New Meaning

"Why did the gods curse me with such a useless child?!"

The sting from the back of my mother's hand radiated across my swollen cheek. I wanted to cry, to beg her to stop, but I'd learned from a young age my pleas would fall on deaf ears.

"Now, now, Dear," my father said, embracing my teary eyed mother. His smooth head was slick with sweat and he glared at me with beady black eyes. "Calm yourself before you injure your hand."

"I just don't know what to do with her! All this money spent on tutors and she still can't get it right! To think that such a failure came from my womb. It sickens me!"

At her last word, my mother fell into my father, pretending to faint.

"Look what your foolishness has done to your mother, Aurelie! Buford! Bring me the switch!"

I recoiled, doing my best to fight the urge to flee. Why was it always like this? All because I'd accidentally answered Emperor Con Goldsplain III instead of Con Goldsplain II! I tried to blink away the tears of pain and frustration welling in my eyes. Was this how Prince Stolz and Louis's parents treated them? The study darkened around me.

"Have you learned your lesson yet?"

I blinked so that my eyes would adjust to the light of the torch in my father's hand. Sour mildew hung in the air and I could feel the hot rashes under my arms and around my groin from days of unwashed sweat.

"Yes, Father," I answered obediently. My voice was barely a whisper; my mouth was too dry and my lips too shriveled to speak properly. It'd been days since I'd drank or eaten anything.

"Hmph. That look in your eyes makes me think you could use another day."

I tried to beg him to stop before he turned to leave, but my words failed me and my legs gave out from beneath me. The flicker of his torch soon faded and once again I was left in the endless night of my cold, wet cell.

Blinding sunlight greeted me next and I shielded my eyes with my arm. How had I gotten outside? Or from my father's study? My head ached worse the harder I tried to remember.

"Are you alright, Lady Aurelie?"

I looked at the finely dressed boy in front of me. His blue clothes were both elegant and functional and his shaggy black hair was tied back with a ribbon into a short queue. His outfit was simple compared to that of the blond boy tapping his foot impatiently beside him, a key distinction that denoted their positions; a knight and his prince.

"I'm alright," I said flatter than I intended. I glanced nervously from Louis to Prince Stolz. Louis had always been the nicer of the two despite Prince Stolz being my fiancé. He was the closest person I had to a friend even if he was only kind because it was his duty.

"You don't have to play with us if you don't want to," Stolz said, frowning. "It's boring when we have to stop all the time because you can't keep up."

"My apologies, Your Highness." I bowed my head in a low curtsy. "It was not my intention to spoil your outing. Please feel free to continue while I make my way back."

Stolz scoffed and grabbed Louis by the shoulder of his jacket. "Come on Louis, you heard her."

I watched as the boys vanished around the garden bend before taking a seat on a marble bench. Even though it was a summer day, the stone was cool enough to reach through the layers of my dress. It was nice to have a moment alone in the garden, even if I couldn't enjoy the main fountain without being caught. A light breeze fluttered the brim of my sun hat and I closed my eyes to enjoy it. Prince Stolz and Louis only came twice a year. I wouldn't get a moment to myself for at least another six months.

***

"Kyomi!"

I groaned and squinted my eyes. The back of my head throbbed and I wanted to throw up. I felt so dizzy. Where was I? The garden? The rough stone ceiling above me argued otherwise. The cave?

"How did I get here?" I asked. "I was just in the garden—"

I rolled over just in time for the acid in my stomach to empty itself onto the floor. My throat burned as my stomach lurched and no matter how much I tried to stop, I kept gagging. Countless memories swarmed my mind like hornets, emulsifying in my brain. A girl. The girl. Aurelie. Her memories were a nightmare that wouldn't end and by the time the nausea of the torrent of memories faded, I was curled in a ball covered in sick.

"Are you okay?!"

Bixey wiped my body with a wet cloth she'd procured from somewhere and I realized I wasn't wearing any clothes.

"What happened," I asked, groaning. "I remember choking… and my cell… and…" Fat tears brimmed on my lashes, splattering on the cave floor when I blinked. All of Aurelie's memories had become my own and I finally understood everything the girl had been through.

"You're safe," Bixey said. She wiped my tears with the sleeve of her robe and pat my head. "Yahime took care of the slavers."

"Yahime?" At the sound of her name the Dusk appeared, looming in front of me. "Are you okay?"

As expected, she didn't answer but I took it as a "no news is good news" situation.

"Are they still alive?"

I wasn't sure why that was the next thought in my mind given everything that had happened. Bixey shook her head.

"After you passed out, Yahime," Bixey's hair shivered when she looked at her, "she went berserk. It was… Well I did say killing humans was messy."

She killed them? But I ordered her not to! Was it because I lost consciousness? Then it's my fault all those people are dead. Their deaths are on my hands…

My throat tightened. I felt sick again.

"Drink some water."

Bixey pressed a wooden bowl I didn't recognize to my lips and forced me to drink. The water was cool and refreshing, though it wasn't enough to wash the sour taste of bile from my mouth.

"Feel better?"

"A little. Are you okay? That net they caught you in…"

A smug grin pulled at the corner of Bixey's mouth and she pulled back her sleeve to flex her tiny bicep. "Some dumb net can't keep me down! I'm more upset at Yahime for not leaving any of those bastards for me!"

My smile grew to a chuckle and soon our laughter was echoing in the cave. Bixey had been through the worst of it and was still in good enough spirits to joke around. Why should I be any different?

Even as I thought that, another thought crept behind it. Did I even have the right to laugh? All those people were dead… because of me.

But they were slavers. They were bad people, the worst kind of people. They deserved it.

Did anyone deserve to be murdered?

They do. All of them deserve to die! Louis, Richard, Charles, Stolz, even that harlot Sarah! The empire and everyone in it, all of them can watch their precious empire burn to the ground before being slaughtered like cattle!

The blood drained from my face. Those feelings, those thoughts, they weren't my own. Kill the main cast? Burn the empire? Were those Aurelie's thoughts? She really was a villainess!

Is what I wanted to say. But the truth was, I understood. How many times had I felt the same way when living in Japan? And her life had been so much worse. Treated like a villainess for confronting another woman for being too close to her fiancé, pushed into a corner while her parents and the emperor threatened and abused her for failing to keep her from Stolz. From before she was self-aware she had been smothered with impossible expectations then blamed when they weren't met. How had she endured for seventeen years? Could I have done the same?

I shook my head to myself. I knew I couldn't. I couldn't even survive through corporate abuse as an adult.

Then if those were her thoughts…

Resolve hardened within me. It finally made sense, why I'd been reincarnated in Aurelie's body, what I was supposed to do. In her final breath the girl labeled the villainess had made a final wish.

It was up to me to grant it.

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