."

            Ice-blue clashed with gray-steel, "Then I'll procure my place in hell, but I'll be taking your sister with me."

            "You would readily accept death?" Veda queried, genuinely.

            His jaw hardened, "If death is my fate, it is nothing short of what I deserve for the offenses your sister forced me to commit."

            "That is not an answer."

            "Not the one you seek."

            Veda grinned a knowing smirk, but it slipped as a sudden and swift change jolted through her willowy frame; her wintry eyes splaying wide as a sheen of white bled through to the surface. She heaved an enormous breath, one that seemed too arduous for her slender frame as she expelled it harshly from her lungs.

            She stood like as a frozen fixture in the center of the room, her body present, but her mind somewhere far-reaching.

            A cold shaft of unease bellied through him as he realized she was having a vision. It was fleeting, lasting mere seconds. When Veda finally came to awareness, blinking away the white for the chilling blue to surface, she cast him an anxious look.

            "She is deep in the woods."

            Every muscle in his body tensed, "Elle –"

            Veda shook her head, wetting her dry lips. "Sera is too weak to make any attempts in capturing her."

            "Then her men will try."

            "My sister knows it is unwise to part with her numbers in her weakened condition. They are needed at her side until she has regained her strength."

            "What else did you see? You are withholding something."

            Veda hesitated, "There are two women missing from the village. Their absence will complicate matters. We must make haste if we are to have a chance –"

            "Say less, white witch." Don sheathed his sword, his expression turning to stone, "From this point on, we have an understanding of two things ... Sera will meet an end of some kind, and Elle is mine."