The winter wind gnawed at the stables long after Kael's whistling faded, its howl seeping through the cracks in the wooden walls to curl around my bones like a cold fist. The bread I'd forced down was bitter on my tongue, the mold a faint, metallic tang that lingered even as I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to retch.
Bess nuzzled my hand, her warm breath fogging the air between us, but I barely felt it—my fingers were numb, my toes blocks of ice in the threadbare boots that had been too small for me since last spring.
I leaned against her, my eyes slipping shut before I could stop them.
The cold vanished first.
In its place was warmth—soft, golden, like sunlight through glass. I was small again, no taller than the roses climbing the trellis beside me, my cheek pressed to the smooth silk of a woman's dress.
The air smelled of jasmine and honey, sweet and heady, and when I looked up, I saw her: a woman with hair like spun sunlight, cascading in loose waves down her back, and eyes the color of sapphires caught in the light—the exact same shade as mine, bright and clear, crinkling at the corners as she smiled down at me.
We were in a greenhouse, its glass panes fogged with humidity, the air thick with the buzz of bees and the drip of water from the leaves above. She hummed a tune I didn't recognize but felt in my bones, a lullaby that wrapped around me like a blanket, and when she lifted me into her arms, her touch was gentle, so gentle I thought I might melt.
"My sweet Hannah," she murmured, her voice like honey, and I buried my face in her neck, breathing in the scent of lavender and sunshine. For the first time in two lives, I felt safe. Wanted. Seen.
The dream didn't last.
It shattered with a crack—not the crack of a branch breaking, but the shriek of wind tearing through the stable's rafters, the sound sharp enough to slice through the warmth of the greenhouse and yank me back into the cold of the barn.
I gasped, my eyes flying open, and for a second I was disoriented—my cheek was pressed not to silk, but to Bess's rough mane, the jasmine replaced by the stench of hay and manure, the lullaby drowned out by the howl of the storm.
The memory of the greenhouse lingered, bright and painful, like a wound exposed to the air. That woman—who was she? My mother? The prior countess, the one who'd died giving birth to me, the one who'd given William and Kael their names and their claim to the estate before Stephanie ever stepped foot in the castle?
The one who'd died giving birth to me, the one Stephanie loved to call a foolish, weak thing who'd left her husband with a useless third daughter? She never missed a chance to sneer at me, to call me a burden, a mistake, a stain on the Bennington name that even the prior countess's legacy couldn't wash away. Why did the woman in my dream feel like a memory I'd buried so deep I'd forgotten it existed? Why did her sapphire eyes look so much like mine?
The thought curdled in my chest, and with it came a wave of despair so thick I could barely breathe.
What was the point?
I'd prayed for a new start, a clean slate—and what had I gotten? Another cage. Another life where I was nothing, where I was kicked and mocked and forgotten, where even the memory of a mother's love was nothing but a fleeting, cruel dream.
I'd clung to that spark of resolve earlier, the silly thought that this was a test, that I could fight back—but fight back against what? Against a father who didn't care, a stepmother who hated me, siblings who took pleasure in my pain? Against a world that saw me as nothing more than a shadow to be stepped on?
My struggles were useless. My effort, wasted. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried to survive, this life would chew me up and spit me out, just like the last one.
I stood up, my legs shaking so badly I almost fell. The stable door was ajar, the snow swirling beyond it, white and endless and cold. I didn't think. I just walked—stumbling, unsteady, my boots sinking into the drifts that had piled up against the walls. The wind cut through my dress, freezing my skin, but I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore.
I saw them then—Kael, his back to me, walking toward the castle with Layla at his side, her high-pitched laughter carrying on the wind. William was ahead of them, his shoulders straight, his cloak billowing behind him, already halfway to the door. They were warm. They were fed. They were loved—products of the prior countess's blood, of a legacy Stephanie could never truly steal.
And I was nothing.
Agrhhhh...
