MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

Evelyn's reflection stared back at her with eyes too young to have seen death.

She traced her fingers across her collarbone, searching for the scar that should have marked where the blade entered. Nothing. Her skin was perfect, unmarred by violence or time. The wound existed only in her memory now, a phantom pain that pulsed with every heartbeat.

Her stomach lurched. She stumbled toward the basin just in time.

The sickness came in waves, violent and disorienting. Her body rejected the impossibility of her existence. She had died. She remembered dying. The cold of the dungeon floor, the copper taste of blood in her mouth, the slow fade of consciousness into nothing. Those memories were real. They had weight and texture and truth.

Yet here she stood, eighteen again, untouched by the future that had already happened.

Evelyn wiped her mouth with shaking hands. The temporal sickness, she thought dimly. She had read about it once in the Royal Archives, in a text about forbidden time magic. The body's rejection of displaced consciousness. Physical proof that she was not supposed to be here, that she had broken some fundamental law of existence.

Good. Let it hurt. She would use the pain to remember.

She splashed cold water on her face, watching the droplets slide down her chin and disappear into the basin. In the mirror, her reflection looked pale and haunted. This was the face of the girl who had trusted too easily. Who had smiled at her brother's gifts and believed in his protection. Who had thought Ian Magnus was bound to her safety rather than her execution.

Never again.

Evelyn straightened slowly, meeting her own gaze. The innocent girl in the mirror would die today. Not literally, not yet, but she would die nonetheless. She had to. The path ahead required someone harder, someone willing to smile while sharpening knives in the dark. Someone who could play the dutiful sister while plotting her brother's downfall.

She would become the weapon they had tried to break.

"Your Highness?" Helen's voice drifted through the door, tentative and concerned. "His Highness the Crown Prince requests your presence at breakfast. He is waiting in the solarium."

Evelyn's hands clenched on the edge of the basin. Ten minutes. She had ten minutes before she had to face her murderer and pretend she did not know what lived behind his gentle smiles.

"Tell him I will be there shortly," she called back, proud that her voice did not shake.

She heard Helen's footsteps retreat down the corridor. Alone again, Evelyn allowed herself one moment of weakness. She closed her eyes and let the memories wash over her. Asher's face as he explained why she had to die. The cold efficiency in his voice. The way he had touched her hair one last time before leaving her to bleed out in the dark.

The memory burned. She fed it into the hollow space behind her ribs where her Lumin magic should have lived. Let it fuel the rage she would need to survive.

When she opened her eyes, the girl in the mirror had changed. The softness had drained from her expression, replaced by something sharp and calculating. Better. This was the face she would need to wear.

Evelyn moved to her wardrobe with deliberate calm. She selected a morning dress in pale gold, the color of sunlight on water. Asher liked when she wore gold. It reminded him of the power he would soon steal from her. Let him look at the color and think himself victorious. She would smile and play the part he expected.

While she sharpened the blade.

She dressed herself carefully, rejecting the elaborate court gowns for something simpler. Her fingers fumbled with the laces. In her first life, she had always needed help with her clothing. The dutiful princess who could not even dress herself. Pathetic.

This time would be different. She would learn every skill they had kept from her. She would become competent in all the ways they had encouraged her to remain helpless.

The dress settled over her shoulders like armor. Evelyn studied herself one final time in the mirror. She looked every inch the Sunstone Princess. Delicate, beautiful, utterly breakable.

Perfect.

She took a breath, feeling the air fill her lungs. Her body still worked. Her heart still beat. She had time. Not much, but enough to change the pattern. Enough to save herself from the future that had already consumed her once.

Evelyn walked to the door and placed her hand on the handle. On the other side waited her brother, the man who would smile while fastening a cursed choker around her neck. The man who would drain her magic drop by drop while speaking of protection and love. The man who would eventually order her execution when she stopped being useful.

She had to face him. Had to sit across from him and pretend everything was normal. Had to eat breakfast and discuss court gossip and act as if she did not know he was a monster wearing her brother's face.

Ten minutes until she walked into hell with a smile

Evelyn dug her nails into her palm one more time, grounding herself in the sharp bite of pain. The crescent marks bloomed red against her skin. Real. She was real. This was happening.

She opened the door and stepped into the corridor, leaving the innocent girl behind in the mirror's reflection.