I still remember, the first time I stood holded the gun at my head. It was the first time, I have took that step, or maybe I've finally had enough.
Palace Serdtse Fialki.
The empress room, she stood wearing the white sleeping gown, in the same terrace where she once loved idily wasting her time drinking her favorite green tea, looking down onto the very flower field of the Violet's that her dear husband has got her. But at what cost?"
"Violetta? Come down. His voice trembled, she stood at the raling of her terrace holding the gun at her head. "I'm sorry, forgive me, …I've made a mistake."
The words broke against the night like a fragile glass, too late, maybe too thin to hold any weight.
Violetta didn't turn.
The wind moved through her hairs, soft at first, then restless—like it too had something to say but didn't knew how. Below, the violet fields swayed in a quiet obedience, a color of sea planted not from love, but from apology. From an guilt. From something that came after the damage was already done.
"How long, she asked, her voice steady in a way that frightened him more than any scream could have, did it take you to realize that?" He took a step forward, careful and measured, as if one wrong movement would shatter everything.
"Violetta… please. Put the gun down. We can fix this."
A faint smile touched her lips—tired, and hollow. "Fix?" she whispered. "You think this is something you can fix?"
Her finger didn't tighten on the trigger, but it didn't loosen either. "I gave you everything, she continued, her eyes still locked onto the distant horizon. My name, my loyalty, my silence. Than, A pause. Even my happiness."
The last word lingered, almost foreign. "And in return…" She let out a soft breath. "You gave me a palace, an prison and a crown like a cuffs."
his hands trembled. He wanted to move closer. To reach for her. But the distance between them wasn't measured in steps — it was built from years of an unspoken truths. "I didn't know," he said, his voice cracking under the weight of it. "I didn't realize it was hurting you this much."
"That's the problem," she replied quietly. "You didn't realize, you've never realized."
For the first time, she turned her eyes open slightly—not enough to face him, but enough for him to see the edge of her expression. "Not anger, not even hatred. But Just an exhaustion.
"Do you remember," she said, the day you gave me these fields?"
His breath caught. "Of course I do."
"You said," she continued, "that every violet was a promise. That as long as they bloomed, we would be happy." Her gaze dropped to the flowers below. "They bloom every year." A Silent wind passes through them. "And yet…"
The unspoken truth filled the space between them.
He stepped forward again, this time unable to stop himself. "Then let me make it right now. I'll change— I'll do whatever you want. You wanted to kill Annabella right. I'll—"
She chuckled, than "Stop."
One word, Sharp enough to cut through everything.
He froze.
"Ah... She was right. You would sacrifice anyone, anything just to get what you want. Don't you feel any ounce of guilt for the women who bore your children's? "
"Who?" who are you talking about?
Than He said. "But don't you hated Annabelle, because I bring her over as my second wife, cuz you can't get pregnant. "If she is gone, maybe we can start over, start over from the beginning the kids of her's are still infant's they forget till they grow up who there mother is." You can be that, Huh.. He extended a hand throught wards her "come down from there."
She paused quietly than really looked at him for a second. Than she said. "You know Dain once I tried, tried stealing someone else happiness, someone's life, her kids that she cherished more than anything in this world." From beginning, till the end I laughed at her, laughed at her, misery her pain of seeing her own children's named as mine. "Seeing her looking like a pathetic emotional wreck of a woman."
"I've first used to think she was just carving out an affection and Your attention for the crown. But now when I looked at it. She was just dying inside, carving a touch of her childrens. "And I even after having everything I ever wanted was never really happy, there always was that empty feeling inside my heart." Standing in the same place as her today I've get how she must have been felt each time—alone, scared, in prisoned, afraid of you, afraid of me...
"You are not alone you have me. and whoever it was it's not you!" He said, in the hurry.
She said outloud, "No, no, we are not same but we are not that different either. Cause we both just run from you. Just the difference is that I did once tried facing it instead of running away and she couldn't."
"Violetta... "
"Do you know Dain? she continued. "When I saw her happy once again with someone else, I tried to steel it, again for once. Just too see what so god damn good is there and somewhere it was a so much better life than with you. And that moment maybe I was happy even if it was not a whole grand moments like yours. " But than I wonder how she can so lucky everylife."
"Than there me like a goddess of badluck has took me under her wings. Violetta slowly lifted her chin, finally turning just enough for their eyes to meet." Hers were glistening, but no tears fell.
"You don't get to rewrite this moment Dain," she said softly. "You don't get to become the man, I needed, after that moment I stopped needing him."
The gun remained steady against her temple. "But…" her voice faltered, just for a second, "I didn't come here because I want to die." His eyes widened, a fragile hope flickering. "Nor because I wanted you again."
"But I came here," she continued, "because I wanted to know that if I was still afraid to live."
