Page 6 of Revert
I waited until Liora excused herself, then carefully checked every corner of my chamber to ensure I was truly alone before crossing the room and pulling back the heavy tapestry near the corner. My fingers found the groove in the stone behind it—loose, just enough to give. I removed the stone and reached into the hollow behind it.
I had discovered this hidden cubby a few months after I had been brought to the Thorndale palace following the finalizing of my engagement with the crown prince.
The journal adorning my desk was a decoy, kept meticulously up to date in the rigid, impersonal style expected at court. I maintained it for the spies that I had no doubt regularly searched my chambers, hoping they’d never think to look for the real journal hidden elsewhere.
In that true journal, I recorded everything: my secret suspicions, the subtle signs of betrayal, the coded truths of themission that had brought me to Thorndale under the guise of marriage. It held not only the details of my assignment, but the private thoughts and feelings I didn’t dare voice to anyone, as there was not a single soul in this court I could fully trust. Its pages were my only confidante.
Fingers trembling, I opened it, searching for the entries of the past two months that should be there…but they had vanished. I flipped to the front, then to the center, in case the pages might have come loose. But there was no evidence of severed edges indicating that the pages had been torn out. Nothing.
My hands shook as I turned the pages to the entry I distinctly remembered penning last night as I worked through the final details of the information I had painstakingly gathered. I could still hear the scratch of the quill, the pressure in my fingers from holding the pen too tightly, the racing thrill of believing that I was finally about to succeed after all these years.
I had concluded with the ciphered words: “The moment has finally come. Tonight, I make my move.” They too had disappeared, leaving only a blank page, as if the words had never been written at all.
I strained to still my shaking, but my body felt hollow as I slowly lowered the journal. This concrete and non-manipulatable proof in my own handwriting made it impossible to deny the reality of my circumstances any longer. One or two coincidences could be dismissed, but I couldn’t have dreamt the entire past two months of my life. Which meant the only other explanation…was that I had lived them.
Rather than die, I appeared to have gone back in time.
Thinking the words didn’t make sense, as if I’d scrambled them in the wrong order. I pressed my hand to my head, the pressure sharpening into a stabbing ache. My knees buckled as the world tilted around me and I collapsed into my chair.
Was this truly the past? Such a fact seemed like an impossibility, even for a land where magic existed as a rare commodity hoarded by the crown.
But thehowwas irrelevant; all that mattered was that I was here—alive and with full knowledge of what would transpire…including the sword stabbed through my heart from the man I was to marry. Anger and hatred surged as I clutched the journal tighter.
This time, I would not be caught unaware. This time, I would not fail, but do whatever it took to finish the mission, to stop the coming betrayal, and to survive.
However impossible, I had been given a second chance, and I would not waste it.
CHAPTER 3
What does one do after they’ve already lived their own death?
The question haunted me as I wandered the palace gardens, meticulously going over every piece of information I could recall about my first timeline for any clues that might help me navigate the surreal situation I now found myself in. The afternoon light did little to illuminate the confusion clouding my thoughts as I wandered, the silence broken only by the soft crunch of gravel beneath my slippers and the occasional rustle of the breeze stirring the leaves.
I kept to the secluded paths, far from the more visible promenades favored by the courtiers, unsure of who I could trust. It would only take one whisper, one watchful spy in the king’s vast network in the shadows of the Thorndale court, to expose me, costing me this second chance before I could even begin to seize it.
I still couldn’t fully accept the fact that I had died and gone back in time two months earlier; it didn’t feel real. The time I’d been allotted might have seemed a generous window at first glance, but with all the lingering mysteries surrounding my circumstances, I didn’t know if it would be enough.
The first timeline had undoubtedly been paved with small missteps that had eventually led to my demise, but I was certain many pivot points had passed unnoticed—moments I hadn’t realized were important, much less been what had ultimately led to my downfall.
The original plan I’d spent years calculating had ended in failure; I needed a new one if I hoped to survive. I doubted I would get another chance to reverse time again should this timeline meet the same end. Whatever magic had granted me this opportunity, I was convinced it would be the last, so I couldn’t afford to fail.
In the solitude of my private chambers that morning, I’d sketched a rough calendar of the original timeline, searching for any clue as to what path had ultimately led me to that dungeon corridor where I’d died—which clues had been significant, which were red herrings, which meetings had mattered, and conversations that had seemed meaningless at the time but now lingered in my memory like poison.
I committed it all to memory before I burned the parchment, watching it curl into ash, the secrets now safely tucked away in my mind far from any potential spy’s reach.
But there was only so much I could remember, and there were undoubtedly smaller details I’d either missed or deemed inconsequential the first time around. I tried to suppress the panic threatening to rise; it would serve no purpose moving forward. And yet, the worry clung like a shadow at the edge of my thoughts.
As my mind worked through the myriad of puzzles, I wandered the palace grounds, trying to ground myself in the present. I took in every detail reminding me that I was alive—the golden warmth of the sun cutting through the branches overhead, dappling the path beneath my feet in scattered light; the scent of lilacs and fresh herbs lingering in the breeze; the softmurmur of fountains and birdsong echoing through the gardens. Here, amidst the quiet bloom of roses and trimmed hedges, life pulsed on—vibrant, fleeting, precious.
And for now, at least, it was mine to protect.
Puzzling out this riddle of my return eclipsed me so completely that I didn’t register the passage of time until my accompanying guard interrupted my tumultuous thoughts. “Begging your pardon, Princess,” he said with a low bow, “But you have an appointment with His Highness, Crown Prince Castiel.”
My stomach dropped. I’d been so consumed with navigating the future that I’d neglected a duty in the present, a mistake that could potentially draw notice to myself I could ill afford; any unwanted attention had the potential to be deadly.
“Of course. I’ll meet with him straightaway.” The concession left my lips before the full realization of what I’d agreed to truly settled.
I was about to meet with my murderer.
