TWO

*THREE YEARS LATER*

Ice crunches beneath my feet, gloved hands rubbing together to chase off the cold.

"I'm so glad you're coming tonight," I murmur, breath fogging our in front of me.

Glancing to my right, I catch the knowing smile of my friend, Lei. She's as bundled up as I am, a creamy woollen hat pulled over her already near-white hair, scarf wrapped right up to her chin. We have just finished another year of university, although the weather never permits celebrating. Where we live, it's perpetual winter.

"There is no way I would miss one of the Rivia families magnificent balls," she jokes, nudging me playfully, risking sending me sliding across the slick patches of ice that litter the cobblestone bridge we cross over.

My mothers balls are no rare occasion, so finishing another year of university is just an excuse for her to celebrate.

"I don't know who my mother thinks she is impressing," I sigh, looking up at the grey sky, clouds swirling menacingly, suggesting snow is going to start falling again soon. "Everyone already knows she is wealthy."

"You know Alec is coming, right?" she reminds me with a raised brow.

"Alec is not worth me losing my life to my mothers hand," I exasperate, kicking a stray piece of ice away from my path.

My mother's strictness hasn't changed since I became an adult. She still believes I should wait for my mate, that I shouldn't give any boy attention until then. Finding a mate is never guaranteed, and even then, I may not find them until I am much older.

"So you do like him?"

I shrug, knowing very well that I don't like Alec. "You know I nearly kissed Alec once."

Lei's head snaps toward me, milky brown eyes muddled with surprise. She wasn't friends with me when I dated him, us having only meet since starting university. It was just luck, or perhaps the opposite, that Alec was in a lot of our classes. He's grown a lot since I nearly kissed him, although I have no interest in starting that back up again.

"What, when?"

"I didn't tell you this before because I figured you would make it a big deal," I say with a sigh, wishing I wasn't foolish enough to indulge her with this information. "It was on the day I nearly died, when I slipped under the waterfall."

Lei has only heard me tell her that story once. It's not something I like reliving, having it haunt my dreams every night being enough to keep the fear alive and well. My mother dismisses it, but I used to get nervous near flowing water or places where I could potential fall in.

I'm better now, I tell myself.

"Seriously?"

"When I was pulled out by that guy, Alec was nowhere to be seen," I explain. That's the main reason why Alec can't even look me in the eye now, knowing he left me for dead. "We haven't talked about it since. It honestly bothers me that he wasn't the one to save me, and some stranger was."

Whoever that stranger was, they carried me all the way to the nearby hospital and left me there, not coming back to allow me to thank them. My mother even put ads in the paper, yet there was no response.

Whoever saved me, doesn't want to be found.

"He was probably scared," Lei says. It's not the first time she has said that. "It was an unexpected accident after all."

I look out across the fields, heaped with snow. It still perplexes me that anyone else was out there when Alec and I arrived. I could have been certain it was just us out there, although my memory of the incident has been less and less reliable as the days go on. He must have come down the path as it happened...

"It's been on my mind a lot lately. In two months it will be exactly three years since it happened," I remind her.

Lei cares, or at least tries to. I don't blame her for finding my obsession with the incident strange. The incident feels like the beginning of this strange journey.

"It was traumatic for you, I mean, you nearly died. Of course it's going to be on your mind," she says, nudging me again.

I smile tightly. That's an understatement.

"Oddly enough, the fact that I could have died doesn't bother me," I say. It's half true, as in a way I've managed to accept that I came out alive, and that was what was meant to happen, yet the feeling on being trapped under the surface does haunt my dreams most nights. "I just have this burning curiosity to know who that man was."

Lei eyes my mother's estate in the distance, a smile playing on her lips.

"Remember when you drank a little too much and admitted to me that he was hot."

I wince, wondering whether running into the forest that flanks the other side of the road we stroll down would be more merciful than to hear Lei terrorise me with this. In my drunken stupor I had meant it to, enamoured by the man's dark eyes, even with the blurriness.

"I take that back. I hardly remember what he looked like at all," I tell her dismissively, watching her roll her eyes playfully. At least I don't have to worry about her spreading that information to anyone else, as my best friend.

When the incident happened, I was the talk of the town for far too long. I don't want to go back to that time, to see those skeptical, curious glances again.

"You're such a liar."

"It doesn't matter, it's in the past. As much as it's nearly impossible to stop thinking about it, I need to. It's becoming unhealthy," I say, drawing in a long breath of the cold air around us. It makes me shudder, but it's refreshing.

"Unhealthy how?"

"I have nightmares about it almost every night. And I'm paranoid, always feeling like someone is watching me, lurking in the shadows," I admit.

The feeling of being followed is an especially vivid one. It started the moment I returned home from the hospital. It's lead me to close my curtains earlier at night, to always as Lei to accompany on walks home from school. Sometimes I swear I catch flashes of shadows behind me, like I'm close to catching something there, yet am always a moment too late.

"The only thing Aven Rivia needs to be frightened of is her mother," Lei reminds, to which I sigh in agreement. "Now, let's go get ready for the ball. Something tells me tonight is going to be magical."

Magical indeed.