Chapter 2

[He saw the pendant! He's finally going to claim her!]

[It's over! Our girl's suffering is finally over!]

[Take your sister home, Dorian! Don't let that impostor steal her place!]

I could not stop my fingers from tightening on the hem of my clothes. Bitterness and a fragile thread of hope churned together in my chest.

Perhaps what my brother said in our past life, about how he should have never brought me home, had only been spoken in anger. Perhaps this time, he would still take me back.

The hope had barely surfaced before it was crushed.

Dorian's gaze swept over Portia's pale face at his side. He tightened his grip on the pendant and struck me hard across the cheek.

Half my face went numb. His voice was freezing.

"You dared to steal something that belongs to my sister?

"If I hadn't caught you today, would you have kept this pendant and used it to cling to us?"

His eyes were razor-sharp, but when he turned and tossed the pendant to Portia, they softened into something warm and indulgent.

"Keep the pendant safe, Portia. I won't have someone with bad intentions stealing it again."

The whiplash between cruelty and tenderness drove through my chest like an ice pick.

The comments exploded.

[Have you lost your mind?! That's your real sister!]

[You fool. You're going to regret this!]

I had not wanted to cry, but the comments’ words of comfort undid me, and the tears spilled faster than I could stop them.

A drop of blood from the corner of my mouth landed on the chilblains across my hand, and the sting traveled through every nerve of my body until my fingertips shook.

They called Dorian a fool. They said he could not recognize his own sister. They said he would live to regret it.

Only I knew the truth. He was no fool. He knew exactly who I was, and he would never regret a thing.

Everything from our past life unfolded before my eyes.

The first time Dorian and Lucian came to the orphanage, I had not known I was the one they were searching for. I had sat among all the girls of the right age, eyes red and stinging, secretly praying that I might be the lost daughter of the General's household.

In the orphanage, every child's deepest wish was the same. We all wanted a family.

In the end, the headmistress had led her favorite forward. She had taken Portia by the hand and presented her to the two men.

The moment Portia, spotless and well-kept, threw herself into Dorian's arms, my eyes had burned with envy. The comments had scrolled in a frenzy, insisting that I was the General's true daughter, and I had found the courage to rush forward and pull out my pendant to expose her.

Once they confirmed it was genuine, Dorian had wiped the dirt from my face with a clean handkerchief. He pushed Portia aside when she tried to explain herself, pulled me into his arms, and looked at me with so much anguish it hurt.

"Let me take you home."

That single sentence had brought tears streaming down my face.

For the three years that followed, I truly had a family, just as the comments had promised. My brother was a general, cold and unyielding by nature since boyhood, yet he was unfailingly gentle with me.

He remembered my favorite pastries without being told and stood up for me whenever I was wronged. Lucian, my fiancé, was even more devoted.

On our wedding day, he had held my hand at the altar and sworn before everyone present that he would take no other wife in this lifetime.

However, that happiness shattered quickly.

The day I nearly died in childbirth, Lucian brought Portia home. He knelt beside my bed and told me he wanted to take her as his second wife.

When Dorian learned of it, he drew his sword and wounded Lucian on the spot. He seized Portia and vowed to send her to an estate so far away she would never set foot in my life again.

Two weeks later, Portia was back. Dorian had changed, too.

He told me Portia deserved pity and that he wanted to take her in as his ward. He even asked me to let Lucian marry her as well.

Portia stood just behind him, her eyes bright with challenge.

I looked at these two people who had once guarded me as though I were something precious, and all I felt was a cold, hollow disbelief.

I dragged my weakened body upright and slapped Portia as hard as I could across the face.