The winter wind sliced through the tattered linen of Hannah's dress like a blade honed for cruelty.
She hugged her ribs tighter, teeth chattering so hard she feared they might crack clean through her gums.
The stables reeked of hay and manure, the cold seeping into the very stones beneath her bare feet.
The only warmth came from the snorting breath of old Bess, the plow horse who had taken to resting her head on Hannah's shoulder, as if she knew the girl had nowhere else to go, nowhere else to be.
Bess's coat was matted with frost, her eyes soft and sad as she nuzzled Hannah's palm, her nose warm against cold skin.
Hannah wondered if the horse, too, knew what it meant to be unwanted.
Bess shifted her weight slightly, pressing her side against Hannah's—a solid, living wall against the bitter wind.
Hannah leaned into her, her cheek resting on the rough, woolly texture of the mare's mane, breathing in the earthy scent of hay and sweat that clung to her.
For a moment, her shivering slowed, the ache in her bones dulled, if only a little.
This was not how it was supposed to be.
The thought looped in her head, a broken record she could not silence, skipping over the same jagged edges of memory until they felt like scars carved into her skull—raw and bleeding, no matter how many times she tried to smooth them over.
In her last life, she had been twenty-seven when the end came: feverish, alone, gasping for breath in a tiny, windowless room that smelled of mildew and regret, the walls closing in like a coffin.
She did not remember her name, or the faces of those she had called family, or even how the fever had taken hold.
Those details had dissolved into the fog of a half-remembered dream, blurry and indistinct, like trying to grasp smoke.
But she remembered the weight of it all—the endless, gnawing hunger that was not just for food, the quiet, searing loneliness that had settled in her bones and never left, the way she had been the smallest, the quietest, the easiest to overlook in a brood of six siblings.
Her parents had not been cruel, not really.
They had simply not had enough love left to go around—not when the eldest brother needed a new uniform for his apprenticeship, when the twins had to pay for exam tutors, when the middle sister's illness ate through every spare coin until nothing remained for her.
She had been the one who learned to eat cold rice for dinner, day after day, the grains hard and tasteless against her tongue.
The one who wore hand-me-down sweaters with holes in the elbows, fabric thin and threadbare, doing nothing to ward off the chill of their drafty apartment.
The one who never got a birthday cake, never blew out a single candle, never received a toy that was not broken first, its parts missing, its joy long gone.
They had not ignored her, not exactly.
They simply did not see her.
She had been a ghost who lingered in the corners, a shadow who folded laundry while they celebrated the twins' test scores, who fetched water while they fussed over her sister's cough, who learned to speak so softly no one would bother to listen.
Once, she had clutched a report card to her chest, fingers trembling with faint, foolish hope that a perfect score might finally make them see her. She had waited until her parents cooed over the youngest's latest lopsided Lego towers, held together with tape, then held out the paper, her voice barely a whisper.
"I got all As," she had said.
Her mother had not even glanced up, hands smoothing the edges of a Lego manual as if it were a masterpiece.
"That's nice, dear," she had mumbled. "But can you run to the bodega? We need more eggs for your brother's omelet. He's been fussy about his breakfast lately."
Hannah had stared at the report card, ink glowing bright and proud under the flickering kitchen bulb, before tucking it into the back of her closet, where it would gather dust until she forgot it existed.
Another time, she had lingered by the front door as her parents fussed over their coats and the youngest's backpack, the boy bouncing on his toes, chattering about the downtown diner with the neon sign and milkshakes thick enough to stand a spoon in.
It was a rare treat, a splurge allowed only for the golden boy's birthdays.
Hannah had hugged her arms tight, throat tight with a question she had rehearsed a hundred times.
"Can I come too?" she had asked, voice small.
Her father's eyes had flicked to her, cold and sharp, before he turned back to adjusting the youngest's hat.
"No room in the car," he had said, as if it were a final answer, as if she were not even worth a lie. "Stay home and wash the dishes. We'll bring back a fry if we're feeling generous.
The door had slammed shut before she could speak again.
