“No,” the word rang out in the quiet of the night and Liliana stared at the woman before her in shock.

She’d admit, she had never really expected a negative answer to her request. She’d become accustomed to being told ‘yes’ by anyone who wasn’t her father or stepmother in this world. No one ever told a noble no, unless they were above them politically or socially and few could boast a position of power above that of a Duke’s daughter. Even an unwanted one.

“What?” Liliana asked the woman before her.

“I said no,” Natalia said, leaning back on her mountain of pillows and taking a deep breath of the pipe hanging from her delicate fingers. She was dressed in far more fabric than Liliana had ever seen her, though it was made at a far higher grade than her show outfits. Even the pillows she lounged upon were expensive to Liliana’s eyes, made of delicate silks and plush satins. Natalia was obviously a fan of luxury with how she surrounded herself in soft fabrics and rich tapestries hanging from every available spot in the tent.

“Why?” Liliana asked, struck too dumb to ask any question requiring over one syllable.

“I just don’t see why I should,” Natalia said with a shrug of her muscled shoulders. This close, Liliana could see the muscles rippling down her shoulders and arms, the only skin revealed by her draping outfit that looked like a mix of a dress and pants suit. It was obvious the woman devoted as much time to strengthening her body as her skills.

“I could pay you!” Liliana said quickly. Natalia laughed, the sound deep and rolling.

“Love, I have all the money I want. Why would I go out and seek more than I need?” Natalia asked and Liliana’s mouth opened and shut several times like a fish gasping for breath. She didn’t want money? Everyone wanted money.

“The prestige of teaching the daughter of the largest dukedom in the Cista queendom?” Liliana tried the next tactic. Money and fame. Everyone sought one of those two. Natalia’s low laugh filled the tent again and Liliana stared at her, stunned as the woman shook her head, dark curls bouncing.

“The only fame I seek is the fame I already have. Now what more could you possibly offer me, little noble?” Natalia offered, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

“What do you want?” Liliana asked, voice tinged in desperation. Natalia hummed and took another long breath with her pipe. She tapped her finger against it as she tilted her head back and breathed out smoke rings.

“That’s better. You shouldn’t be so quick to assume you know what everyone wants, little noble.” Natalia finally spoke and Liliana drooped at the obvious rejection in her tone. Natalia tilted her head a little and gave her a half smirk.

“Aw, don’t pout so much dear, it breaks my cold heart.” Natalia’s words were comforting, but her tone was mocking and Liliana felt anger filling her. She wasn’t used to be treated with disrespect like this from people not in the manor, or nobles she couldn’t fight against. But Natalia was just a street performer! What right did she have to look down on her?

You came to her for help. Swallow your damn pride before you become the very thing you used to sneer at, Liliana chided herself, and the anger drained from her as quickly as it came.

“What do I need to do to convince you to train me?” Liliana tried a new tactic. She had come here tonight, snuck out of her room and through the camp to meet with Natalia. She wouldn’t let that all be for naught.

“Impress me, little noble girl full of anger and pain,” Natalia spoke up, her tone challenging now. Liliana’s head whipped up to meet the eyes of the woman lounging before her.

“I don’t care about your father’s money and power. I don’t need borrowed wealth and fame. I don’t care about what others have given you. I want to see what you have to give. Show me why I should teach you. Not the daughter of a duke, not the spoiled rich girl. Show me why I should waste my time and effort on you, Liliana,” Natalia spoke, her husky voice filling the tent and heavy with challenge and derision.

It was obvious what the woman thought of the girl trying to use her family name to get her way. Liliana felt shame at that. When had she begun to use the Rosengarde name like a weapon? The very name she had told herself she wanted nothing to do with? The second she was given a bit of power with it, she’d used it without hesitation.