The wind stilled, world held its breath. "And are you?" he whispered. Her voice so gentle like a melting ice "Yes.
A long pause stretched between them—thin as a thread, strong enough to decide everything.
The confession was barely audible.
But it was enough.
Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself to his knees—not as an emperor, not as a man asking for forgiveness, but as someone who finally have understood that he had no power here. "Please Violetta, don't do this, I've lost mine everything and if I lost you. "What would it be left of me."
"Please don't decide tonight," he said. "Just… come back inside." Dain, he made, No promises, No grand declarations. But just a quiet plea too his wife. Who he stood against helpless...
"Violetta stood there, caught between her. Thousands of past lives that had broken her again and again. Than again a future stood in front of her, that she wasn't sure of, Unknown."
But will she chose it. The gun remained where it was.. But her finger… shifted, just enough pulling the trigger. Just slightly.
His eyes widened as he run throughwards her, No! "Violetta! And for the first time that night—
In the thousand of her lives, she had finally give up on living.
Tired from this world, tired of living again and again, she killed herself knowing it won't be that easy to stay in peace, cuz when ever she had died, she always wake up in the same room, Just a year ago before her wedding.
———
As she fall from the terrace...
Down at the ground floor stood Brian leaned against a pillar of the palace with the maids of the palace. A knight, he was worried, hearing that the empress is again acting mad." He had just first, thought the miscarriage has hit her again like always.
Than he looked out the window just to distract himself from his thought's, just as Brian didn't understand what he was seeing at first. A flicker of white against the night sky. A shape—falling too fast to be anything but— "Your Majesty—?" The words died in his throat.
Time didn't slow, but It shattered. "VIOLETTA—!"
He ran as fast as he could. Boots striking stone, breath tearing through his chest, heart pounding like it could outrun the fate itself. Maids screamed behind him, their voices distant, muffled—as if the world had already begun to pull away from him.
Her body fell like a broken petal from the terrace above. Not graceful. Nor divine. But Just… human. Too human. And for a moment—
just for that moment—he thought he could reach her. His hand stretched forward—
—but reality was crueler than hope. She hit the ground: The sound wasn't loud, but it was final. Than everything around stopped.
The wind. The voices. The trembling world.
Brian froze a few steps away from her, his hand still extended into the empty air, fingers curled around nothing. "No…" he whispered. He didn't move at first. Couldn't. As if stepping closer would make it real.
But it already was. Slowly—too slowly—he walked forward. Each step heavier than the last.
Until he reached her.
She lay there in the middle of the Violet's, her white gown blooming red beneath her, like the violets above had finally found their way down to claim her. Her eyes were half-open, staring at nothing… or maybe at something far beyond this world.
"...Your Majesty…" His voice broke. He dropped to his knees beside her, hands trembling as they hovered over her, afraid to touch—as if she might disappear. Or worse.
As if she wouldn't. "I'm here…" he said, though he didn't know if he was speaking to her—or to himself. "I'm here… and you're not alone…" A lie, He said. Maybe just too late: His fingers finally brushed against her hand. Cold.
Not the kind of cold that comes from the night. But the kind that doesn't leave.
His breath hitched violently. "No… no, no, no—this isn't—" His voice fractured completely. "You said—" She looked at him with the last of her strength she spoke. "I am sorry, brian, I couldn't able to endure, maybe once in a another life time, we were together...
"We had everything, we ever desired for. Her voice breaking. She continued. It was not something grand, but we lived in a village farming, restlessly spending our days looking at our childrens grow. But it was quiet, peaceful and even if it was just for the moments, I really was happy for the time, I spent with you in that life."
His mind clung desperately to the echo of her voice... "Then take me there," he whispered, leaning closer, forehead nearly touching her hand. "Take me there with you… I don't care about this place—I don't care about the palace
—I don't care about anything—" His grip tightened, desperate. "Just don't leave me here."
Her hand reached for his face, but before it do. She had already left this world—
Behind him, chaos erupted.
Guards rushing. Maids crying. Someone shouting orders. The emperor's voice somewhere above—broken, screaming her name into a void that would never answer back.
But Brian heard none of it.
Because for him—
the world had ended quietly.
Right here.
In his hands.
Just as Dain came down running as he saw him holding her in his arms... But it already was too late. Brian kept thinking about what she meant by another life, her last words bothered him.
The guards came running from behind, "My emperor, a claivery captain said. "Prepare for the funeral the empress has passed away, Dain said. His last words were cold, ruthless."
Than He turned around and left... But his fists were clenched at his side, blood dripping from his hand maybe cuz he clenched it too tight.
That was the end of mine nine hundred and ninety nine life... And maybe a begining of my thousand life: where I met him.
———
A year ago before her wedding...
The same room, same silence and the same beginning awaited her...
