VOLUME 1 - Four Years Back

I COULD SMELL the scent of must and perfume even before I opened my eyes. The memory was so old, and yet it sent a wave of comfort over me. I slowly open my eyes, and I grimace from the light shining through a small window above me.

Where…? I wonder to myself. I tried to sit up, and the bed that I’m in suddenly felt so firm and uncomfortable. But the palace beds were never firm; they were so soft and plush, I always sank right into the mattress.

I look around me, and I realize I am sitting in a small wooden bedframe with carvings that showed its age etched into the boards, and an old mattress that is long overdue for a change. Two thin quilted blankets were thrown over me.

Everything looked strangely large, like I had been fitted with a vision that slightly magnified everything and brought it closer at the same time.

I’m certainly not at the palace anymore. I think to myself. Slowly, the memory of where I ended up dawned on me.

This was the place where I was raised, and Seralind had worked, long before she met the Prince.

I had awoken in my old bedroom of a hostess and dancer house called the Plum Rosé, where men would come in and entertain themselves with the women who worked here, including my sister. I could even hear the bustling voices from outside my window and door, where I assumed some of the dancers were returning from the night and checking in with their profits.

I clutched my throat, wondering who could have brought me here. How did they know this was the one place where we came from? And how did they still have my childhood blanket? I hadn’t seen it in years, as most of our belongings were left behind when we went to stay at the palace.

I grip my blanket, feeling its texture and wondering if it's even real.

Is this what heaven is like? Was my idea of paradise going back to simpler times?

I frown to myself. I didn’t think I missed home this much.

As I grip the blanket, I felt as though my hands fumbled unnecessarily at it. They were also a little pudgier and noticeably smaller.

“Huh?” I say, bringing them close to my face and touching my cheeks. I felt the fat on them, and ran my fingers through my strawberry-pink hair as well, which was braided into two thick, curly ropes.

I hadn’t had my hair braided like this in such a long time because it was always Seralind who did it for me, so it wouldn’t catch dirt as easily and need to be washed.

Where am I…?!

I carefully slip out of the bed, completely disoriented. It was higher than I had anticipated, and I landed with a thud on my knees.

I get to my feet and go over to a small vanity mirror that I remember being so enamored with, pretending to do my make-up like the other women and admiring myself. I had to climb onto the stool to look into it, and I almost gasped from the shock.

I was me, definitely, but my body was that of when I was much younger. My eyes were the same crystalline blue as Seralind’s, and pink rosy cheeks complete an agape mouth stared back at me.

What has happened to me? I think to myself. Why am I so little again? Why am I back at the dancer house?

Was that all… a bad dream?

The flashes of the cold snowy sky, Seralind’s frightened gaze, and the brilliant blade of the assassin all come rushing back to me. Even the years of being isolated, bullied, and mocked by the maids and noble girls were still very vivid.

No, those years were definitely not a dream. I lived every moment of that nightmare. I shiver.

But if it was real, then why have I returned here? I couldn’t even begin to understand it.

I heard voices grow louder and come closer to my door, and I flinched. The door creaked open, and I flinch, wondering who it could be

My captors have returned? I wonder, shrinking myself in fear. I didn’t even have a plan to defend myself!

But at the sight of who entered, I could feel my heart plummet to my toes from shock.

It was Seralind.

She wasn’t dressed in the elaborate frills of the palace, but the comfortable yet cheaper cotton garments she had worn from a few years prior, long before the opulence. Her long peach pink hair was wrapped around its length with a ribbon into a low ponytail, with a few loose strands framing her face and nape, giving it a teased and airy fullness.

She looked exhausted, but she was very much alive.

When our matching blue eyes met, that radiant smile broke onto her face.

“Esmeline! Are you awake? I had expected you to sleep for longer after the night you’ve had.” Seralind says with a chirp, approaching me. I get a familiar and painful whiff of the perfume she had used as she takes a rag to wipe the sweat from her face.

“Seralind…?” I ask, my voice quivering.

“Hm~?” She hums in response. She cups my cheek, and her hand was so pleasantly warm.

