THE SECOND READING
I came back to "my room"—this is mine now, anyway. The word tasted strange in my mouth, like claiming ownership of something that would never truly belong to me.
I sat on the bed—my body tense, unable to fully settle into the softness that felt too luxurious, too undeserved. The mattress sank slightly beneath my weight, plush and yielding in a way that made my chest ache with the memory of cold stone streets, of nights spent curled against walls that held no warmth.
The diary lay heavy in my hands. Red leather, worn smooth by years of handling.
I opened it with full intent to read.
But the moment my eyes touched the first page, they began to ache. A burning, stinging sensation building behind them, pressure mounting like tears demanding release. My vision blurred at the edges.
No. Not again.
I pressed my lips together hard, tasting blood where I'd bitten down without realizing. I blinked rapidly, forcing the tears back, swallowing against the tightness in my throat.
If I cry, I won't be able to continue—just like before. Just like this morning when I'd collapsed on the floor, sobbing so hard I couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't do anything but feel the weight of what I'd created crushing down on me.
No matter what, I'll finish this.
The first entries I'd read before stared back at me. The childish handwriting about the wand—loops too wide, letters uneven, the innocent enthusiasm of an eight-year-old bleeding through every stroke. The excitement about the academy—"It was huge and there are many students!" with the exclamation point pressed so hard it nearly tore through the page.
Mother's death, marked by tear stains that weren't mine. Old stains, faded to pale brown, the paper puckered and warped where saltwater had fallen years ago. I traced one with my fingertip, feeling the texture change, imagining a ten-year-old girl crying as she wrote, her tears falling faster than she could wipe them away.
I'd stopped there this morning. Couldn't bear to keep going. The pain had been too immediate, too visceral, like pressing on an open wound. So I'd jumped ahead, desperate for answers, skipping to the recent entries—the magic test failure, the final party entry that ended with "at least..."
But that was cowardice. Running from the full truth because facing it hurt too much.
Now I needed the full story. Not just the tragic highlights that let me feel appropriately guilty and move on. Everything in between. Every detail I'd been too emotional to process. Every name, every incident, and every small cruelty that built into the avalanche that buried a twelve-year-old girl who'd only wanted to matter.
I turned past the entries I'd already read, forcing my eyes to slow down. To actually read this time, not just absorb the pain and move on.
My hands trembled slightly as I turned the pages. The paper whispered against itself, a soft rustling that seemed too loud in the quiet room.
Moonlight came through the window, casting everything in silver-blue, dust motes drifting through the beam across my lap. The magic lamps around the room added their own warm glow.
It was beautiful. Peaceful.
It made what I was about to read feel even more obscene.
1469, February 30th
"Mother's funeral. Duke Castor attended. Looked at Father for a long time. Not sad. Just... Studied him. Like a predator assessing prey…"
Three words that made my skin prickle with unease. Not "looked sad" or "paid respects" or even "looked at Mother's coffin."
At Father.
At a funeral. While a ten-year-old girl grieved her mother and a man tried not to break in front of everyone.
1470, February 12th
"At Marquis Warwick's gathering, Lady Sophia asked about my magic lessons. She said I must have Mother's talent, then looked at Father and mentioned 'your father's determination.' The way she said it made it sound bad."
I could picture it. The syrupy sweet voice, the smile that didn't reach the eyes. The way Lady Sophia would have emphasized certain words—"Mother's talent, your father's determination"—making the comparison clear to everyone listening. Imperial blood versus common stock. Magic versus muscle. Worthwhile versus worthless weed.
And eleven-year-old Eledy standing there, understanding the insult but not knowing how to respond, watching Father's jaw tighten as he smiled politely and said nothing.
1470, September 16th
"Failed the magic test yesterday. Today a letter came from Duke Castor. Father crumpled it. His hands were shaking."
The day after the test. Not even waiting a full day before striking. The timing was deliberate, surgical. Hit them while they're down. When Father was already reeling from his daughter's failure, already wondering how to protect her from the social consequences, already terrified about their future.
That's when Duke Castor's letter arrived.
What did it say? An offer of "help" that was really a threat? A suggestion that perhaps House Rovaan should "consider their options"? A reminder that nobility required certain standards?
Whatever it was, it made father's hands tremble with rage or fear or helpless fury.
1470, October 15th
"Duchess Harmont's tea party. Kiera Castor told the other girls: 'Don't bother with her. No magic means basically a commoner now. Her father's blood won out.' They all laughed. I sat alone."
Kiera Castor. Duke Castor's daughter.
Leading the social execution with the casual cruelty of a fourteen-year-old who'd been taught exactly who to target and how. Not screaming insults or physical violence—that would be beneath a noble lady. Just pleasant exclusion. Friendly advice to the other girls. A smile while delivering the killing blow.