She had stood in the quiet, empty house, listening to their laughter fade down the street, until hunger in her stomach twisted into something sharper, colder.
The worst memory of all was the keychain.
She had saved for months, scrounging pennies from couch cushions, skipping the stale bun she usually pilfered from the bodega counter, hiding every coin in a crumpled sock under her mattress until she had enough for the tiny plastic dragon keychain hanging in the window.
It was cheap, paint chipped at the edges, but it had been the first thing she had ever wanted that was not a crumb of bread or a tattered book.
She had snuck to the bodega after school, hands shaking as she handed over the coins, and clutched the keychain to her chest all the way home, giddy with the secret joy of owning something that was hers. She had hidden it in her closet, under a stack of web novel printouts, and dreamed of clipping it to a backpack she would never have.
A week later, she had found it on the youngest's keyring, glinting under the kitchen light as he waved it in her face.
"Mom and Dad got me this," he had crowed, bouncing on his heels. "It's a dragon. Isn't it cool?"
Hannah had stared at the chipped paint, at her father's smile as he ruffled the boy's hair, and said nothing. She never said anything anymore.
At school, it had been worse. She had no friends, no one to share a desk with at lunch, no one to walk home with after classes ended.
Teachers glanced over her when calling on students, eyes skipping to brighter, louder children who raised their hands high and answered with confidence, who did not stammer when spoken to, who did not shrink into themselves like wilted flowers.
Her peers ridiculed her for everything she lacked: frayed shoes with worn soles and toes poking through holes; lunch that was only a stale bun wrapped in a crumpled paper towel, dough hard as rock; shaking hands when she tried to write, a cracking voice when she spoke, the way she could never keep up in gym class, always tripping over her own feet, always last to finish the race.
They called her Dirty Mouse, Worthless, Nothing. They shoved her into empty lockers, metal cold against her back, air thin and stale.
They scribbled cruel notes on her textbooks, ink bleeding into pages, words burning like acid.
They tripped her in the playground just to watch her fall, to watch her scrape knees and pride, to watch silent tears no one cared to wipe away.
She had no way to fight back—no money for nice clothes, no talent to earn respect, no friends to stand up for her.
She had just been the girl who existed in the background, the one everyone forgot the moment they turned away, the one who vanished like smoke when the bell rang and the crowd dispersed.
She had died choking on her own loneliness, fever burning through her bones so hot she could barely think, curled on a hard, cold floor while her family celebrated her brother's promotion elsewhere, leaving her behind with a microwave meal she could not be bothered to heat.
The last thing she had felt was the ache of being forgotten, the sting of being left behind, the quiet, desperate hope that someone would notice she was gone. No one did.
The last thing she had prayed for was not happiness, or success, or love. It had been a new start.
A clean slate.
A chance to be someone wanted. Someone who would not fade into the walls, who would not be left behind, who would not be so alone.
Foolish. So foolish.
The first thing she remembered of this life was the scratch of rough wool against her cheek, and a woman's cold voice hissing:
"The third daughter—she's a curse, just like her mother."
She had been three years old, maybe four, small and squalling, trapped in a body too tiny to hold the weight of a twenty-seven-year-old's grief, too fragile to bear the burden of a lifetime of loneliness.
She had woken up screaming, the memory of fever still searing her skin, the taste of stale bun still lingering on her tongue, only to find herself in a cradle of straw—not the thin mattress she had called a bed in her old life.
The world around her was a cruel echo of the medieval dramas she had binged in her past life: castles of stone and thatch, walls high and cold; lords and ladies in velvet cloaks, voices sharp, smiles fake; peasants bowing low to anyone with a coat of arms, heads bent, spirits broken.
She had been reborn as Hannah Bennington, third daughter of Count Bennington, lord of the sprawling, frost-kissed territory that bore their family name.
But that was the thing about being the third daughter: when your mother died in childbirth, blood staining the sheets, last breath a whisper of your name; when your father married a woman who hated the sight of you, who saw you only as a reminder of the wife she replaced; when your step-siblings were born with silver spoons in their mouths and sharper tongues in their heads—you became nothing more than a shadow.
