The mornings grew sharper as winter pressed deeper into the bones of the forest. Violet woke before dawn again, breath trembling in the small room as she pushed herself upright, heartbeat still running from dreams that weren't dreams at all.
Everything in her felt too awake, too aware, as if every bruise from her past life hovered beneath her skin like phantom marks.
She sat there for a long moment, listening to the house creak around her, the faint warmth of the dying embers seeping under her door.
Maria murmured somewhere in her sleep. Garrett shifted once, boots scraping against the floor. The sound steadied her.
She exhaled slowly.
Today she had to test the spells again.
She pulled on her coat, fingers shaking from cold or anticipation—she didn't know.
Outside the world was muted, pale. Frost lined the fence posts like thin silver scars. The sky was only beginning to glow.
She walked far enough from the cottage that the trees swallowed her whole.
Only then did she stop. Her breath fogged the air as she lifted her hand.
Flame Breath was the simplest. Not simple—but the kind of magic that answered hunger and instinct. She closed her eyes, felt the mana coil in her stomach, rising like something alive.
The first time she had used it, her throat had burned raw for hours. Now her body accepted it more easily. A small mercy.
( FLAME BREATH )
The words were nothing like the ancient forms Mr. Raven had taught her, but they carried enough intention. Heat surged up, hot enough to sting behind her teeth, and she leaned forward.
Fire burst out in a low, controlled exhale, searing a line through the frost-covered brush. Steam hissed.
Her hands tightened.
Not enough.
She moved to the next spell.
( Flame Blast )
Raw power compressed. Dangerous, greedy.
She braced her small feet against the frozen ground and channeled mana into her palms.
It pulsed and vibrated, angry like it remembered the decades she had once lived in a dying body.
She shoved forward.
The blast erupted from her hands with a loud crack, slamming into a tree and bursting its bark outward, sending shards scattering across the ground.
Birds fled from nearby branches, crying out in panic.
Violet's breathing hitched. Her hands shook. She waited for the familiar pain, the backlash, the curse tearing through her veins.
Nothing.
Not even a flicker.
Her throat tightened. She almost laughed. Almost cried. Something in her chest felt too large and too fragile all at once.
She wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat.
That would've been enough for the day, but there was the other one.
The one that didn't belong to the basics.
The one Mr. Raven had tried to teach her, once, in the hall where she could barely stand from her illness.
He'd warned her it wasn't meant for someone like her. That even full knights used it sparingly.
She remembered failing to even gather the mana at the time. Too weak. Too poisoned. Too cursed.
Now she felt it coiling under her ribs like a second heartbeat.
She didn't speak it aloud. The spell didn't need a word so much as a shape of intention—like grabbing lightning with bare hands.
She reached inside herself and pulled.
The forest held its breath.
Mana surged violently, wild, dangerous, sharp enough to make her teeth ache.
She cut it off immediately, releasing it before it could take form.
The backlash snapped through her arms like ice. Her vision blurred.
Her knees hit the snow.
Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, the world spinning for a moment.
She could use it once every few days, maybe. Any more and she'd collapse. That was fine. She didn't need it for everything.
She only needed it for Vael. For his tribe. For the moment the First Princess would descend like a storm.
And for Calla. Eventually.
Wind blew against her ears, almost drowning the whisper of memories.
Screams.
Fire.
Broken bone.
Vael's severed hand in a silk-wrapped bag.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, breathing through the ache.
Eighteen to twenty months. That's how long she had. Less, maybe, depending on how quickly the capital prepared the expedition.
The timeline was brittle in her memory, full of cracks from pain, but she knew the order of things.
Winterbeast.
Then at ten years old—first priness conquest.
Vael's tribe burned. His people slaughtered.
His fate sealed.
Not this time.
She stood, brushing snow off her knees. Her breath steadied. Her mind sharpened.
She needed help.
But she knew Maria would break under the truth.
She was not ready to tell her the fate of her family, too trusting, too unwilling to believe someone she loved could be poison.
Violet couldn't crush her like that. Not yet.
But her papa—
Garrett was different.
He had been the first one to suspect Calla in her first life.... Quietly... She knew that
Without saying it aloud.
He had never trusted the woman fully.
She couldn't tell him yet.
If Garrett learned that Calla had killed Violet and Maria both—
he would kill without hesitation.
He believed to end the root of the problem even if means waging war against whole empire, she can't put her father in the war, if he stays here, she can focus better on her plan.
She needed to move carefully.
