The girl did not wake for two days. Her body was battered, bruised from head to toe, her back lashed with whip marks, her wrists raw from rope burns. Each time the physician peeled away another layer of torn cloth, her mother wept silently into her hands.
"She's only a child…" the doctor muttered, his old face paling. "The beatings alone… she should not have survived."
The family had brought her back from the riverside in secret, carrying her under the cover of night. Their mansion on the edge of Country A was safe, guarded by loyal men sworn to silence. Not even the servants knew the girl's identity only that their masters had rescued someone the world could never know existed.
On the third night, she finally stirred. Her lashes fluttered, and those green eyes so much like her grandmother's opened faintly. But instead of relief, terror seized her as though waking in another nightmare.
"No…" she croaked, her voice hoarse. "Don't hurt me…"
Her body convulsed, every nerve remembering chains, pain, and fire. Her hands clawed at her neck, trying to tear away ropes that weren't there.
The father was there in an instant, his large hands wrapping around her trembling ones. "Shh, it's over now. No one will hurt you again. Not while I breathe."
But she thrashed, her cries piercing through the quiet halls. "They said… kill it! They made me—" Her voice broke, choking on words too sharp to say.
Blood smeared across the sheets as her nails cut into her palms. She reached blindly, grabbing a shard of glass from the bedside. With shaking fingers, she scrawled jagged letters onto the blanket:
DIE.
The room fell into suffocating silence.
The mother collapsed onto the bed, clutching her daughter's small frame. Tears soaked the girl's tangled hair as she whispered over and over: "You are not alone anymore. You are ours. You are ours…"
The elder brother turned away, unable to watch, his fist clenched so tight blood dripped between his knuckles. The younger one, a soldier with iron discipline, felt his chest crack with helpless rage.
"Her injuries are not just of the body," the doctor warned grimly. "Her mind… has been shattered."
From that night on, she was never left alone. Her father often stayed awake until dawn, sitting by her bedside in case she woke screaming. More than once, he had to tear the rope from her hands as she tried to hang herself. Once, he found her carving "KILL ME" into her arm with broken glass, crimson smearing her fingers.
Each time, he held her close, sobbing into her hair. "You are my daughter. I will not let you go, not again. If I must carry your pain for you, I will."
The mansion's gates were locked tighter than ever. Guards doubled. Her survival was a secret buried under the moonlight. To the world, the heiress of the Moon family had drowned in the river.
But inside the house, the child they thought lost forever had returned. Scarred. Fragile. Alive.
And no one not even her enemies would ever learn the truth.