Back to Thirteen
"Miss! Miss! How many times have I told you—you mustn't sleep with your eyes open!"
Every shake of my shoulders sent a throb rattling through my bones. I pressed a hand hard against my aching head.
What? Bones? A hand?
How strange. My neck had been severed by a blade mere moments ago—so what was this about bones trembling?
"Cassion?"
"Cassiiooon? And which novel's hero might this Cassion be, hmm? Miss! I told you not to read novels before bed!"
When I called out the name of the one I'd met on the very brink of death, a familiar yet youthful voice chided me.
What on earth is going on?
Clutching my head, I struggled to collect myself.
"You do remember that today is the day Count Kolkos is to be named your guardian, don't you? How can you be so out of sorts on such an important day?"
The scolding flowed on without pause.
Guardianship. The royal court. Count Kolkos... and Jenice, nattering at me!
Lightning struck through my mind, once, twice. I shot up out of bed and ran for the mirror.
My hand flew to my throat all on its own. The neck that had been lopped clean off by a sickle was smooth, without a single scar. The grubby creature I'd been at my death was nowhere to be found—standing in the mirror was a younger me, fair-skinned and darling.
"Jenice, how old am I right now?"
"Miss, are you feeling unwell? Asking how old you are... You're thirteen, of course you are."
I had come back. To the past! To age thirteen, no less. Gooseflesh swept over my whole body, and I clapped both hands over my gaping mouth.
"I'm back! I really came back—Jenice!"
I flung my arms around her.
"Oh my, Miss?"
Startled by the sudden embrace, Jenice hesitated in bewilderment for a beat—then hugged me right back.
So that legend was true? Salvation really meant turning a life back around?
Questions chased each other's tails through my head, but I ignored every one of them. Now that I was alive again, the reason hardly mattered.
In that instant, I settled the goal of my life.
The revenge I swore to see through even from hell—this life is when I'll make it happen.
And—
Your Highness Cassion, this time it's my turn to save you.
I thought of Cassion, who had come all the way to the execution ground to help me.
He'd long since been given up for dead, and yet he was still a prince by blood—and he had chosen to side with me, a traitor branded for supposedly plotting to topple the state.
What must have become of him after my execution? Nothing good, I was certain.
Compared to the trifling bit of pity I'd once shown him, Cassion had given me something I scarcely deserved.
Joy at my return, relief, and the hope that revenge was now within my reach—tears burst from me all at once.
"Miss? Did you have a nightmare?"
Jenice fidgeted helplessly at my side. I didn't even attempt to hold it in; I sobbed until I hiccupped.
I wished everything I'd lived through had been nothing but a nightmare, but the fury boiling in my chest proved it was no dream.
Which meant—it was time for revenge.
A week had already slipped by since I'd turned back time.
Basking in the warm sunlight that fell across my face, I wriggled lazily atop the covers. Bright morning light poured through the window.
The cozy blanket scented faintly of lavender, the roses arranged in the vase on the table. A room so familiar that the very word felt strange on my tongue...
The comfort of that familiarity wrapped around me, soft and warm. I wanted to sleep on, but I sat up.
"Cassion."
Ever since I'd realized I'd regressed, he had refused to leave my mind.
Well, his last impression was rather unforgettable.
For the single time I'd shown him kindness, he had cast aside so much and come to the execution grounds for me—and he must have been thoroughly sick of the capital, of the palace, by then.
I wonder if he's living well. I'm thirteen, and Cassion is two years younger than me, so he'd be eleven now.
Recalling his age soured my mouth. His circumstances surely wouldn't permit even the polite fiction that he was thriving.
His childhood had been a wretched one. A prince spurned by the king was doomed to a miserable lot as a matter of course, and on top of that, poor Cassion had been sickly besides.
He'd been gaunt as a skeleton, all bone and sinew, and far smaller than the other children his age. And his clothing, his hygiene—heavens, how squalid they'd been. The image of his grimy, rumpled figure flickered through my mind.
That alone would have been pitiable enough, but there had been someone tormenting him at every turn besides.
Dayson, you rotten bastard.
The moment I thought of the First Prince who had driven me to my death, the curses attached themselves like clockwork.
"Miss, Count Kolkos has come to see you. Shall I turn him away again today?"
Jenice's voice broke into my brooding.
Since my regression, Count Kolkos had called on me again and again, and each time I'd sent him packing with one excuse or another.
I stole a glance at the calendar. Today, it seemed, I would have to see him.
"Tell him to wait."
I slid slowly out of bed.
Would I manage to hold my temper the moment I laid eyes on Count Kolkos? I rather doubted it.
"Stop groveling and just die. The more you thrash about, the further you drag the Ehrenberg name through the mud. And you needn't worry about the family—I, Kolkos, shall become its head and lead it splendidly."
His words came back to me—how he had swaggered into my very cell to lecture me. He had pretended to love me, put on a whole performance of making a noble sacrifice for my sake, and the instant I was locked away, his true face had come out.
He'd probably had a hand in my imprisonment, too. The man I'd trusted as a child—trusted enough, simply because we shared blood, to entrust him with my safety—had been a snake bent on swallowing both the family and me whole.
No. A leech that drinks other people's blood—no, better yet, a parasite. That's what suits him.
The parasite of my life.
Spewing curses in my head, I finished getting ready and stepped out.
"So he came about the guardianship?"
