Before the Bloodshed
1174 Words
Eva had not killed them in a moment of anger.
She had not acted because of one nightmare, one betrayal, or one sudden wave of hatred.
No.
Everything she had done had been planned.
Every step.
Every lie.
Every smile.
Every tear.
For two years, Eva had carried the truth inside her like a blade hidden beneath silk.
When the nightmares had first begun, she had been terrified.
She would wake in the middle of the night, breathless and trembling, with images she could not understand—her family lying dead, blood staining the floors, her mother crying, unfamiliar faces standing in the shadows, and her own brother surrounded by danger.
At first, Eva had convinced herself that they were only nightmares.
Dreams had no meaning.
At least, that was what she wanted to believe.
But then the details began coming true.
That was when Eva stopped being afraid of her dreams.
She started investigating them.
Two years before the m******e, Eva quietly began watching her father, her stepmother, and the people surrounding her family.
She listened.
She followed servants.
She searched old documents.
She watched conversations from behind closed doors.
And eventually, she discovered something about her mother.
Her mother had once had an old maid—a woman who had served her faithfully for years. But after her mother’s death, that maid had mysteriously disappeared.
Eva eventually discovered the truth.
The woman had been sold.
Eva found her in a distant place and secretly went to meet her.
The old maid was terrified when she saw Eva.
For a long time, she refused to speak.
But Eva did not leave.
She begged.
She questioned.
And finally, the woman told her everything.
Eva learned that her mother’s death had never been an accident.
She had been murdered.
And the people responsible were much closer to Eva than she had ever imagined.
For the first time, Eva understood that her nightmares were not meaningless.
They were warnings.
And there was more.
Eva began watching her fiancé, Ethan Forge.
She had once believed Ethan loved her.
She had defended him.
Trusted him.
Even dreamed of building a future with him.
But gradually, she noticed something strange.
Ethan rarely looked at Eva with affection anymore.
His attention was always drawn toward her stepsister.
Then, one night, Eva heard voices coming from a room.
She stopped outside the door.
It was Ethan.
And her stepsister.
Eva listened silently.
“I want to marry you,” Ethan whispered. “You know that. My family forced me into this engagement with Eva, but don't worry. I will get rid of her.”
Eva's heart stopped.
“I'll make sure she is dead within a year. Then I'll marry you.”
For several seconds, Eva could not breathe.
She stood there in complete silence, her hand pressed against the wall.
The man she was supposed to marry was planning her death.
And the woman she had called her sister was waiting for it.
But Eva did not enter the room.
She did not confront them.
She did not cry.
She simply walked away.
That night, something inside her changed forever.
Later, she noticed another disturbing pattern.
Her stepmother constantly pushed her sons toward education and encouraged them to become stronger, more capable men.
But whenever Eva's younger brother was mentioned, her stepmother would say,
“He doesn't need to study that much.”
Eva noticed.
She remembered.
And she began wondering why her brother was being deliberately kept away from knowledge.
Her nightmares had already warned her that he would become a target.
Now she understood that she had to protect him.
But Eva possessed something none of them knew about.
A secret passed down through the women of her mother's family.
A forbidden family art.
The women of Eva's maternal bloodline had a unique ability—the ability to create extraordinarily realistic faces and wear them as disguises.
It was not magic.
It was an ancient skill.
A secret.
Only the women of their bloodline knew it existed.
For generations, there had always been one daughter in each generation.
Eva's grandmother had been the only daughter in her family.
Eva's mother had been the only daughter in hers.
And Eva had inherited the secret from her mother.
When Eva was only seven, her mother had introduced her to the basics.
But she was too young to understand its true importance.
Years later, when Eva was fourteen, she spent a year living with her grandmother.
That was when her grandmother taught her everything.
For two years, Eva practiced until she could reproduce another person's face with frightening precision.
It became her greatest secret.
And eventually, it became the weapon that would allow her revenge to begin.
When Eva was supposedly sent to the village because of her illness, she used the perfect opportunity.
She locked herself away and pretended to be too weak to leave her room.
She told Ruby and Tina that she needed to go somewhere alone and would return later.
Since everyone believed she was sick, nobody questioned her absence too deeply.
Eva secretly left.
She went to the capital.
And there, she became someone else.
She used her mother's secret art to take the appearance of her uncle.
Then she went to her uncle's house.
Nobody suspected a thing.
She took his wine.
And later, she returned with it.
Poison was added.
The rest became history.
Her family drank it without ever realizing that the person standing before them was not who they thought she was.
They never knew.
They never suspected.
And Eva watched them die knowing exactly why she had done it.
But that was only the beginning.
Because Eva's revenge was not finished.
Her family was only one part of the nightmare.
Her younger brother was still in danger.
Her mother's family was still being hunted.
Her grandmother was still alive.
And somewhere behind everything stood the Emperor himself.
Eva had seen it in her dreams.
The Emperor wanted her maternal family destroyed.
And the eldest prince was against them as well.
They were surrounded by enemies they didn't even know existed.
Eva knew she could not simply survive.
She had to protect her brother.
She had to save her grandmother.
She had to uncover the truth about her mother's bloodline.
And most importantly—
She had to discover why so many powerful people were determined to erase her family from history.
Eva had once been an innocent girl who believed love meant loyalty and family meant protection.
Now she knew better.
Her family had lied to her.
Her fiancé had betrayed her.
Her stepmother had plotted against her.
And powerful men wanted her bloodline destroyed.
But they had made one mistake.
They had underestimated the girl they thought was too weak to fight back.
Eva no longer wanted justice.
She wanted the truth.
And after the truth—
She wanted vengeance.
Because this time, Eva would not wait for the future she had seen in her nightmares.
She would change it herself.
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