Saving Myself From My Fate

The comments scrolled past my eyes in a frenzy. I said nothing, only reaching for the pastry with hands that had turned purple from the cold.

The moment my fingertips pinched the corner of the wax paper, the Chancellor went still in his fine robes. His gaze dropped to the swollen, cracked chilblains across the backs of my hands, and something anxious stirred behind his eyes.

His lips parted as though he meant to speak, but no words came.

The man beside him saw the hesitation and immediately pressed the pastry into my palm. His voice was cold enough to cut, and he did not so much as glance at me.

"Next."

I looked down at the warm pastry resting in my palm, and my eyes burned with a sudden, stinging ache. I should have known all along that they would not claim me.

Even with the truth laid bare, my heart still felt as though it had been plunged into ice water, cold enough to set my whole body trembling.

The comments went wild when they saw us standing face to face. The scrolling words flooded so thick that they nearly obscured the faces in front of me.

I did not listen to their urging to expose Portia Stratton. I only bit down hard on the pastry and buried my head lower still.

Wisps of hair fell across the corners of my eyes, and the cloying sweetness of the filling caught tight in my throat.

[Call out to them! Hurry!]

[That's your brother!]

[The other man is your future husband. Expose Portia. She's a fraud!]

[If you wait until the Chancellor marries her next month, it'll be too late...]

They pleaded and urged, but I only tightened my grip on the pendant against my chest and ignored every word.

The cold of the pendant seeped from my fingertips through my entire body, and a quiet sadness settled over me. The comments did not know that I had been reborn. They did not know I was not the only one.

The moment I saw my brother, Dorian Stratton, and the Chancellor, Lucian Moreau, I knew they had been reborn too. However, they had never once looked at me, and that told me everything I needed to know. Even knowing the truth about Portia, they would choose to let the lie stand.

In our past life, Portia was the reason they hated me to the bone. Before I died, they had sighed and said that if they could live it all over again, they would never have brought me home.

I had no desire to walk that path a second time. Their contempt had left me alone until the very end, and I would not give them the chance to do it twice.

That was why I would not expose Portia. I did not want a single thread tying me to any of them ever again.

The group finished handing out pastries and turned to leave. I swallowed the dull ache, clutched the wax paper, and readied myself to head back to the fields.

The moment I stood, the cord around my neck snapped.

The pendant clattered against the cobblestone, and a cold voice spoke over its sharp clink.

"That's the pendant my mother left for my sister."

Every muscle in my body locked up. It felt as though my blood had frozen solid in my veins, and even breathing came harder than it should have.

I raised my head slowly and met Dorian's eyes, which had gone suddenly dark. He had already crossed the distance between us in long strides and bent to retrieve the pendant.

His thumb traced the crest engraved on its surface, and something warm flickered through his gaze.

The sight pulled me back without warning to the first time he claimed me in our past life. He had crouched before me then, his eyes so gentle they bordered on indulgent.