I was frozen before, but her touch melted the shock in my muscles. I could feel my body tremble, physically unable to keep myself from bursting into tears.

“Esmeline?! What’s wrong?” She asked quickly, crouching in front of me frantically. I couldn’t even speak as I just sobbed into her shoulder.

As I was smaller now, her hug felt infinitely better as she enveloped me completely in her arms.

“Sera!!” I continued to wail.

I thought I lost you. I thought you were dead forever, and you had left me all alone!

“Did something happen?” Seralind asks. The door opened again, and two other women that I had recognized from deep within my memory appeared.

“What’s wrong, Seralind?” One of them asks. They looked concerned at the sudden commotion this early in the morning.

“She just started crying, and she won’t tell me why,” Seralind explains to them. She brushes my hair out of my face with a concerned pout.

“She was here all night during the festival,” The woman says. “I let her take a nap because the Madame wasn’t going to be around.”

The festival…? My mind drifts to the comment. But there hadn’t been a festival in years.

“I would have stayed until you fell asleep before going to the palace if I’d known you had been having trouble sleeping.”

Memories come flashing back to me in waves of how Seralind had dressed up in costumes to go with other dancers to the palace during the three-day birthday festival.

If this was one of the days of the festival, then Sera must have just returned from the palace. I reason with myself, my body still shaking.

But the birthday festival only happens once every generation, and the last one was…

Four years ago.

“Maybe she had a bad dream.” The other woman suggests.

“Did you have a bad dream, Esmeline?” Seralind repeats the question back to me.

I wish it was only a bad dream, I think to myself. It would be much easier to swallow if it was. But that future was real. That life I lived was real. And so were our fates.

Have I… gone back in time?

I must be back to when I was a child. If I calculated my age right, I was probably around the age of six.

I try to stifle my sobs as I nod.

“I-I did, but it’s okay now,” I tell her.

I wasn’t going to tell her what I was thinking, as it wouldn’t even make much sense and only cause her to worry.

Seralind looks at me with pity before hugging me tightly again.

“Don’t be scared,” She coos, comforting me, “I’m right here, okay?”

I nod, inhaling her perfume again, before letting go.

“The Madam will be returning soon, so make sure to give her what she’s owed, alright, Seralind?” One of the women warned her.

“So Whispet gets to go gamble and spend it all on dresses prettier than ours, but we’re stuck working?” I hear one of the other women grumble before shutting the door, leaving us with privacy.

Seralind sits in her vanity and observes her reflection. She has removed the ribbon from her hair and is now brushing it, humming lightly to herself. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw Seralind’s natural glow since we moved into the palace.

I couldn’t believe it; my last dying wish came true, as miraculous as that sounds.

“H-How was the ball?” I asked her. I couldn’t bear the silence and craved to hear her voice again, so I simply said anything.

“Oh, it was… it was fine,” Seralind responded hesitantly. She didn’t elaborate further, but a small blush of pink crept onto her cheeks. She never disclosed details whenever she went out to dance, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary.

But what I did see was the small ghost of a smile pulled across her lips, almost bashfully. She pulled out a small golden brooch that had been hidden in her blouse. It had a ruby gemstone on it and a satin ribbon as an accessory. I didn’t know where she got it from, but it looked expensive.

“What’s that?” I ask her, coming to sidle up next to her. She hands it to me, letting me feel its weight in my hands.

“It’s what I got for being at the palace. Isn’t it beautiful?” She whispers next to me.

She then takes it from my hands and clips it to the collar of my dress.

“There,” Seralind says, looking at me through the mirror with a big smile. “You look like a real princess!”

The sight of her gazing at me with such love filled me with a warmth I hadn’t felt in years. Her eyes weren’t tired and lifeless, like they had been. Seralind still had the kind of gentle joy inside her that seemed to seep out of her skin and into my soul with just a hug and a smile.

Seralind started humming as she continued to prim herself in her vanity with me on her lap. That night in the woods, I was sure I’d never feel like this again. But here I was, as clear as my reflection in a still lake.

My sister was alive.

Thank you! I wish with my heart to whatever forgotten goddess had listened to me on that snowy night. Thank you for bringing my sister back!