The scream tore out of me before I could stop it—a raw, guttural sound, loud enough to make the birds in the trees fall silent, loud enough to make Bess whinny in alarm from the stable. It wasn't just a scream of pain or anger—it was a scream of grief, of two lifetimes of loneliness and neglect, of the hope that had died in me the second I'd woken from that dream.
I screamed until my throat felt raw, until tears streamed down my face, freezing on my cheeks. I clawed at my hair, the tangled, uneven chestnut strands that Layla had hacked at with kitchen shears, pulling so hard my scalp burned.
I fell to my knees in the snow, the ice seeping through my dress to soak my skin, and I wept—great, heaving sobs that wracked my entire body. I didn't care who heard me. I didn't care if they came to watch, if they laughed, if they called me mad. Let them. Let them see the useless third daughter, the mouse, the nothing, finally breaking.
From the stable, Bess whinnied again, a low, mournful sound—worry, or fear, I didn't know. I didn't look up.
I heard a voice, though—Kael's, sharp and mocking, cutting through the wind.
"Is she finally going mad?"
I looked up then, through blurred tears, and saw him standing there, a few feet away, his face twisted in disgust. Layla was beside him, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes wide with cruel amusement. William hadn't turned around. He'd kept walking, until the castle door closed behind him, and he was gone—oblivious, or indifferent, to the sister who shared his mother's eyes, left to die in the snow.
Kael stared at me for another second, then turned away, his shoulders shaking with laughter as he walked toward Layla. They didn't look back.
A moment later, I heard footsteps—soft, hesitant. Servants, emerging from the castle's side door, their faces wary. They didn't come closer. They just stood there, watching me, their eyes filled not with sympathy, but with disgust and contempt. Fear that if something happened to the count's third daughter, they would be the ones to blame. Fear that they'd be the ones to suffer for my madness.
No one cared. No one ever would.
I sank deeper into the snow, the cold creeping into my chest, and closed my eyes.
Let the storm take me. Let the frost claim me.
It would be better than this.
.
.
.
The next thing I knew, I was in my bedroom.
It was smaller than the servants' quarters, a cramped, drafty box tucked into the furthest corner of the castle, where the winter wind snaked through the gaps in the stone walls unimpeded. No fire crackled in the hearth—Stephanie had deemed it a waste of coal for a girl who spent most of her time in the stables anyway. The furniture was all scuffed, splintered wood: a rickety bed with a thin, lumpy mattress, a wobbly desk cluttered with dust, and a cracked mirror propped against the wall, its surface warped enough that my reflection looked like a twisted shadow. It was the only mirror in the castle that no one else wanted, its size matching my frame exactly, as if it had been cursed to only show me.
I woke up with a fever, my skin burning hot even as the cold nipped at my fingertips, but my head was clear—clearer than it had been in days. The dream played on a loop behind my eyelids: the golden hair, the sapphire eyes, the lullaby that felt like a memory I could almost grasp. But clarity didn't bring comfort. It brought a cold, hard truth, sharp as a shard of ice.
No one was going to love me. No one was going to change for me. No one would smile at my successes, no one would mourn my demise. I was a ghost in two lives, a shadow no one bothered to notice, a mistake Stephanie resented and Father forgot. The spark of resolve I'd clung to earlier was gone, snuffed out by the frost and the mold and the weight of two lifetimes of loneliness.
I gave up.
The word settled in my chest, heavy and final, as I pushed myself up to sit—too fast, too sudden. The movement jolted the man perched on the edge of my desk, and he jumped, his greasy fingers fumbling away from my arm where they'd been hovering.
It was the quack doctor Stephanie sometimes sent when one of the servants fell ill—a man with yellowed teeth and eyes that lingered too long, a man who cared more about coin than cures. I didn't remember him being called. I didn't remember being dragged from the snow to this room. But I didn't need to. The way his gaze slid over my fever-flushed skin, the way his lips twitched into a leering smile, told me everything I needed to know.
