Reincarnation By Execution

2. A New Life Please

“Evelyne!” Damian’s voice cracked across the library, taut with anxiety and annoyance. His footsteps echoed on the marble, slicing through the hush she had so treasured. His gaze swept the rows of books before landing on her, sprawled cross-legged amidst worlds both old and forbidden, her hands wrapped around the midnight-bound tome. “Have you any idea how long we’ve been searching for you?” The exasperation in his tone matched the deeper furrow of his brow as he caught sight of her seated inelegantly on the floor, courtly decorum forgotten.

Evelyne barely glanced up, her eyes shimmering with the thrill of discovery. She offered a half-smile, her voice airy and unconcerned. “Relax, brother. I’ve only been expanding my knowledge.” Her gaze flickered to his, then darted back to the script ablaze beneath her fingers, as if afraid her fascination might vanish if she looked away too long.

Damian’s patience—already worn thin by the evening’s endless formalities—frayed further. “The royal guards were moments from starting a search party. Must you always be so reckless?” His irritation was palpable as he stooped, hands firm yet gentle, insisting she rise. “A lady shouldn’t be found sitting on the floor, Evelyne. How many times must we remind you? Please, at least refrain from such… eccentricities outside the safety of our home.”

She let him pull her up, but her eyes never left the book, and her lips curled in unrepentant delight. “My apologies, dear brother, but I simply couldn’t tear myself away from such fascinating scripture.” Her words quivered with the same intensity as a debutante mooning over a secret love letter, though her passion was not for whispered romance but the lure of arcane truths and the promise of other worlds.

Damian sighed, his exasperation laced with reluctant affection. “Why must I have such an eccentric little sister?” he muttered, half to himself. With a last, longing look at the forbidden tome, Evelyne surrendered to his guidance. Together, they slipped from the library’s sanctuary, her mind still lingering among the legends and possibilities, even as the threat of royal intervention nudged them back toward the gilded order of Solaris’s court.

Evelyne remained adrift in the swirling afterglow of demon legends, her pulse thrumming with wonder, oblivious to the distant clamor rising from the ballroom she’d abandoned. The strains of music and laughter faded to a memory behind layers of parchment and dreams. She did not see the way conversations slowed as she slipped back in—nor the sharp, assessing gaze of Crown Prince Cassian, golden eyes and light blonde hair catching the candlelight, studying her with enigmatic interest. Nor did she sense Lady Rosalind’s lips tightening, jealousy flickering like a blade’s edge beneath her polished composure.

The grandeur of the palace blurred around Evelyne as she was swept away with her family—the House of Aurelis—retiring at last from the night’s festivities. Their carriage, an elegant vessel of midnight glass paneled with the house’s sigil—a gray lily—waited at the entrance. Moonlight spilled across the emblem, making its petals shimmer and shift in hue, magic pulsing softly beneath the surface, a living testament to Aurelis’s power.

As the heavy doors closed with a muffled sigh and the carriage rolled past marble colonnades, Evelyne pressed her forehead to the cool windowpane. Outside, the palace grounds faded into shadow and starlight, each bump in the road a heartbeat pulling her farther from Solaris’s gilded constraints. Within, arcane light played across the carriage’s interior, reflections of the shape-shifting lily swirling over velvet seats and her restless hands. Her mind wandered—through forbidden tomes, through worlds where bloodlines mattered less than daring, where love was sworn on battlefields and not at altar rails. She ached with yearning, every wish silent yet fierce: Let me have been born to the demon realm. Let me belong to a place where destiny is forged by will, not decree.

As soon as the carriage jolted to a halt outside their home, Evelyne burst out with a speed that would have impressed even the royal sprinters, coat tails fluttering like banners behind her. She barely paused for breath, her mother’s warning echoing faintly—“Don’t run, Evelyne!”—before she vanished through the grand doors, leaving a wake of startled servants who scrambled to clear her path as though she were a hurricane in lace and leather.

She dashed up the stairs, took a sharp corner that nearly sent a vase tumbling, and slammed herself into her bedroom, locking the door with the urgency of someone defending a secret citadel. Inside, she was a whirlwind of excitement: tomes of soul migration theory and reincarnation rituals scattered onto her bed, pages flying as she searched for inspiration. Books on spells of resurrection and forbidden lore were piled so high they threatened to topple. If anyone had peeked in, they might have thought she was preparing for an academic apocalypse.

Evelyne hunched over her desk, scribbling sigils, patterns, and incantations with a manic fervor, muttering half-formed spells under her breath. She mixed and matched rituals with the creativity of a pastry chef gone mad—one moment combining soul migration theory with resurrection formulas, the next doodling a lily in the margin for good luck. Occasionally, she cackled to herself, “Yes! This is what I want!” Her laugh was equal parts triumphant and slightly unhinged, echoing through the halls like a mysterious summons. As her hand flew across the parchment, she barely noticed ink stains blossoming across her fingers and sleeve.

Outside in the hallway, Damian was strolling past her door when her laughter erupted, sounding suspiciously like someone plotting either world domination or a particularly elaborate prank. He paused, shivered, and shot a wary glance at her door. “What new antics is she plotting now?” he mumbled, shaking his head. “Maybe I should triple-lock my wardrobe before she decides her spell needs a disguise. Or worse, starts enchanting my shoes.”

Evelyne spent hours hunched over her desk, writing and rewriting with the intensity of a scholar racing against both time and sanity. Her hair stuck out at odd angles, a testament to her habit of tugging at it while pondering arcane diagrams. Occasionally, she argued with her own notes (“No, Evelyne, the demon prince cannot be revived with lemon zest. Focus!”), only to scribble out another page and mutter, “What do demons even eat, anyway?”

Pages piled around her in drifting stacks, some marked “Definitely Not Working” and others “Try Again With More Fire.” The ink stains on her sleeve were now rivaled by the smudge of jam from a midnight snack she barely remembered consuming. The spell she finally concocted—boldly titled “Reincarnation by Execution”—was so elaborate that if anyone had read it, they might have wondered whether it was meant for magical rebirth or for summoning breakfast. She even drew a little demon with a top hat in the corner for flair, reasoning that style mattered in the afterlife.

With a triumphant grin, Evelyne let her quill fall onto the desk in a dramatic flop, nearly missing the inkwell and splattering the last clean spot of her parchment. She surveyed her masterpiece, whispered, “If this doesn’t get me into the demon realm, at least it’ll give someone a good laugh in a hundred years,” and promptly slid off her chair onto the floor, snoring, surrounded by her own magical chaos.