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Chapter 1

“...”

A girl woke up with a yell that caught in her throat before it could truly escape her. She shot up in her luxurious bed, dusty brown hair tossing alongside her stricken movements. Her now bright gray eyes were wide with panic as her chest heaved, breaths shallow and frantic. The familiar surroundings of her bedroom—the translucent golden curtains, the ornate furniture, the soft sunlight streaming through the windows—did little to calm her.

She clutched at her chest, finding only the silly material of a nightgown rather than sticky blood from a gushing wound. She glanced down, hands trembling. There was nothing there.

‘I’m… alive??’

Celine stared at her unstained palms for a long moment before she seemed to calm. Once the trembling abated, she looked around properly. This room, this bedroom, was familiar. And yet, different.

Celine recalled a time in which this was once her home. Celine had replaced the curtains ages ago. She had replaced the chairs with better models the day she turned 18, and the mirror she saw had been replaced with a bigger one when she was 22. Celine processed this information very carefully.

A mirror…

Celine hastily scrambled out of bed to check her reflection. Her suspicions were confirmed. It was not the 24-year-old Celine who stared back at her, with lackluster eyes, filled with sleep deprivation and stress. It was a younger, teenage Celine, with hair that stopped midway through her upper arm rather than falling all the way down her back. She stared deeply into her reflection, trying to come to terms with the surreal sight before her.

Suddenly, a knock resounded from the door to her bedroom.

“Lady Celine, it's time to wake up!”

The door opened before she collected herself, and a maid hurried into the room, pausing as she saw Celine at the mirror. Not just any maid. Miriam, who had raised her and tended to her until the day Celine was thrown into a convent.

“You're already awake, my lady? What's wrong? Why are you so pale?” Miriam said, concerned. It had only taken one look from Miriam for her to realize Celine’s state of mind.

Celine froze, gazing at her former maid with the eyes of an animal frozen in fear. She cleared her throat oddly, as if she hadn't spoken in quite some time.

“Miriam… what's today's date??” The sentence came out akin to a groan. It felt odd to speak so casually to someone she hadn't seen in two years.

“Why, miss, it's the twenty-second day of the third month, year 672 on the Coprian calendar! Have you forgotten?” Miriam stepped closer, putting a palm on Celine’s forehead.

“Your temperature seems to be fine… are you alright? It's not like you to wake up before I come. Did something happen?”

Celine shook her head, mentally reeling. Her appearance and surroundings made sense now. She was sixteen! The age she was before everything had gone downhill, and the age she had begun making a name for herself in society. She focused. She had to reply to Miriam.

“It's alright, Miriam. I just had a nightmare, that is all. Don't worry.” Celine placed a hand on her forehead as if to steady herself.

A nightmare… she almost wondered whether the future she’d been present in just a few moments ago was merely a long, drawn-out nightmare. A detailed, horrifyingly realistic dream that her brain had come up with to scare her. Celine almost laughed hollowly at the thought. Who was she fooling?

Miriam, not privy to Celine’s internal turmoil, sighed in relief.

“Then, shall you come down for breakfast, Miss? I let you sleep in today because you worked hard yesterday, but it's time for brunch.” Miriam had always been strict about her meals. The familiarity was comforting, though this Miriam was eight years younger.

“Can you bring it up here? I wish to eat in my room, Miriam.” Celine’s voice was now calm, betraying nothing.

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“If that is what you wish, my Lady. Make sure to take a walk afterward, as it's not healthy to stay cooped up all the time.” Miriam instructed her firmly before leaving the room to fetch her meal.

Celine sat at her table with a sigh. Now that she was alone again, her confusion and fear resumed its course.

“How…” she whispered, as if uttering the question aloud would give her the answer.

It wasn't a dream—everything felt too vivid, too real. The scents, the sounds, the weight of her body. She was really back in her 16-year-old self.

Her mind reeled as she tried to make sense of her memories. The garden, the blood. She could still hear the final words of her killer echoing in her head.

"You could have had it all…”

But it was as if that had never happened. Was this… some sort of a second chance? To make things right?

