Page 56 of Revert
Something about this stirred the edge of a forgotten feeling—something buried deep that didn’t quite belong. But before I could name it, he extended his hand—not as a prince, not as a protector, but as something else entirely. A silent invitation I didn’t understand, only that it felt like a beginning.
A sense of rightness settled over me as his fingers curled securely around mine.
I remembered the first time he held my hand. It had been brief—a quiet moment in the library, away from watching eyes. He’d reached for me without thinking, our fingers brushing, then lacing. For a heartbeat, something warm flickered between us, startling in its tenderness. In that moment, the weight of the court seemed to lift, and I saw not the prince I’d been sent to marry, but the man behind the crown—someone unexpectedly gentle, someone I might one day come to understand. It was the beginning of something I hadn’t dared to hope for in Thorndale’s cold, watchful halls…a hint of something far more beautiful than I’d imagined when I first arrived.
But the moment passed, vanishing like breath on glass. By the next day, he was distant again…but there was something different about this distance—not cold and foreboding, almost shy. He made no mention of what had transpired, as if it had never happened at all…even as it was a moment I was desperate to recapture.
The strange vision shattered. But unlike the previous times, the broken pieces that lay scattered around me were larger and more clear, enough that I could still see key details. I tried toassemble them in a fractured whole, but I couldn’t make sense of the fragments, flashes I couldn’t tell were memories or illusions.
A new fear different than the usual terror that permeated the Thorndale court took root. I had accepted the time reversal too easily, been so consumed by the need to avoid my death that I hadn’t stopped to ask the most dangerous question of all:what if the timeline didn’t just change the world around me, but had changed me too?
Because I was remembering things I knew had never happened—moments so vivid they couldn’t be imagined, but impossible to place. These flashes were becoming more frequent and more intense, and at the center of every single one was Castiel.
The wisps of the vision were fading. I tried to grasp them, but they slipped further out of reach as a sudden sharp pain lanced through my temples. I gasped, clutching my forehead.
“Are you alright, Bernice?” Castiel hovered protectively beside me, his hand featherlight against my back.
I managed a nod. “For a moment, I thought I saw—” But I had no words to describe it, other than the strangest sense of nostalgia. I shook my head. “Nevermind.”
An intensity I couldn’t name filled his expression. He searched my face with a look like he wanted to press me, or as if there was something hidden that he was desperate to reclaim.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked softly. “Do you want to go back?” The usual mask had been stripped away, revealing a voice and expression filled with concern.
The pulsing headache was subsiding now, enough for me to stare up at him. “No, I want to remain with you.”
It was a mystery that had followed me like a shadow since the moment I woke in this altered timeline, growing heavier with each deviation from the path I remembered. This was a worldwhere Castiel was no longer my enemy…a truth I wasn’t sure how to hold, much as I wanted to explore it.
Every glance. Every touch. Every unspoken word begged questions I hadn’t dared ask…until now, as if every interaction he’d been finding keys to unlock these feelings that were both new and familiar from wherever they were hiding.
I wasn’t sure what waited for me at the end of this unraveling path—but I was done pretending. Something had shifted between us, and I was finally ready to face it.
CHAPTER 16
Iwasn’t sure where Castiel was leading me, only that I didn’t want to let go of his hand. The destination felt secondary to the choice I had made to follow him, even if I didn’t yet know where it would lead. The court wouldn’t follow us to this quiet place, though I was certain someone was still watching.
The clamor of the court grew more distant until it faded behind us, swallowed by the hush of the trees as we moved farther from the palace grounds. The path narrowed and twisted beneath our feet, weeds pushing through the cracked stone like time reclaiming its hold.
Blooming trees arched overhead, their branches laced in pale blossoms that swayed gently in the breeze, dappling the ground in shifting light. As we ventured deeper into the grove, the air shifted to something softer, scented with earth and a sweet fragrance that stirred something deep inside me.
I knew this path…or rather, something in me did. Each stone, each bend in the trail, stirred a feeling just out of reach—a ripple in still water, a whisper I couldn’t quite hear. Familiar, yet elusive, like chasing the edge of a dream upon waking.
The twisting path opened into a clearing awash in soft, slanting light. My breath caught. At the end of the trail, ruins rose from the mossy earth like the bones of a forgotten chapel—sacred not in grandeur, but in stillness. Vines coiled around the remains of ancient pillars, the carved stone worn smooth by wind and time. The air grew cooler, filtered through a canopy of swaying branches, tinged with the scent of moss and damp stone.
Its arched frame was half-swallowed by ivy, weathered stone catching the light like shards of fractured ice. Wild roses spilled across the eastern wall, blooming in colors too rich to be natural, their fragrant perfume scenting the air with sweetness and memory. The silence here felt different, weighted with something unspoken, something lost.
“What is this place?” I asked, my voice quiet in the hush.
Castiel stood beside me in silence, his gaze sweeping the ruin with something deeper than recognition. His hand tightened gently around mine, the only outward sign of the emotion he tried so hard to mask. For a moment, he looked utterly unguarded—not a prince or weapon shaped by the crown, just a man returning to a place that had once meant something.
“You certainly know how to romance a woman,” I teased. “Silent teas, abandoned libraries, awkward picnics, enchanted closets…now ruins.” What might have once been a sarcastic quip sounded almost flirtatious, as if the familiarity of the place had beckoned the response.
His lips parted, then pressed into a line, as though his response had vanished before reaching the air. “It’s significant,” he said at last, voice low. “Because it was ours. Once.”
The words enfolded me as I turned back towards the ruin. The longer I stood there, the more I felt a stirring just beneath the surface of thought. Not quite memory, but something closeto it—a tug in my chest that responded to the scent of blooming flowers, the sight of ivy-split stone, the hush of forgotten things.
For a fleeting moment, I imagined laughter echoing through the ruins…my own. I could almost see the space whole again: sunlight filtered through crystal panes, our hands dusted with earth from a shared planting. Not a memory I remembered, but one Ifelt, as if the pieces of it lived in my skin, waiting to be reassembled.
I stepped forward, releasing his hand without quite meaning to. My fingertips brushed a broken arch wrapped in flowering vine. Warmth pulsed through my palm—not from the sun, but from something older, familiar.
