The Blind Count's Secret Bride

Two Lives, One Grief

"How? How is this possible?" I stumbled backward, my words frozen on my lips. "I should be dead. I shouldn't be here. Why am I still alive?" My thoughts jumbled, leaving a slight ache that stung hard.

My heart would not slow down. I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to steady my breathing, but it only made me more aware of how wrong everything felt.

The more I tried to recall, the harder and more painful it seemed, like a force was stopping me. It was not just pain. It felt like something was blocking me on purpose. "Agh!" I screamed; it felt like my brain was splitting in two. "Emilia..."

Who is that? These aren't my memories. "Sarah? No... work to save Mom." My very own thoughts felt fractured. My breaths grew heavy the more I tried to fight them. My knees gave out as I found it hard getting back up. Everything felt like it was slowly disappearing into the foggy darkness I had just escaped from. "P...please don't kill me...!" I gasped as my last words—words that never came from me. They were foreign, a memory that didn't belong.

Visions flashed through the very same darkness, each one flooded my mind as though I had truly lived them. I could feel the cold ground under her hands. I could hear her breathing, fast and scared.

Her mom was sick.

"I have to get some medicine for Mom..."

Three men had approached her, offering to help with a job where she could earn some money for her mom’s drugs. Or so she thought. They had cornered her...

"No... why... how could they?" I sobbed, each pain she had felt sinking in deeper, aching as though it were mine. I tried to push it away, but the more I resisted, the clearer it became.

I wanted it to stop, the memories that kept on flowing. I screamed, but they felt numb, as though all my resistance was silenced in the void.

How much time had gone, I wasn’t sure. My eyes slowly opened, welcoming the night hours in the street. A watery feeling blurred my eyes as little drops of tears trailed down my cheeks. I couldn't stand, my whole thoughts disordered. It all slowly became clear. These weren't my memories, but the owner of this body's.

Still, the pains... I couldn't understand why they felt like mine. My chest hurt as if I had truly lived through it. I couldn't even stop the tears from flowing any longer.

Her name was Emilia. A human who was raised by her mother after their father ran away, owning a lot of debt. Leaving Emilia and her mother in a bad state. Her mother did multiple jobs trying to pay some of the loan while feeding the house, but in the end, that came back at her as she collapsed with a wasting illness. It was a blight that had been circulating in the land for a while, and the cost for the cure was fifty gold crowns. That was a price enough for a commoner to live a good life for five years.

"I have to help Mom when I grow up..." I could feel the attachment Emilia felt when saying those words. It was simple. Honest. But they had snatched it from her.

The three men's faces etched themselves into my memories like a traumatic yet permanent scar. They had approached her with a job offer, one to help raise the money to cure her mother, but that was a lie. She was lured to this isolated alley and was brutally killed after being attacked by those very men.

I wasn't sure why I was still alive or why I had ended up in this body... but I promise to find them. My hand curled into a fist, the hatred burning deep in my chest. Maybe I found myself sympathizing with her in the end, given I was also framed and killed.

Reeling through the shock, I eventually managed to stand up after some time. My legs felt weak, almost unfamiliar. I approached the same pool from earlier, trying to get a proper look at the face. For a moment, I hesitated before looking down.

I could see bloodstains on her neck, but there was no wound, as though it had healed up.

Given the whole incident of me in this body, the injuries healing did little to surprise me. Somehow I felt there was a meaning to it all. Especially the words I had heard before waking up. Saving the world?

I couldn't help but chuckle bitterly. The laugh sounded strange to my own ears. I won't say I am a hero, who would even be able to save the world? But for now, I wanted to save Emilia’s mother. When it came to medical treatment, my family was one with a great record. Many werewolves were raised to nobility due to their achievements in wars, winning lands and blood, but we were the first given such a position through our medical lineage.

The wasting illness cure was one invented by my father during his younger days. Replicating and creating the same cure was something I was quite sure I could achieve. "Don't worry, Emilia... I promise to save your mom."