"Yes, miss. The appointment we were meant to settle last week was put off, after all."
On my first day back, the very first thing I'd done was postpone the naming of a guardian. The entire household had been thrown into an uproar, and people had come streaming in, demanding to know my reasons.
I had simply kept my lips sealed. After all, I hadn't yet worked out what to do once I refused to name Count Kolkos as guardian.
The truth was, I despised the guardianship system itself.
The system existed to protect both the house and its heir when the family's sole remaining successor was still underage.
Until that heir came of age and formally took the seat as head of house, the guardian wielded the head's authority in the heir's stead.
In a word, the guardian was at once the protector of a minor head and the true master of the family.
Naturally, the process of selecting one was exceedingly rigorous. There were houses that tore themselves apart in quiet warfare over who would claim the position.
Yet Count Kolkos had been able to secure guardianship without a whisper of opposition—because I had backed him with my whole heart.
Back then I truly believed he cared for me. Never suspected for a moment that he meant to swallow my fortune and my power in one gulp.
Oh, foolish me of the past—repent!
In any case, well-intentioned as the system was, it was riddled with flaws.
I grumbled my grievances inwardly.
Ugh, I simply don't want to appoint a guardian at all. And there's no guarantee anyone else would be any better than Count Kolkos. I'd run the house better myself—there has to be a way. Good grief, what a worthless, dog-dirt excuse for a law.
As my expression crumpled by degrees, Jenice spoke to me gently.
"Miss, please don't worry yourself too much. There is pressure to name a guardian, but without your consent, not one of them can do a thing."
Jenice, who had caught on to how I felt about Count Kolkos, was doing her best to soothe me.
She looked ahead with optimism, but the plain truth was that if I did nothing, Count Kolkos would drift into the position all on his own.
Even if the sky came crashing down, I refused to make Count Kolkos my guardian—so that was where I would start cutting.
No more dawdling. Today, I put a period to it.
I gave my appearance one final check, then opened the door and said to Jenice:
"Let's go, Jenice."
It was high time the Count learned, beyond any doubt, that the me of now was not the me of before.
"It's been far too long, my dear niece."
Tall and gaunt, his face glistening with a fresh coat of oil, Count Kolkos welcomed me with a beaming smile.
Dressed to the nines, the man looked like a peacock fished out of a pond. Every scrap of style flaunted, and not one ounce of it flattering.
According to what I'd dug up since my regression, the Count's finances were an utter shambles.
Count Kolkos had an appetite for money and ambitions for business both—but not a shred of the talent to back them up.
Given the state of his purse, the famous designer's clothes he currently wore and the ten-odd rings crowding his fingers were things he could never in his life have dreamed of affording.
And still he paraded about in all that glitter. I could well imagine what sort of stories he'd been spinning.
He must have told people I'd already named him my guardian. Or that my naming him was a foregone conclusion.
The mere possibility of becoming the Ehrenberg guardian was enough to earn him a very different reception at the banks.
Imagining him hawking my family's name all over town sent my irritation soaring.
Maybe I should just send him home. Do I truly need to deal with Count Kolkos in person? One more minute of that face and I might actually be sick.
I was still weighing it when the Count came closer.
"They said you'd been ill, and indeed—your cheeks have gone quite hollow. It pains me to see."
He spread his arms wide to gather me into a hug. I took a step back. The old me would have flung herself into them without a second's hesitation. His eyes narrowed to slits.
"You don't seem to be quite yourself today. Shall I come again another time?"
I barely managed to swallow the words get out, and instead jerked my chin toward the sofa. Better to settle this quickly and be done with it.
"Please, sit. There was something I needed to say, and you've arrived at the perfect moment."
"Yes, we have a great deal to discuss, don't we. Hahahaha!"
A man turned away from my door any number of times, Count Kolkos was overjoyed at the mere invitation to sit. Still grinning, he settled into the seat across from me, the smile never once leaving his face.
"Shall I speak first, or would you rather, Uncle?"
"Speak? About what?"
"You came here because you had business with me. Am I mistaken?"
"Not at all—I merely heard you'd been terribly ill, and worried for you. So I came to see you with my own eyes."
Count Kolkos lied without so much as a flicker of an eyebrow.
There's not one grain of sincerity in you, is there.
The brows drooping with put-upon sorrow, the wrinkles manufactured for the occasion—and the greed wedged in among them—were all perfectly legible to me now.
How on earth had I missed it before?
To think I let myself be swayed by counterfeit sympathy, doled out like alms.
How truly foolish I had been. I awarded my past self another failing grade.
"If you have nothing to say, then I'll have to do the talking."
Count Kolkos nodded magnanimously, as though inviting me to talk as long as I pleased.
Even the way he straightened up, pretending he would listen respectfully, was an eyesore. I was curious, though—could he keep that benevolent face on after hearing what I had to say? I declared, pronouncing every syllable:
"I am withdrawing my plan to appoint you as my guardian."
"Wh... what did you say?"
The Count's eyes bulged nearly out of his head.
So violent was his shock that his rear end, already half off the sofa, jolted clean upward. I spelled it out for him once more, slowly and clearly.
"You, Uncle, cannot be my guardian."
Shock shattered the Count's eyes into fragments.
Was that how my own eyes had looked, back when he came all the way to my cell to tell me to die? A thrill of revenge prickled gooseflesh across my skin.