Violetta's eyes snapped open. Her breath came in sharp, uneven gasps as she shot upright, hands clutching at her chest—searching for something that wasn't there.
She looked around, maybe looking for the Brian. Her instantly gone out of the window from her room. At the very same violet field where she had just took her last breath.
The wind hadn't changed.
It still moved through the violet fields the same way—gentle, obedient… untouched by the weight of what had just happened.
Violetta stood frozen at the window: Alive.
Her fingers trembled as they pressed against the glass. No blood. No broken bones. No cold creeping into her skin. Just warmth—too warm. And suffocatingly alive.
Her breath hitched. "…Again." The word barely left her lips. Behind her, the room remained exactly as it always had been—unchanged, untouched, cruelly perfect. The white curtains, untouched tea set and the faint sweet scent of a lavender.
A year before her wedding, the year before a cage, a year before him. Her nails dug into her palms. "No…" she whispered, shaking her head slowly, as if denial alone could break the cycle. "No, no, no—"
But the memory wouldn't leave her.
The fall. Brian's voice. His hands reaching for her too late. Her chest tightened violently. She thought, "Brian." For the first time—in all her lives—his face didn't feel like a passing shadow.
But It stayed. Clear, Painfully clear. "…Brian." His name felt different every time. Not distant. Not secondary. Not something buried beneath the duty and survival. But was someone Important to her.
She staggered back from the window, her legs suddenly felt weak. She fall back into the bed. And the room felt smaller now. Tighter. Like the walls already knew what they would become.
A prison. Her gaze slowly shifted—to the door. In every life before this, she had done the same things.
Woken up, Panicked, Cried. Then… accepted.
Walked down the same path, Met the same people. Made the choices. And eventually—
She Reached her—End, again and again repeat after repeat..
———
A voice of her Rooms door opening. My princess YOU ARE AWAKE!" A bowl of water fell of her hand that seems like to she got to tend to me. "Thank god, Rana." Putting a hand at her chest she said, than coming closer. "Are you feeling all right. You are not feeling anything weird right, should I go and call the doctor."
Violetta blinked at her than remember. "Ah... You are here too Nikolai." She had always died in a everylife time of mine. Infront of me, talking my bullet into her heart. In the hardest of my times she was my best friend, like a sister I never had. But what ever I did to save her, it all was useless at last in front of the will of a Death.
Sometimes she take my bullet.
Sometimes She die in the invasions.
Sometimes She will die by the hands of the Ruthless bloodthirsty tyrant emperor charles.
"Charles?" A name too familiar that always has ring into her ears before her most deaths, and the destruction of The kingdom of damsguard.
No. of all of the Kings in the middle earth. He who will conquer the whole continent. In just few measly eighteen months. His dark red eyes like a bloody red diamond. His deep blonde hairs like a dark golden threads. I've have died by him, many times more than I can remember.
He is last villain I have always fought against. Don't remember have many times I have tried my best to save my house from that Tyrant. Me and dain we both made many alliances, burned many of them in the future since they got useless. Than discarded few, made new alliances again, and again. But in front of him all the alliances were useless.
"Not only with dain, even in the life's when I was married with the other kings it was the same. I have remember that in all of my husbands only one could able to stop him for a very longtime. Kenneth Heinrich Frederick."
She reminecses his back in front of a citizens giving a speech. He wear a Military uniform, his jet black hairs and grey eyes like a mist.
He will reunite the Gehrman kingdoms and will be named as the Gehrman emperor. He will stop Charles marching At the eastern middle earth. He will stop the culture fight in the middle earth too...
He will mark a big change in the history, after Charles. And Charles... He is opposite of him. "Princess, why aren't you saying anything. Her voice worried. What are you thinking about, are you feeling pain or something?"
"I'm fine Nikolai, come and sit down here. She said, gently patting the bed besides her. "No. I can't do that if the Duke saw it he will...
A voice spoke from the behind. "And what if I saw what? "Eek! My Duke." Nikolai Said, Putting her head down.
"Father... A word that now felt so distant. He has always used me for his grain, I know that he is not bad. But he just wants the best for me and in the best he chose I have always suffered in it.
"Are you alright, You fell from the Wild horse." How many times I told you to not take horses from my stable." She muttered, "I know, I know, I learned my lesson this time. He said, "Good than, and get ready your fiancee Dain is coming to pick you up."
"Dain!" Her face looked like she had just saw a ghost. "Why is he coming?"
Her father said while leaving. "At First he was coming worried hearing that you collapse after falling from the horse." She whisper evenly. "More like, he was coming to check if I had died or not, cuz if I had died. It would be better for him so he can marry anyone he wants."
"Did you said something?" She said, "No. Than why is he coming?"