“Why would I waste my time training someone who will never use what I teach them to the fullest? I only take apprentices rarely. Those who will stand on their own two feet, with their own strength. I won’t take weaklings too scared of their own shadow and too full of hate and pain to be trusted with power. When you can show me you can stand on your own merit, you stop using your pain as an excuse, and become something more than just a victim. I’ll think about it.” Natalia finished, and Liliana flinched at every truthful word, each fired with pinpoint accuracy as they speared her through. She looked at the woman, confusion and suspicion clear on her face. How had she known so much? Liliana had never met her before today.

“Don’t underestimate how much servants hear, or how far their gossip can reach. And don’t forget you’re not the only one who has sub-affinities,” Natalia seemed to take some pity on Liliana’s confusion, though her words birthed more questions than answers.

The servants were probably gossiping about my breakdowns and my history. They love to smear my name at any given opportunity. Unless… she can Astral Project and she’s been spying around the manor? Or she has the Psyche sub-affinity and can use Empathy or read minds or something? Liliana’s mind was whirling with different possibilities of what could have given Natalia the insight she had.

“Now, I believe you should get back to your room before you’re missed. Don’t be too discouraged, this isn’t the last time our paths will cross, little lost noble girl,” Natalia was dismissing her and despite her words, Liliana couldn’t help the hurt the rejection inspired.

She couldn’t really think of a time she’d been rejected like this, not as herself. Not when it wasn’t expected. In her past life, her parents hadn’t denied her anything, not really. In this one since becoming Liliana, Astrid and Silas had acquiesced to every request. Even the ones they didn’t like entirely or weren’t comfortable with. Rejection this utterly complete wasn’t something she was used to, and it tasted bitter on her tongue, twisting her heart.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Remember, next time we meet, I want to meet the real Liliana. I hope she finally shows her face,” Natalia called out with another low chuckle as Liliana practically fled from the tent. Her throat was too clogged and her tongue too heavy to give any kind of proper reply, let alone goodbye. She barely remembered to activate [Invisibility] as she rushed to her room. The further she got, the more the rejection turned from pain to anger until it developed into rage.

As Liliana got into her room, she ripped off her dark cloak and clothes, tossing them on the ground without a care as she tugged on her nightgown with rough movements. The sound of ripping fabric let her know she’d damaged it and she growled, an animalistic sound that was more appropriate coming from Lelantos than her. She grabbed another nightgown and pulled it on, discarding the tattered remains of the first. She didn’t sit down, though.

She paced in her room before her bed, for once glad Lelantos wasn’t in here. He was sleeping in the other room, probably curled up with Flint and Clover. She was glad none of them had to see her right now. She barely had a handle on her own anger and didn’t want them to have to see or possibly experience it.

Who does she think she is? Saying that to me! Liliana thought as she paced, another low growl erupting from her throat. Her hands were curled into claws and she didn’t realize it, but she looked like a tiger pacing its cage at that moment as her rage rolled off her in waves.

I don’t use my pain as an excuse! How dare she! Liliana thought, causing another growl at the thought. And so what if she did? She deserved some clemency considering the shit she went through! Since getting into this world, she’d been in mortal danger! If not from her psychopath of a stepmother, then from the things she had to fight to get stronger! Or from cursed pendants and gods who wanted her to save a whole damn world! Her life was nothing but danger! And she was just sixteen in a fourteen-year-old’s body! So what if she was hurting and angry? Didn’t she deserve to feel these things?

More than a victim?! I am more than a victim! I’ve fought against the odds, clawed my way up from nothing to become someone stronger than anyone thought I’d ever be! Everyday I’m fighting against expectations of failure and threats to my life, Liliana thought but her rage was wearing off and her pacing was slowing, exhaustion seeping into her bones. She slumped to the ground, arms wrapping around her knees in search of comfort.

“I’m more than a victim, right? I’m more than just Liliana Rosengarde, I’m…” Liliana trailed off as she tried to figure out who she saw herself as.

