Chapter 3: The Interruption
Odessa's POV
I rose from the bed, with determination crawling through my veins. My chest still heaved with the weight of everything I had learned my father was alive, my brother was alive, Penny was alive. Fate had rewound the clock, and I could not waste a second of this chance.
I was almost at the door when Penny saw me.
"Miss, you can't go out like that," Penny scolded, carrying a clean cloth and a basin of water. "Your hand is still bleeding."
I looked down. The prick I had given myself earlier was shallow, but blood still welled faintly at the cut. I would have left it...it was nothing compared to the wounds I had endured in my past life. But Penny's expression gave no room for argument. She set the basin on the side table with a decisive clink and caught my wrist.
"Sit," she ordered.
I obeyed, though my gaze stayed fixed on the door. Every heartbeat wasted felt like sand slipping away in an hourglass.
Penny wrung out a strip of linen and dabbed gently at my wound. Her motions were brisk but careful, her lips pressed into a line. "What nonsense possessed you to handle broken glass? Do you not know how dangerous it is? You could have cut an artery."
Her fussing, sharp as it was, drew a faint smile from me. She was alive. Her scolding was music compared to the silence of her grave.
"Penny," I murmured.
"Don't 'Penny' me, miss. You'll keep still until this is wrapped properly."
"Then at least talk to me while you do it."
She flicked a suspicious glance at me. "Talk? About what?"
"The raid," I said. My voice came out too quickly, too sharp. I softened it. "The attack on our farmland. Tell me what happened."
Her hands hesitated only a moment before resuming their work. "You already know, don't you? The raiders struck two nights ago, same as they always do. Slipped through the western fields, burned part of the harvest, and stole what they could carry before our men drove them back."
I nodded, urging her on. "And the losses?"
Her brow furrowed. "Half the grain stores from the western village are gone. A barn collapsed in the fire. A few villagers were injured, but there were no deaths, thank the moon."
Not yet, I thought bitterly. In my past life, those same raids would only grow worse. The western fields, left vulnerable, would be picked clean within the year. And one of the most deadly raids would happen tonight.
"And what is being done?" I pressed.
Penny gave me a sharp look. "Why are you asking as if you've forgotten? Your father is meeting with the lords this very hour. They're deciding how to handle the raids. Likely more patrols, more levies."
"No," I whispered. My pulse quickened. "Not more levies…"
That was what they had decided before. I remembered it too clearly, the lords with their booming voices, demanding my father protect their manors and their coffers first. They had pressured him to withdraw the guard from the farmland and concentrate them around the central manor instead. The reasoning was simple: if the baron and the lords fell, the whole territory would collapse, so they must protect the leaders at all costs.
It was a coward's logic. My father, cornered, had signed the decree. The farmers, left to fend for themselves, were slaughtered in the next raid. The survivors starved when the remaining harvest burned. Resentment festered into rebellion. We were on our oath to ruin even before Silas destroyed us.
And while that happened, the lords did very little. Pressuring my father to make the wedding happen immediately so they could get protection from Silas but at the same time, sucking the people dry because they wanted to prove that we had what it takes to host a pack like Silas'.
Penny bound the cloth tight around my hand, but I barely felt it. I could already hear the echoes of those voices in my memory, condescending and dismissive.
"If your daughter knows so much, let her join our councils. Otherwise, she should prepare for her marriage like a proper young lady."
My stomach clenched at the remembered humiliation. They had laughed, waved away my warnings, and steered us all to destruction.
Not this time.
I pulled my hand back the moment Penny tied the last knot. "Thank you. That's enough."
"Miss, wait..."
"I must see my father."
Penny stood, blocking my path. "You cannot! They are in a meeting. You know well that women are not permitted to sit in such meetings."
Her words would have stopped the old Odessa, the obedient, naive daughter who believed she had no voice. But that Odessa had died with her son in her arms.
"This is too important," I said firmly. "I won't be silent while they make a mistake."
I couldn't give out the fact that I was living a second life. Or that I had been given a second chance.
Penny paused. "Miss..."
I caught her shoulders, squeezing gently. "Trust me, Penny. Please, I need to go."
Her lips trembled with words she did not speak. At last she stepped aside, though her worry etched deeper lines across her face.
I gave her one last reassuring nod and swept from the room.
The corridors of our manor stretched before me, familiar and foreign all at once. The tapestries were still vibrant, not blackened by smoke. The windows still whole, not shattered by stone and fire. My heart pounded as I hurried down the main staircase, the murmur of voices guiding me toward the study.
As I approached, the sound grew clearer, deep male tones, clipped with tension. The lords of our land, all gathered to decide the fate of the people who tilled their soil.
I paused outside the heavy oak door, pressing my palm against its smooth surface. Memory flooded me, cruel and sharp.
The first time, I had waited here too, listening, hoping my father would hold his ground. He had not. And when he emerged, parchment signed, I had begged him to reconsider. He had tried...the moon bless him, he had tried to call back the decision, but the lords had mocked him for letting a daughter whisper in his ear. They had thrown my words back at me like weapons, insisting I should prepare to be Silas's bride and leave the matters of governance to men.
I had burned with shame, with helplessness. And within months, everything had collapsed.
This time, I would not wait for scraps of news outside a door.
This time, I would step inside.
My hand trembled as I pushed the latch. The door creaked open, the noise slicing through the rumble of voices.
The chamber fell silent.
Every head turned toward me. My father at the head of the table, lines of exhaustion etching his face. The lords seated along either side, brows raised in surprise, annoyance, disdain. Their papers and inkpots sat forgotten as they all stared at me...