Isabella knew that she didn't hate Vincent. At all. Vincent could be her anything, her brother, her best friend, her teacher, but she had never seen him as her lover. "I'm sorry..." She repeated the apology in her head constantly. What if she refused Vincent, and he turned out to hate her shortly after? But what if she accepted the proposal, and the poor Bella would lose her freedom forever?

Just look at what marriage has turned out for her mother! People in the town always said that she's so lucky to become the wife of a count. Little did they know, her mother was trapped inside the Estate for years with an abusive, cheating and controlling husband.

Seven years before, Bella was too young to understand why her mother was always looking out of the window while blanking out. Until one cold winter day, when the hard-working servants woke up at dawn and discovered the mother's broken corpse right below her bedroom window, her father was livid.

All she remembered was the Count shouting and yelling, shaking the dead, cold and fragile body countless times, and laying a kiss on the woman's pale lips.

"Annette...Annette...C-Can you...hear me...? Annette!!"

Isabella didn't understand a thing. That scene in the head of eight years old Bella was simply embroidered into a dreamy fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. She stood there, silently waiting for her mother to wake up, but a servant dragged her away.

The night before her death, Annette called Isabella to her room as usual. The little Bella sat on the floor and leaned her head against her mother's knee, listening to her seraphic voice humming the melodies of the sirens. That was the same voice that made the Count go insane just to search for and marry an ordinary village woman. Annette caressed Bella's hair, the same vivid shade of burgundy that she herself has. For the first time of Bella's life, she heard her mother telling her about how they first met. Her fairytale continued, and ended with the endless mistresses he has out there. But the unfortunate woman had never blamed her husband. The Count's abuse and misbehave, through her narration, still felt like a dream.

"Does it hurt...?" Bella asked with the pure worry of a child, "When papa lays hand on you...?" Annette remained silent. Her gaze lingered at their reflection on the window before returning to Isabella.

"Soon, it won't be anymore."

A couple of days later, Annette's funeral was organised quick and simple. Not many guests were invited, but Vincent was there. The boy was a year younger than Isabella, but seemed to be much more mature. He held her hands, gently explaining that her mother won't be back anytime soon, so Bella must stay strong. The warmth of his hands were palpable even in the freezing weather. It's the warmth that then encouraged Bella to continue to walk through the Count's tantrum on behalf of departed Annette.