Rebirth
1116 Words
Ariana’s POV
I awoke with a gasp and felt my chest heaving, and saw the room spinning round me. My garments were in knots, my hair wet with perspiration, and the icy torchlight, which glanced in the hall outside, threw sharp shadows on the walls. I did not know where I was just a moment, disoriented. I was struck with the memories, then, like a tidal wave, came Lucas, the council, Adrian, the falling blade. I narrowed my throat and put my palms on my face, trying to inhale in the panic.
I opened my eyes slowly. My bedroom looked… different. What caught my eyes was the writing on the wall.
“Six months before.”
My heart skipped a beat, with perplexity and relief fighting each other as I jumped off my bed, rushing to go touch it and be sure my eyes were not playing games with me.
But the second I placed my hand on the wall, the words faded in front of my very own eyes.
“Holy moon goddess.” I exclaimed in fear. “Guards!” I screamed but for weird reasons the sound did not reach my own ears.
“What’s happening?!” I mumbled, my eyes scanning the room.
I was drawn to the calendar on the wall. I looked at the date, and my stomach sunk. The day…. It was six months earlier. Six months before I am executed.
I gulped and made myself think. I thrust my hair back and glanced around the room. I wasn’t dead. I was… alive. Somehow, inexplicably alive.
I walked to the window, gasping shallowly. The Blackwood estate was serene , smoldering in the gentle light of late afternoon. Not an inkling of alarm, not a rumor of assault, not a warrior that fell. The border to the north was calm. Nothing had happened yet.
I sat down on the floor with my back to the wall, trying to digest it all. Lucas hadn’t betrayed me yet. My father hadn’t lost his tongue whilst I was tried for treasons. I had not been condemned by the council. Adrian hadn’t executed me. I still had time. A shiver of cold will came to me, and the fear that I had felt since my first startled breath was gone. I could change everything.
I clenched my fists. Anger was boiling up in my heart, stinging and acrid. Lucas’s betrayal. My father’s silence. The council’s judgment. Adrian executing me. All the memories of that night were re-enacted with flawless accuracy. I recalled the sunken expression of the eyes of Lucas, and the cold deliberateness of those of Adrian, and the silent disapproval of my father. I had put my trust to them all, and it had cost me only my life. This time it would be different.
My fingers dug into my palms. I would survive. I would uncover the truth. I would bring them all to pay with what they had done--not with actual vengeance, but with showing up their frauds and restoring to me what belonged to me.
I stood up, and walked towards the far wall and the mirror. I studied my reflection. It was the same face, same silver-blue eyes, same midnight-black hair, but the innocence behind those eyes had gone out. It was no longer the innocent faith I had ever possessed, but hard, concentrated, and icy.
I could not afford to lose an hour. Every second counted. I had to act, but carefully. At the beginning, I had to discuss the betrayal of the very core of it. Lucas. He had been the man to carry me to death, to send me to the council and to make sure that Adrian executed the sentence. He had got himself involved in my story unknowingly, and he had no clue of the outcomes that were to occur.
I was walking around the room and my thoughts kept going round. How should I make him have no opportunity of betraying me again? How could I turn the course of events in my favor, so that the facts and the truth would some day be in my possession? All the information of the last timeline I had memorized. All the talks, all the meetings, all the moves--I understand how it will go without my interference. And I would. I had to.
One side of me felt like crying out with relief at being alive and the other part was full of anger and fear. The understanding that I had been completely powerless in the past life ate me up. I would not permit such a recurrence. Not to me. Not to the Blackwood Pack. Not to my legacy.
I leaned back on the bed-side a little, and got the anger to give my thoughts their stinging point. This second opportunity was not a gift, it was a gun. A weapon that I was to use with caution. And the first thing was obvious, I needed to handle Lucas.
A knock on my door distracted me from my thoughts. The door was ajar and one of the servants peeped inside. She looked at me with a hesitation, she could have felt the tempest within me, almost wary.
“Miss Blackwood,” she said, bowed her head a little, “Lord Lucas Ravencrest has come to see you.“
I froze. My heart sunk, and my hands were clenched into fists. Lucas. Here. He was yet in this timeline convinced that he had time. He didn’t know. He did not know what I was remembering, what I had gone through, what I had survived.
“Tell him I am still asleep, lie that you walked in and saw me sleeping.” I said, the rage getting a hold of me.
“U-okay ma’am.” The maid stuttered, turning around to leave, clearly baffled as to why I would lie to a man whose presence I craved.
“Wait,” I said to her. “Let him in.”
“O-okay.” She said, bowed and quickly left the room as though staying in it was a torture.
Minutes later, I heard Lucas’s voice in the corridor asking the maid if I had eaten. That caused a flood of memories and boiling anger. Yet, most importantly, there was a feeling of power that I had never experienced before. I had survived. I had come back. And this time, I was ready.
I breathed hard and drew myself up. Lucas could not manipulate me. He would not betray me again. He would not see the same Ariana he had sent to her death.
Shortly after, the door was opened by the maid and Lucas stepped in.
- Writer
