"Those who were destined to die had no right to interfere with the affairs of those fated to live."
A girl cursed to be reborn strikes an unlikely deal with the ambitious heir of Valorieve in order to fulfill her only wish. However, this strictly-b...
Minho's heart beat uneasy as he paced across the hallway.
All the guests had been sent to their homes. All the intruders had been apprehended. You were safely tucked into the bed of his old chambers. Everything was back in order.
It should have been, but Minho was still perturbed. The past four hours had been too much to process, even for him.
First, there was the attack in the garden that caught him entirely off guard. After he had sent you off with Ryujin, he rushed over to manage the commotion among the attendees of the banquet. They had been frightened, and rightfully so, but he tried to assure them of their safety.
Once that was done, he joined the knights, letting them know of his commands and overseeing a little bit of their progress. It was then that an unexpected visitor shoved his way between the knights and delivered the worst news possible.
"Brother! He's here!"
Felix, bedraggled from rough travel, had appeared in the palace after being missing for two weeks and announced that the Crown Prince was not in Rowonne anymore.
In fact, he had not been there for a while.
What followed was almost a blur. He, and a sizable body of knights, stormed their way into your shared chambers and immediately found themselves in the midst of chaos. Knights were engaging cloaked strangers in messy scuffles, each trying to keep the other from escaping, and the sight made Minho's heart drop to the bottomless abyss.
The presence of those red cloaks only meant one thing.
The Crown Prince was already there.
Minho fought his way through as though he had forgone all sense. He slashed his sword at all that was red before him and broke the cluster of mages with his knights at his back. It felt like only a heartbeat passed until he found himself standing before the destroyed doors of your bedchambers.
The mere thought of what might have happened if he were only a second late made every drop of his blood go frigid with ice.
He had practically launched himself at the Prince, and then that bastard began spewing nonsense about you, and about demons and strange curses.
And then you, wounded and trembling, confessed the same things as his unhinged drivel.
If Minho were to be honest, he would have believed none of it had he not known you. Had he not been by your side for the better half of the year and witnessed the reality of your terror, of your lingering anguish.
How could he not believe you, when each word seemed to hack mercilessly at your ever so flawless composure?
Nevertheless, he had questions—none of which the Prince answered when he regained consciousness and flew into an uncontrollable rage in the dungeons—but he was sure you would eventually tell him about this curse.
For now, Minho tried to piece together the information already in his grasp.
Cursed to be reborn, that was what you said. And the prince had aimed to kill you for the power your curse contained.
He could not fathom the reason behind the royal's sinister ambitions, but he could glean that the two of you had a long, ancient history.
"Again and again," the Prince had taunted. Cursed to live and die at his hands.
Did he mean to say that you had died before? Was death at the hands of the royals something familiar to you?
Minho recalled an incident a few months ago when you had told him of a forbidden ritual performed by the royal family. Back then, you had struggled to say why you knew of this ritual. Now, a harrowing conclusion drew itself in his mind.
If your curse was to be reborn, then you must have been the sacrifice in that dreadful ritual. Those murdered girls you spoke of—had they all been you in different lives?
Suddenly, all your actions throughout the past year made new sense to him. How you sometimes spoke like you had the wisdom of centuries, yet were reluctant to lower your walls for anyone. How you always seemed to try to distance yourself from the rest of the world, yet never spared it from your kindness. It was the missing piece he had been searching for, now finally in his hands despite being only speculation.
Minho found it horrific to even imagine what it felt like. Dying and being reborn, only to die and be reborn once more. Over and over. You must have suffered, he thought with a pang that violently pierced his heart. You must have been in so much pain all this time.
Then, as he wallowed in his thoughts, an old memory resurfaced of the night he first met you. A ruffled nightgown, an indecipherable smile, and those unassuming words.
"I simply wish to rest, in peace."
The realization that struck him had the weight of the sky itself, crushing his measly soul into thousands of trifling pieces.
No.
It could not be.
His legs were moving before he willed them to, breaking into a mindless dash toward his old bedchambers. Toward where you were supposed to be peacefully recuperating.
He must be mistaken. He had to be.
That could not be your true purpose in all this.
Please...
The imposing doors of his chambers were not nearly close enough when he reached for them and all but crashed through, numb to the feel of the solid wood as it bruised his shoulder.
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