"Her father's blood won out."
As if Eledy were a contaminated thing. A failed experiment. Proof that mixing imperial and common blood produced inferior results.
And the other girls laughed. Not uncomfortable laughing, not nervous laughing. Just... agreeing? Accepting this new social hierarchy where Eledy Rovaan now ranked below them all?
"I sat alone"
Few words. Flat, factual, resigned.
For two hours, the diary had said. A twelve-year-old girl sitting alone at a tea party, watching other children laugh and play and bond, knowing they'd been instructed to avoid her. Knowing she was being punished for the crime of her father's bloodline.
My throat burned. I forced myself to keep reading.
1471, January 8th
"Academy's second rejection letter. Your daughter has zero magical capacity. Rules are rules. Standards must be maintained. Father went to capital to argue. Gone three days. Came back defeated. 'I'm sorry, Eledy. I tried.'"
He tried. For three days. A Count—the lowest rank of nobility, barely above commoner status—went to the capital and argued with the Magical Academy. Probably met with administrators who looked down their noses at him, who made him wait in antechambers, who listened to his plea with barely concealed contempt.
And he'd tried anyway. For three days. Leaving his territory, his duties, everything, to fight a battle he knew he couldn't win.
Because she was his daughter.
He came back defeated. That word—*defeated*—written in Eledy's careful script. She'd seen it in his face, in his posture, in the way he couldn't quite meet her eyes when he apologized.
A war hero, brought low by bureaucrats with rules and regulations and an airtight reason to exclude a little girl who'd only wanted to learn.
1471, March 15th
"Studying noble houses. Duke Castor controls eastern trade. Marquis Roderick Warwick has military contracts. Duchess Harmont has treasury ties. They're all connected. Like a web. We're outside it. Mother must have been all of that."
The entry was longer than most, the handwriting neater, more controlled. This was written carefully, thoughtfully. Analysis, not emotion.
A twelve-year-old girl mapping the political landscape, trying to understand the game being played around her. Seeing the connections, the alliances, the web of power that bound the major nobles together in mutual benefit and protection.
And seeing clearly where House Rovaan stood: outside it. Alone.
"Mother must have been all of that."
In the past Eleanor had been the connection, the bridge, the reason other nobles couldn't completely dismiss them. Her imperial blood, her legendary beauty, her "Saintess" like reputation—that had been House Rovaan's value.
And now she was gone.
Now they were just a common-born Count with weak territories and a daughter who proved his bloodline wasn't good enough.
Eledy had understood that. At twelve. Had seen exactly how precarious their position was, how quickly they were falling, how inevitable the end would be unless something changed.
That's why she'd thrown herself into studying politics. Not out of ambition. Out of survival.
This is the reason she changed!
1471, May 12th
"Met Kael Arvendir today. He barely looked at me. Later, I heard Father and Duke Arvendir speaking. 'Count Rovaan, your daughter's condition shows no improvement. Proceeding with the engagement now would be premature. Let us wait and see if her situation changes.'
So the engagement was never real. Just politeness."
Kael.
I closed my eyes for a moment, his face surfacing in my memory—not the fourteen-year-old boy Eledy met that day, but the man I had known in my first life. Cold eyes. A hard jaw. The way he'd looked at me—at her—with that restrained, practiced contempt.
"I thought you'd become a better person… but you're running away? Then go. Go far away where I don't have to see you. So I can finally forget you."
His last words to me before everything went dark.
I'd thought he hated me. Thought he'd bought me from execution as a slave because he wanted revenge for the crimes the villainess had committed, for the embarrassment she'd brought to his house when their engagement was broken.
But the entry said he barely looked at her at twelve. Dismissed her immediately. And his father made it clear—the engagement wasn't real. Just a polite fiction. Something to maintain diplomatic relations between two families while making no actual commitment.
"Perhaps we should wait. See if circumstances change."
Meaning if she develops magic somehow, if House Rovaan recovers, if something makes her valuable, we'll consider it. Otherwise, this engagement will quietly dissolve.
Even that small hope was hollow.
So there was never an engagement at all. They'd only been considering an alliance, and with Eledy's lack of magic, her slipping status, and her father's declining influence… she simply wasn't worth it to them
Twelve-year-old Eledy had known. Had overheard the truth and written it down with heart-breaking clarity.
---
1471, June 30th
"Count Ferris's banquet. Duke Castor approached Father. Smiled at me first. 'You look just like your mother.' Then to Father about border territories and bandits. Offering 'assistance.' Father said territory is secure. Duke Castor kept smiling."
That Duke Castor… Him again!
"You look just like your mother."
On paper, the words looked harmless. A compliment. Acknowledgment of Eleanor's legendary beauty reflected in her daughter.