Using a bucket of water nearby, I rinsed my blood-stained clothes as I splashed some at my face, washing the grime away. The water felt colder than I expected. I couldn't return home covered in blood. Done with that, I made my way, leaving the shadows of the alley for the street, taking in the colorful moonlit sight of the city with each light coloring each part.

Given my noble title and my family's medical lineage, I wasn't given much freedom, as I was always deeply immersed in my studies of the medicinal line. They weren't boring, and I wouldn't call it forced either, since I also loved reading them and gaining more expertise in it. Maybe a part of me just wanted Father to praise me.

"Father..." I hadn't forgotten what they did. And I would see to it that I made every one of them responsible pay for what they did to Mom and my younger sisters. They were my precious family, the world to me. The ache remained sharp in my chest, the hole expanding with every breath.

I made my way walking through the street, a sight at the other humans passing my side. Everything felt different now. Quieter. Weaker. The truth remained hard for me to digest, but it was real; in the very least, I had just died as a noble wolf only to wake up as a human.

I could tell Emilia’s house was close now, judging from her memories. But just when I hoped to turn to the far side of the street, I felt a hard bump, one that sent me reeling backwards. “Ouch!” I snarled, with hope to retaliate in words at the stranger, but in the split second as I watched the very stranger dash past me, I recognized the very same face.

It was one of the men that attacked Emilia.

For a brief second, our eyes met. Then he fled in a hard run before I could even come to my senses.

I turned back but caught no sign of his presence. “Fire! The house is burning!” A loud shout of people gathering caught my attention back. I could already smell the burning wood, the flames leaping high in the distance. The smell grew stronger with every second. “Wa... wait?” It couldn't be. That's the building Emilia’s apartment is in.

I picked up my footing, hastening to the place. “What's happening? Why is the house on fire? This can't... wait... the men...” I stumbled to the ground, breathless, the moment I arrived at the scene. The heat struck my face sharply. “Mom...?” I murmured, struggling back up.

“Mom!” I yelled, forcing myself to stand back up, only to be held by some of the other bystanders present. “You can't go in! It's too dangerous!” they claimed. But what were they saying? She is inside... Emilia’s mom. She is still inside!

“I promised! I can't let her die!” I bellowed.

“Let me go!” I struggled against their grip, but that proved useless as I watched the very same building burn down before my very eyes. The fire roared loudly, swallowing everything. The tears didn't fall, as though they had dried up.

“M... Mo... Mom,” I stammered in whispers, my knees dropping to the ground. “Somebody please save her... anybody... please save Mom!” I cried out loud, my hands hitting the ground until they bled. The feelings crowded me, a mix of the real Emilia's.

The fire was put out later by some of the guards that were able to make their way to the scene. I watched the dead bodies of the people caught in the fire being brought out. I did not want to look, but I forced myself to.

In the wreckage, a sight of one with a burnt, blackened bracelet caught my eye. I froze, my whole body numb with the intense ache in my chest. “Mom?” That was the same bracelet I had gifted her.

She wasn't my mom; she was Emilia’s. I knew that. But what I felt in those very moments was the grief of a daughter watching her very own mother burn to a crisp.

The night grew heavy as I found myself slumped on the ground in a room, with Mom’s dead body covered with a white cloth placed on a stone bed in front of me. The air still smelled faintly of smoke. My vision blurred from the heavy tears I had held back. It all felt like it wasn't real. It shouldn't be. How? I had promised to treat her. To save Emilia’s mom. How can this...

“The man?” Could it truly be he was the reason behind the fire? Why? Somebody hired them?

The very truth seemed distant the more I tried to think about it. I didn't want to believe them, but the one true thing I couldn't deny was the empty hole I felt in my heart.

"Ha... ha ha..." I laughed out loud, bitterly yet hollowly. The sound echoed strangely in the room. “She is dead!” I cried insanely.

I had just lost it all. Experiencing the death of another parent cut deeper than I knew. I had been snatched of my family twice.

“I will make them bleed... I promise...” I hissed, slamming my hand against the wall as my blood smeared the stone. “Every one of them... even if it is the last thing I do... I promise with my soul. Every one involved in it... they will wish they had never been born.” I vowed, biting my own lips hard as I stared into the dark.