What a foolish thought.

She had proven her family right already. She wasn't suited to be any sort of political figure. She had failed to become the queen due to her shortcomings. It wasn't as if any of her achievements had rewarded her with her father's gaze.

But then, why was she alive again? And more importantly—who had orchestrated her downfall?

Celine bit her lip in frustration, anxiously fidgeting with the quill in her hands. Even if she wanted to make things right once more, it's not as if she had even the name and appearance of the one who killed her.

Despite her doubts, she took a deep breath and withdrew a sheet of paper from her desk’s drawer. If she truly was in the past now… which time would come to prove true or false, it was best to write down the facts.

Celine, though she'd given up on following her ambitions, still wanted to save her own life. It was time to write down some notes.

Firstly, she knew that whoever was her assailant, or who was behind her assailant, had snuck into a monastery to kill her. The chances of it being a nun were slim, and the boots on her face were not the shoes nuns were able to wear. This wasn't too big of a task, but they must have known her schedule fairly well. After all, the nuns, including her, tended to the garden at a regular schedule of swapping tasks cyclically.

Not only that, but she was killed exactly two years after she was exiled to the monastery. That reeked of some sort of personal grudge. As if they wanted her to suffer at the convent before they got around to ending her.

In her past life, the culmination of Celine’s misfortune, besides her death of course, was when she had been framed for treason. Indeed, the Lewis family, probably backed by more noble families, had accused her when she was twenty-two years old. Celine’s life had already gone downhill, and she had given up, quite honestly. She withdrew from high society, barely leaving her manor other than to meet up with the few friends she still had.

It had caught her off guard. Because there was obviously no sense to it. Yet somehow, the court had ruled her guilty. Some papers from here and there, not even bearing her handwriting, had been enough to get her exiled. What's more, her family was spared. Typically, treason involved the whole family getting beheaded. Her being exiled was odd enough, though having her life spared was a relief… initially.

Someone was pulling the strings. Someone with royal influence. Perhaps… everything that had gone wrong was due to this as well.

She scribbled down a few notes.

But… a grudge? Celine hadn't wronged anyone, quite honestly. If not for her family and academic prestige, she might as well have been a wallflower. She was good at studying, and politics to a degree, but she wasn't very good at making enemies, and she didn't spark much jealousy at first glance.

She rested her head on her hand, gazing out the window, watching the soft light cast patterns on the floor as it passed through her embroidered curtains.

Even the voice of her assailant had been quiet and unrecognizable. Yet, it was likely that whoever hated her had personally come to kill her. Otherwise, why had they uttered what they did?

"You could have had it all. If only you weren't so naive.”

Again and again, it played in her head like a broken record. It didn't seem likely that any sort of hired killer would speak that way to her, or speak during the task at all. Who hated her that much? Enough to do it themselves?

Of course, it had to be someone close to her. No one who hadn't met her could hate her that much, enough to kill her far after she left high society.

And that was it. The extent of Celine’s knowledge of her previous life's events… was this. How pathetic. Even in her last life, she could do nothing but grasp pathetically at straws as she lost everything she had, one by one. She died without even seeing the face of her masked killer— listening, powerless, to their jeers.

A familiar knock rang at the door, bringing Celine’s attention back to the present. Miriam brought brunch.

“Come in.”

Miriam opened the door without hesitation, walking briskly over and setting a food tray in front of Celine. Miriam didn't bother glancing at the paper Celine was writing on. Celine wasn't worried about her seeing either. She wasn't keen on telling anyone of the future she experienced—for various reasons—but even if Miriam began holding suspicions, Celine didn't think her maid wouldn't believe her.

Maybe that was the cause of her downfall, trusting one too many people.

Setting her thoughts aside for the moment, Celine picked up her spoon and ate. The whole moment felt so nostalgic that she forgot it had been two years since she tasted good food. The first bite took her by surprise. It had been years since she had tasted something so indulgent.

Maybe it was fine for her to take her time and get used to enjoying life again. She was sixteen now. Nothing had started yet. She had time to prepare, time to think about how to make things better.