She hadn’t really had much of a chance to think of who she was. As her mind ran through the problem, she really looked at herself. She’d been someone else once, a girl who was destined to die before she ever lived, cancer robbing her of her youth and future. She knew she still held bitterness about the life she felt she was supposed to have, and was never given a chance to experience. Liliana didn’t realize how much she resented her original fate until she was forced to look at it. She hated she had never gotten to be a normal girl in her last life, and now in this one, in her second life, she was once again being robbed of any hope of normalcy or respite.

Liliana was angry, and full of a deep hate that festered in her heart like an infected cut. She was angry at the gods, for they obviously did exist, for letting a young girl get an incurable cancer that drained the life from her slowly and took any chance for happiness from her and her family. Liliana was angry that instead of letting her have a normal next life, they’d put a responsibility on her shoulders that most adults would break under.

She was fucking pissed that Vita had put her in the body of the girl destined to be a villain, putting her at a disadvantage from day one. Instead of making anything easy for her, the goddess had specifically made everything harder for her. She was angry that she had to work so hard just to be accepted, to be loved.

It hurt, it broke her heart, that she couldn’t have a normal childhood. Something she’d hoped and prayed for everyday in her last life. She knew that was something she would never experience. Not in her past life, and certainly not in this one. All the pain, all the suffering she’d gone through, and she still couldn’t be graced with at least a normal childhood. Her heart was shattered that her own father in this life didn’t love her, and that she knew she’d never get his love. It hurt that her own stepmother was trying to kill her and no one in this house would believe her about it. That they’d let her die because they couldn’t see it. It hurt that she had to live through fourteen years of abuse in months through memories. Never given the time to process what she’d experienced, jumping from one fight and life-threatening situation to the next without a chance to breathe.

Natalia was right. She was hurt, and she was angry, and it filled her more than she’d ever realized. It influenced her choices and decisions more than she’d believed. That hurt and anger that festered so deeply in her was what had called to the pendant in the first place, she realized. It had been a siren’s song to that entity, marking her as an easy target. Even after going through that, she still hadn’t done the soul searching she needed to, to find out what had made the pendant chose her.

It hadn’t been because that was what was written by fate. It was because she was so broken and twisted inside that the pendant had seen it as a chance. The pendant chose her and not her stepmother because of the mess she carried inside her like a rotting wound. She was an easier mark, easier to lead to the darkness that promised a reprieve from her pain and a focus for her anger.

As Liliana was hit with realization after realization, she knew she’d been thinking of herself as a victim since she’d come into this world. She’d been holding this anger, pain and self pity in her and making it who she was. And it wasn’t who she wanted to be. She didn’t want to be a victim, didn’t want to live her life making decisions born of hate and pain. That was what lead the original Liliana down the path to destruction, and she wouldn’t let that happen to her.

Not just because of fear for her own death, she realized, but fear for the demise of those she now loved in this world. Fear of the pain she would inflict on her own brother and friends if they were forced to kill her like in the game. How could she let Alistair kill his own sister if she succumbed to this darkness writhing inside of her? It would kill him as much as her. And only one of them would have to live with it.

Who am I without being a victim, though? Without being Liliana Rosengarde, the unwanted, unloved daughter of the duke? Without being the sick girl who never lived before she died, and was then forced into a life she didn’t ask for? Liliana thought, shivering in fear as she realized she did not know who she was without all the self-inflicted titles she’d given herself, but there was hope too. She wanted to know who she’d be, without the mantle of anger and pain hanging heavy on her shoulders. She wanted to meet this girl, the woman she could become.

Liliana stood, wincing at her cramped muscles, realizing she’d been sitting for a long time when she saw dawn lighting the sky outside. She’d spent most of the night trapped in her mind, breaking herself down into all her parts so she could discover who she really was. She plodded to her bed and fell down, rolling over and wrapping herself in the blankets like a burrito as she closed her eyes, feeling somewhat content. Liliana had made a decision today, one she knew would be hard to follow through. It wouldn’t be easy to let go of the pain and anger living in her, but she felt like deciding to was the hardest step.

For the first time since coming into this world, Liliana felt optimistic for the future, as she was lulled into a deep sleep.