Only enough truth to gain his help.
Only enough to keep him alive.
She took a slow, deep breath and headed back.
The cottage door creaked softly as she entered. Maria turned with a start from the stove.
"Littlebird? You're up early again—did you go outside without boots? You'll freeze—"
"Sorry," Violet mumbled, slipping past her, letting Maria fuss with a blanket around her shoulders. The warmth felt suffocating... Safe.
Terrifyingly fragile.
Garrett sat at the table, sharpening his knife with the steady rhythm he always had.
His eyes flicked up, lingering on Violet a second too long, taking in the frost in her hair, the flush in her cheeks.
He noticed everything. Always had.
Violet kept her gaze on the floor.
"Papa," she said quietly. "Can we… hunt today?"
Maria paused mid-stir. Garrett's hand stopped on the blade.
"Hunt?" he repeated, voice low. "You haven't asked in months."
"I feel better," Violet said, letting her voice wobble just a little, the perfect balance of childish nerves and hesitant strength. "I want to try again."
Garrett studied her with that unreadable expression he had mastered long before she was born.
Maria looked between them, worry settling into her shoulders.
"I'll come too—"
"No," Violet blurted. "I… I want time with Papa."
Maria froze. Garrett's brow lifted slightly.
"Alright," he said finally. "Finish eating. We'll go when the sun's higher."
Violet nodded and forced down food, her stomach tight with nerves she hadn't felt since facing Velanor's blade. She could feel Garrett watching her through breakfast. Maria kept asking if she felt feverish.
When they finally stepped outside, Garrett handed her a small bow—lightweight, sized for her hands—and a quiver with only three arrows. He didn't say anything as they walked into the trees.
The silence stretched.
Violet struggled with it.
After a while, Garrett said quietly, "You're different."
Her throat tightened.
He didn't say it accusingly. More like a man commenting on the weather. Gravely, steadily.
"You watch the door before sleeping. You wake up three times a night. You flinch when Calla touches your shoulder." His boots crunched through snow. "And now you want to hunt."
Violet's hands shook around the bowstring.
Garrett continued. "I don't push. Kids change." His voice dropped lower. "But sometimes change has teeth."
She stopped walking.
The trees around them seemed to lean closer.
Garrett turned slightly to look back at her.
"Papa…" Her voice cracked in a way she didn't intend. "I need your help."
His eyes softened at the edges, just barely. She didn't deserve that softness. Not after what the first life had put him through.
"Where do you need to go?" he asked simply.
No hesitation. No suspicion.
Just trust.
The kind of trust she had buried him with.
Her breath hitched. She tried to speak and couldn't. Tears burned hot in her eyes. Garrett blinked at her, surprised, and then crouched down so he was level with her height.
"Violet?"
She stepped forward and grabbed his coat, burying her face in it... She hadn't meant to.
She hadn't planned this... Her body just moved, remembering how he had held her the night Maria died in the first life, hands shaking even though his voice stayed steady.
He froze for a heartbeat, then awkwardly rested a hand on her back.
"You'll help me?" Violet whispered, the words thick and shaking. "Even if it means going somewhere far?"
"Yes."
Just that.
A simple truth.
Her breath shuddered.
"Papa… I'll tell you everything... I promise... I will... Just not yet."
Garrett didn't ask why. Didn't push.
He only said, "I'll wait."
Violet squeezed her eyes shut.
He would wait now. But if he knew the truth—that Calla's medicine was poison... She don't how will he react or she knows it well...
She pulled back and wiped her face roughly with her sleeve.
"Papa… don't trust Calla."
Garrett's jaw tightened...
Just slightly... Almost invisible.
"I don't," he said.
Violet nodded once, then stepped back and held her bow again.
The wind whispered through the branches overhead.
Garrett cleared his throat. "Let's find something small today. A hare."
They walked deeper into the woods, and the air felt easier in her lungs now.
She had him... She had time....
She had power that would only grow.
Already, she could feel the timeline shifting under her feet.
Soon there would be word of unrest near the borders...
Then rumors— Then one merchant brave or foolish enough to speak the name of the tribe destined for slaughter.
Vael's tribe.
She would go to them before the First Princess did.
She would save them.
She would save Vael.
The world was already moving toward the moment.
She could almost feel it.
And somewhere far beyond the forest, the first merchant had already loaded his wagon with goods, preparing to travel past the village with news that would mark the beginning of Violet's war.
She inhaled deeply, steadying herself.
This time, she would be ready.