It was summer in Solmere, and the air reeked of pine resin and sea salt, carried inland by the restless coastal wind. The scent drifted through the latticed windows of the Velthorn estate, threading itself into the tapestries, clinging to polished wood and stone floors, anchoring itself like a memory too stubborn to fade.
Alyssa sat at the edge of her bed, silent and unmoving, her hands clenched tightly in her lap to stop their trembling. Her dark curls, longer than she remembered from this age, hung loose around her shoulders, brushing against the linen of her nightdress. The mirror before her reflected not the woman she had become, but a girl—twelve years old, wide-eyed and pale, with green eyes that still held the weight of someone who had died with regrets.
She had screamed the first time she saw her face.
Not from fear.
From grief.
The shock of it had cracked something open inside her. Not because she was afraid, but because the face she saw—the soft, unmarked skin, the childish roundness of her cheeks, the absence of every scar life had carved into her—was proof. Proof that she had been sent back. That death had not been the end.
It had taken her three days to believe it wasn't some cruel illusion. Not a hallucination brought on by smoke and fire. Not the final, fevered dream of a woman burning alive in a collapsing building.
Three days of pacing the room in silence, testing every memory like a blade against her palm.
She examined every corner. The chipped edge on her writing desk. The crack in the ceiling she used to imagine as a map of a foreign land. The uneven stitch on the hem of her curtains that her mother had promised to fix and never did.
It was all here.
All real.
Even the people.
The maids knocked with familiar rhythms. The steward still cleared his throat before announcing himself. Her father was still alive, Count Harven Velthorn, proud and distracted, pulsing with restless energy and ambition. On the second morning, Alyssa saw him hunched over his desk in the study, drafting letters about naval investments with ink-stained fingers and furrowed brows.
Her mother, Lady Mirene, was as she had once been, kind-eyed and graceful, brushing Alyssa's hair beneath the rose-covered arbor in the garden, asking softly about her lessons and offering the warmth of hands that would one day grow cold.
And the twins—Elias and Emric—only six. Loud, muddy, gap-toothed, running barefoot through the halls with mismatched socks and grass stains on their knees. They tackled her without hesitation, wrapped their arms around her waist, and begged for bedtime stories with the confidence only children possess, the kind who believe the world cannot break.
Alyssa wept the first time she hugged them.
Because she knew this wouldn't last.
The past had already shown its fangs.
But now, she had something she hadn't before. A weapon forged in blood, loss, and memory.
Knowledge.
Beneath the garden's old willow tree, where wind brushed through the canopy and petals drifted lazily to the earth, Alyssa sat with her knees drawn up, her eyes distant.
She remembered the future.
She remembered where everything had gone wrong.
She had been too young, too naïve to stop it before. But now? Now she would not let the past repeat itself.
Her family had drowned once, ruined beneath the weight of blind ambition and the silence of things left unsaid. This time, she would be their anchor.
But she couldn't tell them the truth. Not yet.
Her father would dismiss her words as a child's fantasy. Her mother, even if she believed, would only try to shield her, from a world Alyssa had already survived.
So she started quietly.
Watching. Listening. Writing notes by candlelight in a locked drawer beneath her bed.
She had less than a year before the unveiling of the Seastar, the pride of Velthorn's new shipyard. Less than a year before it shattered like glass across the sea, taking half of their name and all of their joy with it.
That was the first critical point.
She began by pretending to be curious.
"Father, can I see the blueprints again?" she asked one afternoon, standing in the doorway of his study, her tone light, casual.
Harven glanced up from his desk, surprised. "Blueprints? For the new ship?"
She nodded. "You said it had a ballroom. I was wondering where it's placed."
He chuckled. "That's an odd thing to wonder."
"I just like the idea of dancing on the sea," she said, forcing a soft smile.
He stared at her a moment longer, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, then waved her in. "Well then, come have a look."
She stepped into a world of parchment and ink, scrolls unrolled across the desk, diagrams stacked high. The schematics were intricate, lines of precision and care. She scanned the markings quickly. There, the ballroom, placed directly beneath the upper deck, centered beneath a grand chandelier.
Alyssa's throat tightened.
She ran her fingers along the lines, her breath catching. She remembered it vividly; The beams snapping like twigs, the chandelier crashing down, the water rising too fast to scream.
The timber had been faulty. Imported cheaply from the south. Her father hadn't known. Not then.
But she did.
"This part," she said softly, pointing. "It doesn't look as pretty as the one we have at the manor."
Harven blinked. "What makes you say that?"
"It just… doesn't have many beams. The other ballroom has more. It feels… prettier."
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he leaned closer, squinting at the drawing. His brow furrowed.
"You may be right," he murmured. "More beams wouldn't hurt. We could add more reinforcement here… and here…"
He trailed off, already reaching for his pen.
Alyssa let out a quiet breath and smiled faintly.
It had begun.