It began with a dream.
The evening was bright. She scolded Rian for climbing onto her terrace again. He only laughed, as he always did, and set down a small pot of orchids and a book. He had just returned from another trip. Often gone for weeks, sometimes months. She always knew he disliked Tenusa. He never attended banquets, no matter how grand.
"You must learn to mingle," she said.
He snorted. "Why do you think I travel? Nothing worth staying for here." He glanced at her. "Except that funny face."
"Funny?"
"Very funny."
She almost smiled. He was the only one who never looked at her like something was broken. She liked him for that. For never mentioning her illness. For never treating her like she was fragile glass.
"I've never seen a banquet," she said. Her illness kept her locked away. "They say last year's imperial feast was grand."
"Those banquets are dull," he said. "You're not missing anything."
"Brother says you'll marry someday," she said, her voice softer. "Maybe he says that because he knows you'll keep coming here. He says it's scandalous, a man climbing a girl's terrace. You have a bad reputation in this house, Rian."
"Your brother talks too much." His lips curved. "But he's right. No other man should come here, Sia. I'll mow his face down."
She blinked. "Except you? Shameless."
He laughed, eyes holding hers. "I'll bring you a painting of the Great Tenusa River. You'll be amazed by the dam that holds the waters."
She sighed. "Rian, you need to stop coming here—"
"Can't." He cut her off, still chuckling. "I don't stop. I step closer. I push. That's how I'm built, Nyasia Sofia Rashet."
Her eyes shook.
He should not say this—not now, not when she was this weak. Not when every day felt like borrowed time.
She swallowed.
But one day, he would stop coming. He would tire of wandering, accept his noble duties, and marry a woman with good health. A woman with years ahead of her. A woman who could share his burdens.
She didn't remember what came next. Maybe she made a final protest. Maybe she said nothing. It didn't matter. That was the last time they spoke.
.....
The next scene was her illness worsening. Then one day, a fierce fever struck—and that was the end.
She died at seventeen.
Rian was away.
.....
After that, her soul drifted over the Tenusa Empire. She hovered above it, never able to descend. At first, she was glad. She saw beyond the walls of Rashet Manor. She even found the river Rian used to speak of—though only as a ghost. Yet the freedom she had longed for lasted only a moment.
Soon she was forced to watch. The lives she could not change. The weight of it all pressed down, and she could not scream. Could not shed a single tear.
Her father's tragic death.
The collapse of the Rashet iron mines.
Rebellion.
War.
The capital falling in smoke and blood.
And Rian—
Rian lost his mind and dragged Tenusa down with him.
He led the coup himself. Heads in his hands. Bodies at his feet. He threw the bodies into the Great Tenusa River. The blood in his eyes was something she had never seen before. Dark as obsidian. Burning. Devouring whatever stood before him.
She couldn't reach him. Couldn't understand him.
He was meant to live well. He had a future.
Why?
Why did he become a tyrant? He plotted, killed friend and foe alike. He spared no one in her clan. Called them traitors. Watched without mercy as her brother—his friend—knelt at the guillotine.
When nothing could quiet his fury, his eyes went calm. Final. Almost gentle. His arms stretched as if to embrace something unseen.
She understood, then. She had been the only thing keeping the darkness inside him at bay.
He fell into the Great Tenusa River.
Rian!
.....
They said souls were free from pain.
Then why did it hurt?
.....
The dream came in flashes she couldn't hold. Events unfolded without reason, yet felt real. She hovered like a ghost in the sky, unable to see through the walls that shaped them. When she finally woke, her soul felt aged. Worn from witnessing it all. Inside, she no longer felt sixteen.
She could have dismissed it as a nightmare—if her illness hadn't worsened three days ago.
In the dream, today was exactly when she died.
Now, lying in her bed, she breathed. Then shifted to her side. Her eyes found the glass door that opened to the terrace. Where he had stood that night, holding orchids and a book. Laughing at her. Teasing her. Promising her a painting of a river she had never seen.
Today was the day she was supposed to die.
Could she change things this time?
*