The moment Duke Elarion escorted her to her room and the door closed behind her, Denova abandoned all composure and flopped straight onto the bed, the soft mattress catching her. She stared at the canopy above, heart still humming from the night, and let out a slow, shaky breath.
Somehow, quietly, without her noticing, the Duke's manor had begun to feel like home.
And that thought unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
"Everything Elarion has done for me sits heavily in my chest the shelter he offered without question, the patience he shows even when I falter, the way he never once makes me feel unwelcome or out of place. He gives without asking for anything in return, protects without demanding explanations, and it leaves me wondering how I could ever repay him....I don't even know if I ever will."
Her thoughts drifted back to the market, the way the Prince and the Duke had spoken with perfect politeness while something sharp and unspoken passed between them. They smiled, laughed even, yet it felt like an argument carried on through carefully chosen words. Denova didn't understand it, and perhaps she wasn't meant to. Whatever tension existed between them, it was older and deeper than her presence there.
She decided to let it go.
Instead, she turned her thoughts to the designs waiting for her. She wanted, desperately, to bring them to life. For the first time, she considered asking Fhiore for help. Her first female friend. Talented, famous, endlessly busy, with gowns in such demand that her time had become precious. Still… this was for the empress. Surely that counted for something.
But she hesitated.
What she didn't want, what made her chest tighten is asking Elarion for more.
Lately, a quiet unease had settled into her thoughts. She wasn't his partner, and yet she lived in his manor. Learned from his gifted head maid. Treated by the servants as though she already belonged at his side. Even with Lowen, Elarion never questioned her wishes, never refused her requests.
And for that, she was grateful, deeply.
"There was no safer place for Lowen than here. No other estate could offer healers this skilled, watching over him day and night without ever letting their guard down. Every time I saw him resting peacefully, breathing steadily, I knew I had made the right choice."
Still, it weighed on her.
She had thought about introducing Lowen to her butler at Ravenscroft Manor one day, once he was fully healed. But the truth was hard to ignore, the manor was empty.
Too quiet.
With only one staff member and her own responsibilities as the new owner of Denova's body, Lowen would be alone far too often.
The manor didn't feel like a home.
It felt like a place waiting to be lived in.
"Maybe I need to change that. Maybe I should start hiring more people…actual staff, not just a cleaner from the guild who comes once a week. Bring some life into those halls, maybe then the manor would finally feel alive again, instead of quiet and echoing like it's waiting for someone who never came back."
Denova hugged a pillow close, her expression softening.
She respected Denova, the woman whose life she now carried forward. Honored her choices, her past, her name. But she had her own preferences, her own vision of what home should feel like.
"I hope you don't mind," she whispered into the quiet room, unsure whether she was speaking to the walls or to a memory that still lingered somewhere within her.
Because she wasn't trying to replace Denova.
She was only trying to live.
She fell asleep with her thoughts still tangled, questions looping endlessly through her mind until exhaustion finally pulled her under.
That was when the dream returned.
The girl in white appeared again, the same fragile figure, standing in the distance, wrapped in soft light. She was crying, as she always was, silent tears sliding down her face like something unfinished refused to let her go.
Denova.
The moment she recognized her, panic surged through her chest.
"Why are you doing this?" she screamed, her voice breaking as it echoed through the empty dreamscape. "Why do you keep coming to me? What do you want from me?"
She stepped forward, hands trembling. "Is there something you want me to do? Do you want your body back? Are you angry at me?"
Denova didn't answer immediately. She only looked at her, sad, gentle, impossibly calm, and began walking toward her, slow and deliberate, as if time itself had softened around her.
Then she spoke.
"Be careful."
Her heart stuttered. "Careful of what?" she demanded. "What do I need to be careful about?"
Denova's lips parted again, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"The deal."
Confusion turned to fear. "What deal?" she shouted, desperation clawing into her words. "Denova, what deal?!"
But Denova was already drifting away, her figure growing faint, dissolving into the pale light.
Panic took over.
She ran after her, reaching out, calling her name when something grab her feet.
Cold.
Heavy.
Unrelenting.
She stumbled, struggling to move, but unseen forces dragged her downward, pulling her deeper as if the dream itself had turned against her. The harder she fought, the weaker she felt, as though her very life was being slowly stripped away.
Then she woke up.
The morning light was gentle, spilling through the curtains, brushing the edges of the room. She lay there for a long moment, drenched in sweat, heart hammering like a war drum in her chest. Her breaths came in sharp, uneven gasps, and each inhale felt like pulling shards of glass through her lungs.
For a terrifying heartbeat, she believed she hadn't escaped at all. That the darkness, the invisible pull that had been dragging her under, had followed her back into this world. That maybe she had only imagined waking, only imagined the sensation of safety returning. Her hands trembled as she pressed them against the sheets, trying to anchor herself, to convince her body and mind that this light, this air, this life…..are real.
But the memory lingered, stubborn and suffocating. That pull had been too real.
It had been not just a sensation but a warning.
Then the words returned, slicing through the fog of panic, echoing in her mind with crystal clarity.
The deal!
The deal!
The deal!
The deal!
Her stomach tightened, a cold knot forming that refused to loosen. She pressed her palms to her face, wishing she could scrub the thought away, but the memory, and the meaning refused to leave her alone.
Denova. Had she been warning her? Was it a caution she hadn't fully understood at the time? The deal Elarion had made… the one that had transfer her soul from another world, ripped it from her old life and sewn it into this body, into this fragile, unfamiliar existence… Could that deal still be influencing her? Controlling her? Watching?
She shivered despite the warmth of the morning. Her mind, usually sharp and controlled, now spiraled in every direction at once. Questions tumbled over each other, impossible to catch. Why her? Why now? What does this mean for her… for Elarion… for everything she thought she understood?
Her chest heaved as she remember her life as pillyse, the fleeting moments of her past life, the warmth of a sun she could no longer feel, the faces she'll never see again. And yet… even here, even in this borrowed life, there was a pull toward something else, something unfinished.
Elarion.
Denova.
The deal.
All tangled together in ways she could not yet comprehend.
And suddenly, in the quiet that pressed in around her, one truth burned brighter than fear, brighter than confusion, she had to know. She had to uncover the truth, no matter how dangerous it might be, no matter how much it threatened to fracture the fragile sense of self she had built.
"Because if I didn't… if I stayed blind, if I pretended the shadows weren't crawling closer… the question would consume me. It would gnaw at my thoughts in the middle of the night, whispering in every quiet moment, until my soul felt hollowed out by curiosity and fear. And some small, rational part of me feared that when the truth finally revealed itself, it would change everything, my past, my present, and the fragile illusions of safety I had been clinging to."
Questions piled up in her mind, each one heavier than the last, twisting her stomach and making her head spin. Panic nipped at the edges, whispering all the terrible "what ifs."
She took a slow, deliberate breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
Investigate first… that's all.
No spiraling.
No imagining the worst.
She repeated it like a mantra, letting the words wrap around her like a lifeline.
Her thoughts still tried to wander, dragging her toward every dark possibility. What if I'm too late? What if I'll never find out?
She clenched her fists, forcing herself back.
Focus.
One thing at a time.
Investigate first.
She let another slow deep breath fill her, trying to convince both body and mind that she could handle this.