But I could picture how he must have said it — the way Duke Castor would have looked at twelve-year-old Eledy, smiling that cold smile, his eyes holding none of the warmth his words pretended to carry.
You look just like Eleanor. The Imperial Princess who wasted herself on your common-born father. What a shame you didn't inherit anything else from her. Just the pretty face. Nothing useful.
Then immediately pivoting to Father. Bringing up border territories—House Rovaan's lands, their only real asset. Mentioning bandits, security concerns. Offering "assistance" in that way that made it clear it wasn't an offer at all.
"Your territory is failing. You can't protect it alone. Let me help. Let me position my forces there. Let me slowly absorb your lands while you smile and thank me for it."
And Father had refused. Politely but firmly. "My territory is secure, Your Grace."
Even knowing it made him look prideful. Even knowing other nobles would hear and think he was foolish for rejecting a Duke's generous offer.
Because accepting would have been the beginning of the end. Duke Castor's "assistance" would come with conditions, with expectations, with slowly eroding autonomy until House Rovaan existed in name only.
Father had seen the trap. Reading this, he doesn't seem like the fool history made him out to be. If Duke Castor is the one behind this then how did he fall?
But he couldn't stop Duke Castor from smiling. From knowing that refusal just meant he'd try another angle. That eventually, House Rovaan would be weak enough, desperate enough, that they'd have no choice but to accept.
It was only a matter of time.
1471, September 10th
"Lady Harmont's gathering. Duke Castor found me.
Imperial blood tainted. Zero magic = Father's fault.
Nobles listening.
Father stepped in.
'How long can House Rovaan sustain?'
Everyone heard.
Father: 'You are not a mistake.'
His hands were fists."
The entry was shorter than the others, the handwriting slightly shaky. Like she'd been trembling when she wrote it. Like even putting the words on paper made her hands unstable with remembered shame and pain.
"Imperial blood tainted."
He'd said that to her face. To a twelve-year-old. In front of other nobles.
That her blood—her very existence—was tainted. Contaminated. Ruined.
Because her father was common-born and she'd failed to inherit her mother's magic, she was walking proof that Eleanor's choice had been wrong. That mixing imperial and common blood produced inferior results. That House Rovaan's very existence was a mistake.
"Zero magic = Father's fault."
Blamed Father directly. Made it clear that Count Rovaan's inadequate bloodline had poisoned Eleanor's imperial legacy. That if Eleanor had married properly—a Duke, another imperial—her daughter would have been powerful, valuable, worthy.
But she'd married a commoner knight. And this is what they got.
And the nobles listened. Duke Castor made sure of it. Spoke just loud enough for others to overhear. Positioned the conversation in a public space where people would naturally drift closer, curious about what the Duke was saying to the disgraced Count's daughter.
Making sure everyone heard the accusation. The condemnation. The official declaration that House Rovaan was failing and everyone should start distancing themselves.
So, he stepped in to save her. Took the target off his daughter and put it on himself. Probably said something about leaving her out of it, about how any grievances Duke Castor had should be addressed to him directly, not to a child.
Making himself look defensive. Emotional. Weak.
Which is exactly what Duke Castor wanted.
'How long can House Rovaan sustain?'
The killing blow. Asked loud enough for everyone to hear. Planting the question in every noble's mind.
How long before they collapse entirely? How long before their territories are absorbed, their titles revoked, their family scattered? Should we be doing business with them? Should we maintain social connections? Or should we start distancing ourselves now, before their fall damages our own standing?
Three words. The damage was done. By the next day, every noble family would be discussing House Rovaan's precarious position. By the next week, invitations would stop coming. Business contracts would quietly lapse. Social connections would cool.
Not because Duke Castor ordered it. Because he'd simply pointed out the obvious, and everyone else had the sense to see which way the wind was blowing.
Despite all the shame he endured, he is trying to comfort her on the ride home. His voice firm, insistent, desperate for her to believe it. And he told his daughter she wasn't a mistake. And neither of them believed it would be enough.
But his hands were fists. Clenched so tight his knuckles probably went white. All that rage and humiliation and helpless fury with nowhere to go. He couldn't challenge a Duke. Couldn't defend himself without looking weaker. Couldn't protect his daughter from words, from implications, from the slow social murder Duke Castor was orchestrating.
I closed the diary slowly, my hands trembling, I nearly dropped it.
The room swam before my eyes. That Moon light felt wrong now—too peaceful, too gentle, completely at odds with the systematic destruction I'd just read about.
My breath had gone shallow without me noticing. I pressed one hand against my chest and felt my heart hammering against my ribs - when had that started?
I'd read it all. Every entry between her Mother's death and the final party. Every incident, every insult, every moment of isolation and pain.
The full picture.
Not just fragments. Not just the emotional highlights.
Everything.
"Duke Castor is the center of it all!"