Stephanie hadn't sent him to heal me. She'd sent him to amuse him—at my expense.
Disgust curdled in my throat, hot and bitter, as his hand reached for me again, slow and deliberate. "Easy now, little lady," he purred, his voice thick with slime. "Just let me check that fever of yours—"
I snapped.
The fever fog lifted entirely, replaced by a cold, burning rage that seared through my veins. I didn't think. I just acted.
"Do you want to die?"
The words were quiet, a low, lethal snarl that hung in the frigid air between us. The quack froze, his hand halfway to my face, his smile dropping off his ugly features. Before he could recover, before he could even blink, I lunged for the chipped ceramic vase on my desk—a cracked, dusty thing Stephanie had tossed at me once in a fit of rage. I grabbed it by the neck, hefted it with all the strength my fever-weakened body could muster, and threw it at his head with full, unforgiving force.
It hit him square between the eyes.
A sickening thud echoed through the room. Blood bloomed instantly, a bright, sticky red against his pale forehead, dripping down his nose and onto his tattered coat. He yelped, a high, pathetic sound, and stumbled backward, tripping over the leg of my bed and crashing to the floor in a heap.
I stared at him, my chest heaving, my hands shaking—not with fear, but with the wild, feral thrill of fighting back.
For the first time in two lives, I hadn't run. I hadn't hidden. I hadn't let them hurt me without a fight.
The quack groaned, clutching his bleeding forehead, and I stood up, my knees wobbly but my resolve unshakable. I looked down at him, at the blood on his face, at the fear in his eyes, and smiled—a cold, sharp smile that didn't reach my sapphire eyes.
"Get out," I said, my voice steady, deadly. "Or the next thing do will not end with simple scratch."
The quack didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled off the floor, his hands still clamped to his bleeding forehead, and stumbled toward the door—tripping over the threshold so hard he nearly face-planted into the corridor. He didn't look back, didn't even pause to grab his satchel of worthless herbs. He ran, his boots thudding against the stone floors, the sound fading into the howl of the wind outside like a rat scurrying back to its hole.
Silence settled over the room again, thick and tense—until the door slammed open a second time, hitting the wall hard enough to rattle the dust from the rafters.
Sheila stood in the doorway, her face twisted with a fury that matched the storm outside.
Her hair was the color of wilted moss, stringy and unkempt, pulled back in a tight bun that made her sharp features look even harsher. Freckles dusted her nose and cheeks, sparse and faded, and her eyes were small and beady, narrowed to slits as she took in the scene: the broken shards of the vase on the floor, the dark smudge of blood on the wood, me standing there with my fists clenched, my fever-flushed face set like stone. She looked exactly like the third-rate villain from a tragedy— the kind who delighted in tormenting the heroine, who got off on the sound of her cries, who would sell her own soul for a scrap of the lady's favor.
She was the maid Stephanie had put in charge of "keeping me in line"—a task she took far too much pleasure in. She was the one who'd dragged me from the snow to this room, her fingers digging into my arms hard enough to leave bruises. She was the one who'd stood by while the quack loomed over my bed, who'd turned a blind eye to his leering gaze and his wandering hands, because Stephanie had told her to.
"Have you lost your mind?" she shrieked, striding into the room and pointing a finger at me—her nail was broken, black with dirt, and I flinched back from the sight of it. "That man is a guest of the countess! You'll be flogged for this—flogged—if I have any say in it!"
I didn't flinch. Didn't cower. Didn't drop my gaze like I always did.
I stared right back at her, my sapphire eyes cold and sharp, and let the silence stretch between us—long enough that her sneer faltered, long enough that she shifted her weight from foot to foot, like she was suddenly unsure of herself.
For the first time in two lives, I didn't care what she thought. Didn't care what she would do.
I was tired of being the mouse. Tired of being the shadow. Tired of being the nothing they all wanted me to be.
And for the first time, I realized I didn't have to be.