A week had passed since the night someone tried to end her life.
The manor had returned to its rhythm — polished floors, morning bells, measured footsteps in long corridors — but something fundamental had shifted.
Niana felt it in the way the guards rotated more frequently.
In the way the servants lowered their voices when she passed.
In the way Lucien no longer left her unattended, not even by coincidence.
And in the way she slept.
She woke to sunlight and the quiet rustle of skirts.
"Good morning, Mistress," one of the maids said gently.
After breakfast, she received Serena's letter.
The parchment was cream-colored, sealed neatly with wax pressed by unfamiliar hands — temple hands.
Niana broke it open carefully.
Lady Niana,
I hope you are well. The temple is… grand. Quiet. Intimidating.
They say I have aptitude. I do not feel it.
Training begins before dawn. My hands ache from channeling light.
But I will not waste what you have given me.
Thank you for saving me.
I will become someone worthy of standing beside His Highness.
— Serena Liorè
Niana read it twice.
Then a third time.
Serena's handwriting was delicate, careful — as if she feared the ink itself might misstep.
"She sounds stronger already," Niana murmured.
Lucien, who stood nearby as always, inclined his head slightly. "The temple is known for discipline."
"Discipline," she repeated thoughtfully. "That's one word for it."
She folded the letter gently.
In the original story, Serena bloomed quickly. Light answered her call. People adored her. Kael fell first.
And Lucien…
Niana's fingers tightened imperceptibly.
Lucien fell too.
Training began that afternoon.
Lucien did not treat her gently.
"You are telegraphing your movements," he said calmly as she attempted to hold a dagger properly.
"I am not telegraphing anything," she muttered.
"You are. Your shoulder tenses before you strike."
She tried again.
He caught her wrist effortlessly.
Again.
"And again."
It was humiliating.
She was Duchess Niana Valeris — Keeper of the Divine Word — and she could not even land a proper blow on her own butler.
Except he wasn't just a butler.
He was an assassin.
And she knew it.
She had written it.
In the story — the original timeline — Lucien had been placed under her household by Kael's command.
To observe.
To report.
And, if necessary…
To eliminate.
Her.
Because in that version, she made a choice that doomed Serena.
And Lucien killed her for it.
Not out of cruelty.
Not out of duty alone.
But because he had fallen in love with Serena.
And Niana had stood in the way.
Her grip faltered.
Lucien noticed immediately.
"You are distracted."
"…Sorry."
He studied her face.
There were moments lately — brief ones — where his gaze lingered as if he were searching for something he could not name.
"You are trembling," he said quietly.
"I'm not."
"You are."
She exhaled sharply. "It's just—"
She stopped.
She couldn't tell him.
She couldn't say, I know in another version of this story, you kill me.
---
The evening shadows stretched long across the manor's corridors. The warm glow of candlelight illuminated polished floors and lacquered walls, casting the familiar scene into something almost intimate. Niana had returned to her study, sitting at her desk with Serena's letter folded neatly beside her, when there was a soft, deliberate knock at the door. Not urgent, but impossibly certain.
Lucien stepped in without preamble, the quiet authority in his movements sharper than any blade. "Mistress," he said evenly, "there is a visitor."
Niana's heart skipped. "At this hour?" she asked, voice measured but tense.
"Yes," Lucien replied. "He claims to know you… intimately. Since childhood."
Her mind froze. She tried to think — childhood friends? She had none. Nothing. Yet the words gnawed at her, tugging at some distant, unplaced memory.
"…Impossible," she murmured.
Lucien's eyes, always unyielding, flickered for the briefest moment. "He insists. He says… you would remember him if you saw him."
A memory tugged faintly at the edges of her consciousness: a laugh. A shadowed treehouse. The feel of someone insisting on holding her hand when she wanted to run. It was warm, and yet frightening, like a memory that had been buried too deep.
She straightened. Her pulse raced. "…Who is he?"
Lucien did not avert his gaze. "Eryan Vale," he said.
The name hit her like a fist she didn't see coming. Eryan. A boy she could not recall… and yet somehow knew. Her chest tightened, breath catching in her throat. She sank back slightly, remembering faint, half-formed images: a boy who smiled too much, who lingered too long, who had always insisted he would protect her — no matter the cost.
And somewhere in the depths of her memory, a warning flared. In the original story, Eryan's devotion had twisted. It had turned dangerous. He had become… something else. A shadow that haunted her path, stalking her steps.
Lucien noticed her change in posture instantly. "Mistress?" His voice was calm, but his hand hovered near her shoulder, ready if needed. "Do you wish me to receive him?"
Niana closed her eyes, drawing in a shuddering breath. "I… I have to face him," she whispered. "…I need to know why he's here, he must not know I lost my memory."
Lucien inclined his head, ever the sentinel, silent in his consent.
---
The door opened.
A figure stepped into the dim candlelight. Tall, lithe, and impossibly composed, with dark hair that caught the glow of the lamp in soft highlights. His eyes were sharp, almost unnervingly aware, and yet the edges softened with something almost… familiar. His smile was too steady, too practiced, but there was a warmth beneath it that made her stomach twist.
"Good evening, Niana," he said, voice smooth, soft, and just slightly teasing. "It's been… far too long."
Her eyes widened. Something in that tone, that familiarity, forced a memory to the surface: a shared summer, laughter in a garden, promises whispered beneath a tree, the kind that weren't meant to be forgotten.
Yet her throat went dry. "Indeed, Eryan." she said carefully, though every word felt like a betrayal of the past that her mind refused to fully reconstruct.
Eryan's smile did not falter. "Ah… I've waited… for this night. I have missed you."
Niana stepped back instinctively, hands clutching at her desk, her eyes darting to Lucien. But Lucien remained silent, as he always did, his posture unreadable. He had no clue about the history between them, and she could not risk revealing it. Not now.
The air in the room grew thick with tension. Candlelight flickered against polished wood, casting elongated shadows on the walls. Every heartbeat felt amplified, every breath a statement of defiance and dread.
Niana realized, with a sinking certainty, that the story she had been trying to control, to rewrite, to survive… had just added a new, unpredictable chapter.
And it began with Eryan Vale standing in her room, smiling too perfectly, knowing far too much…