The crown prince of the another neighboring nation has came into our kingdom. The king has given duty to the prince dain to entertain him while he is here. So he coming to take you to be his mouth if I am not wrong cuz with his rude tounge he might initiate a war.
"Get ready, take your time princess." He said as he left. Nikolai exhaled. Violetta force her memories "Who did visited around the time, I've collapsed. Charles! He came to help his cousin in the throne fight against the Dain."
———
At the main castle of the kingdom of Damsgurd...
A man stood 184 CM tall around with a tilted head, looking at the flag of the Kingdom of Damsgurd, it had two axe in the middle of the shield. He wear a white, red and a mix of golden dasling royal clothes, his cloak was swinging by a breeze of the wind...
From the Corridor, a enchanting, beautiful red headed women walked closer to him, the corridor stilled the moment she approached. Her heels made no sound against the marble, yet her presence carried—like perfume, like a danger.
She smiled as she reached him, her fingers brushing lightly against his arm before settling there, possessive in a way that was far too natural. "Charles, my little proud nephew," she murmured. her voice smooth as silk dipped in poison. He looked at her. "Aunt rosela, his tone calm, almost indifferent. He hug's her from the side.
She didn't react immediately.
Than his crimson eyes once again remained fixed on the flag of Damsgurd—two crossed axes beneath a crown.
A kingdom built on pride. On stubbornness. On fragile things pretending to be unbreakable.
She studied him. The same way one studies a weapon before using it. "You've grown," she said with a soft laugh. "Last time I saw you, you were still… learning how to kill without hesitation." He turned his head fully now. "And now?" he asked. Her smile deepened. "Now you don't hesitate at all."
A pause.
The wind moved through the open arches of the corridor, catching the edges of his cloak.
"Careful," she added, her voice lowering. "Damsgurd is not like the others. This isn't a battlefield you can burn and walk away from."
"It will be," he replied simply, with no arrogance, No emotion, but Just certainty. Rosela watched him for a long second… then chuckled softly.
"Ah… there it is. That frightening confidence." She leaned a little closer. "You sound just like your father." Something in the air shifted.
Subtle.
But sharp.
Charles's expression didn't change—but the silence stretched just a fraction too long. "…I'm nothing like him," he said. Rosela's eyes flickered—amused, but observant. "Of course," she said lightly. "You're worse."
Another pause.
Then, casually—as if discussing the weather—she added: "You'll be meeting the princess today." That caught his attention. Not outwardly. But enough. "The one engaged to Dain," she continued. "Violetta."
The name lingered. For a reason neither of them immediately spoke. "She's… interesting," Rosela said, almost thoughtfully. "Fragile, they say, and Quiet. Easy to control."
Charles turned his gaze back toward the distant horizon beyond the castle walls. "Is that so." But something in his eyes—
Shifted, Just for a moment. Like a recognition. Like something buried, scratching at the surface.
Rosela noticed. Her smile sharpened. "You don't seem convinced." she said. "…People are rarely what others say they are," Charles replied.
"What about the other princess? "Light I'm more interested about her... How is she...?"
Rosela's smile didn't falter—but something behind it sharpened. "Light?" she repeated softly, tasting the name as if it were something delicate. "Ah… that one."
She turned slightly, her gaze drifting toward the inner gardens beyond the corridor arches.
"The second princess of the western Duke. The one they hide behind silk curtains and polite rumors." A faint chuckle slipped past her lips. "They say she's gentle. Pure. Almost… untouched by this world."
He didn't respond immediately.
The wind shifted again— but this time it was colder. "Is she…smart?" he murmured. But his voice lacked curiosity, Instead It carried something else.
"Smart?" Robela scoffed. "She is spoiled little brat, only if her brother was not a King of an another nation. Ah... She massage her forehead as she said I would have pierce needles all over body until she died of a blood loss. Even the Thorn—I mean my king doesn't punish her for her aducity's."
"That's perfect." He muttered.
A silence in the hall for a moment.
In the silence Robela thought. Why is he asking about her? Just what is going through his head?
A pause than.
"What Is he thinking?"
He turn around and than while walking ahead. He asked. "Where is dain? I thought he was going to entertain me with his fiancee."
Robela muttered while following behind him. "Is he gone mad. He is saying, it like Dain is going to give his fiancee to him too entertain him. He should really control that tounge of his. Or he is going to get his head chopped off over here.
Than her voice really low she muttered to herself. "Dainslif has just returned from the war field. He will soon get married and than ascend the throne. I have so less time left and as much as I hate to admit it."
She looked at his back as she seen a split image of another man with a similar cloak the old emperor of the Crimson empire and her father. "I am really glad that he is here."
Than her voice normal, Annoyed. "And why did he have to grow up so tall. He walks way too fast. Hey! wait for me... Charles!"
———
To be continue...