A ghost in your own home.
A curse they could not seem to shake.
A shadow they loved to kick.
Layla, her younger stepsister—only a year younger, yet treated like a princess, hair braided with ribbons, dresses stitched with silk—had cut Hannah's hair with kitchen shears the previous week, laughing as she screamed and begged her to stop.
Layla had cornered her in the larder, door slamming shut behind them, air thick with the smell of moldy bread and rot.
She had grabbed a handful of Hannah's chestnut locks, yanking so hard her eyes watered, then sliced through the strands with blunt, rusted blades.
"Father says you're a disgrace to the Bennington name," she had cackled, holding up a clump of hair that fell from her fingers like dead leaves.
"A bastard in all but blood. Mother says you should have died with yours."
Hannah had cried that day until her throat was raw and her eyes swollen shut, but no one had come to help.
Servants had heard her screams, but turned away, heads down, too afraid of Lady Stephanie to intervene.
Her father had walked past the larder door, boots thudding against stone, but never paused, never knocked, never cared.
Kael, her second stepbrother—two years older, face always set in a lazy grin, hands always itching for trouble—had tripped her down the stairs the day before.
He had watched with familiar malice as she hit the stone floor hard enough to split her lip, hard enough to send a shooting pain up her spine.
She had been carrying a bucket of water for the kitchen, weight aching in her arms, when he stepped out of the shadows, foot extended just enough to catch her ankle.
She had fallen forward, bucket spilling, water soaking her dress, cold seeping into her bones. Kael had laughed, a loud, cruel sound that echoed off the walls.
When she had looked up at him, lip bleeding, eyes burning, he had only shrugged, as if he had done nothing more than swat a fly.
When she had limped to the dining hall, hoping to find her father, hoping he might finally see her, he had just turned away, sipping wine as if her pain were nothing more than a buzzing fly.
"Stop making a fuss, Hannah," he had said, voice cold, eyes never leaving his plate of roast swan.
"You're always causing trouble."
Lady Stephanie, her stepmother—beautiful, with pale skin and red lips, gowns of velvet and silk, hands adorned with glinting rings—was the worst of them all.
She never raised a hand; she was far too refined for that.
She did not need to. She wielded words like weapons, smiles like poison, kindness a trap that snapped shut the moment one stepped inside.
She would smile sweetly as she ordered Hannah to scrub the castle's great hall floors until her knees bled, rough stone scraping away skin, water freezing her hands numb.
She would send Hannah to the village market with a single copper coin, knowing it would not buy a loaf of bread, knowing she would return empty-handed and hungry, just so she could shake her head and cluck her tongue.
"Hannah, darling, a girl who can't even do one simple task right… what use is she to House Bennington?"
She made Hannah sleep in the stables, on a pallet of straw, while her own children curled up in silk and down, rooms warm and cozy, bellies full of honey cakes and roast meat.
She let her servants starve the girl, giving her nothing but moldy bread and watery soup, while her own children feasted on the finest foods the territory had to offer.
She looked at Hannah as if she were something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, a stain on her perfect life, a curse that needed to be erased.
No one. She was no one.
Hannah leaned her head against Bess's rough mane, and a tear slipped down her cheek, freezing almost as soon as it touched her skin, ice sharp against her flesh.
Bess huffed softly, a warm puff of air that ruffled her hair, and lifted her head just enough to rest her chin on top of Hannah's, weight gentle, not crushing—a silent comfort no human had ever given her.
Hannah wrapped her arms around the mare's neck, clinging to her like a lifeline, tears soaking into the mane as she let herself cry: quiet, shuddering sobs that wracked her thin frame, tears she had held back for years, across two lives.
Bess did not move, did not pull away, just stood there with her, breathing slow and steady, heartbeat a low, thrumming rhythm against Hannah's cheek.
In her past life, no one had ever held her when she cried. No one had ever stayed.
In her past life, she had thought loneliness was the worst thing in the world. She had been wrong.
Loneliness was a quiet ache, a soft whisper in the dark, a weight that could be borne if one tried hard enough. This was a slow death.
A death by a thousand cuts, each one delivered by the people who were supposed to love her.
This was the kind of pain that seared the soul, left scars so deep they would never heal, made one wish they had never been born at all.
This was the kind of despair that made a girl want to curl up and die, to let the winter wind take her, to let the cold claim her—because anything was better than being here, better than being this.
The stable door creaked open, and Hannah tensed, wiping her face roughly with the back of her hand, skin raw and red. She did not need to look to know who it was.
Kael stood in the doorway, a piece of stale bread in his hand, eyes glinting with familiar malice, the cruel joy that came from making her suffer.
Firelight cast long shadows over his face, turning his grin into something monstrous, inhuman.
"Father says dinner's ready," he said, tossing the bread at her feet as if she were a stray dog, something beneath him.
The loaf hit the dirt, crumbs scattering across straw, dough hard and crusty—the same kind of bread she had eaten in her past life, the same kind that had tasted like nothing and everything all at once.
"But Stephanie says you can eat with Bess. Since you two are such good friends."
Hannah stared at the bread, at the crumbs in the dirt, at Kael's widening grin as he watched her.
For a second, she wanted to scream.
She wanted to grab the pitchfork leaning against the wall, tines sharp and rusted, and drive it through his smug face.
She wanted to run away, to disappear into the Whispering Woods bordering Bennington territory, to let the wolves take her, to let the trees swallow her whole and never return.
She wanted to die, to end this pain, to end this suffering—because she could not bear it any longer.
She could not bear being nothing. She could not bear being forgotten. She could not bear being this.
But she did not.
She just sat there, fingers curled into fists, nails digging into palms until they drew blood, and watched him walk away, whistling a tune that made her blood boil, her heart ache, that made her want to cry until no tears remained.
Bess nudged her hand with her nose, a soft, insistent gesture.
Hannah looked up into the horse's big, dark eyes, which stared back as if she understood, as if she were telling her to hold on.
This is not a new start, Hannah thought again—but this time, there was a flicker of something else beneath the despair. A spark.
A tiny, fragile thing, burning bright in the darkness, burning bright in her chest. A twenty-seven-year-old's resolve, forged in the fires of loneliness and grief, burning bright in a child's battered body.
A reminder of the girl who had survived cold rice and frayed shoes and cruel words, who had survived fever and a lonely death and a rebirth that was nothing more than a nightmare.
A reminder that she was stronger than this, stronger than them, stronger than the pain that threatened to consume her.
This is a test.
And she had not survived her last life to die like this. Not here. Not now.
Hannah reached down, picked up the bread, and brushed off the dirt, crumbs sticking to her fingers, dough rough against her palm.
It was hard as a rock, but it was food. And food meant strength. Strength meant fighting back.
Strength meant surviving.
She took a bite, chewing slowly, bread tasteless against her tongue, just as it had been in her past life.
Bess lowered her head, resting it on Hannah's shoulder again, warm breath mixing with the cold air. Hannah leaned into her, savoring the small, steady comfort the mare provided.
Wind howled outside, cold seeping into the stable, into her bones, into her soul.
Somewhere in the castle, she could hear Layla's laughter, high and shrill, like a bird's song, like a knife's edge.
Somewhere in the castle, her father feasted, plate full of roast swan and honey cakes, glass full of wine, mind full of everything but her.
Somewhere in the castle, Lady Stephanie smiled, lips red, eyes cold, heart full of nothing but hate.
Let them laugh. Let them feast. Let them hate.
They had no idea who they were dealing with.
They had no idea that she was not just a child, not just a shadow, not just a curse.
They had no idea that she was a woman who had died alone and been reborn to suffer, but who refused to break.
They had no idea that she was a survivor.
She was Hannah Bennington, unwanted daughter of Count Bennington.
The girl who slept in the stables. The girl who ate stale bread. The girl who was nothing.
And she was just getting started.