Counting the life she lived in that dream, this was likely Adelaide’s second death, a candle guttering in a storm.

She woke again, like surf folding back on the shore.

When she opened her eyes, a year had slid past, sand through an hourglass.

Memory in the dark was hazy, like sinking toward the seabed, drowsy and suffocating.

One day, she seemed to catch the scent of camellia, a breath of dawn in frost, and her hand reached out on instinct.

She woke in her bedroom, like a traveler finding a familiar harbor.

The ceiling she saw first looked like the old sky above home.

For a heartbeat, she thought it had all been a nightmare, a night beast fading at sunrise.

Her body shattered that illusion, a cracked bell that refused to sing.

She was weak, limbs heavy like wet sand; even turning her head was too much.

When she spoke, the sound scraped like a dry reed; a year’s silence had rusted her voice.

She barely recognized the rasp and flinched, spooked by her own echo.

Maids hurried to her bedside, moths to a lamp, and she learned how long she’d slept.

“I… want… to get up,” she said, words creaking like a rusty hinge.

They hesitated for a long breath, then carefully sat her up, hands like snow on fragile glass.

She finally looked over her own frame, a bird cage with only bones and pale skin.

Even slum children carry some muscle; she looked like a winter branch wrapped in thin alabaster.

Yet she felt it—this wasn’t the true reason her body wouldn’t answer, a silence deeper than flesh.

She lowered her head with effort, a bow under weight, and saw a dark red mark at her sternum.

The wound was small, clean as a moonlit cut, without raised scar.

It looked more like ink than an injury, but she knew her heart lay beneath that quiet red.

The maids watched her with skittish eyes, deer at the edge of a clearing.

After a while, she turned her gaze, a slow lantern swinging.

In the vase by her bed, camellias bloomed, soft pink under sunlight, dew winking like tiny prisms.

“Who… brought the flowers?” she asked, voice like wool over stone.

They exchanged looks, leaves trembling in a breeze, and a younger one stepped forward.

“M-me, Miss Douglas,” she said, courage fluttering like a sparrow. “I thought you’d like them, so I… took the liberty.”

Light kissed those petals, dew scattering color like stained glass, and Adelaide felt the world blur like a dream’s edge.

Was it… coincidence, the tide turning here?

She pulled a smile onto her face, a thin veil of warmth. “Thank you… I do like them.”

She tried to push up on her hands, a sapling straining for sun, to move her feet.

The maids startled, like birds at thunder, and rushed to stop her.

“I just… want to stand,” she said, breath catching like snagged silk.

“No, Miss Douglas! Please lie still and wait for the doctor, or your heart—”

“My heart, what about it?” Her gaze hooked the maid’s, a fish line pulling taut.

The maid looked away, eyes skimming like stones over water.

Adelaide braced on the standing rails, drifting through her walk training like fog on a river.

Six months had passed since waking, time beads sliding one by one, and her body could finally attempt rehab.

Under the doctor’s guidance, she left that bed like a boat leaving stagnant marsh.

She began to adapt to the life ahead, a path of stone laid through winter grass.

In that time, she learned what had happened in the lost year, and why she lived, a thread spared by fate.

When Adelaide’s heart was pierced, Mira awakened the Time Domain, a clock garden blooming inside a storm.

History records it only a handful of times, a field that bends local time like reeds in wind.

Mira slowed Adelaide’s bleeding with that domain, turning falling sand to stubborn glass, and kept her breathing till the doctors arrived.

Everything else matched the “script” of the dream, a puppet show replayed under the same moon.

The royal family learned Mira had awakened a once-in-a-millennium domain, a phoenix sign on palace walls.

They stripped the Douglas Family of real power, a smile masking a knife, through promotion that felt like burial.

Then they used “tailored education” to fold Mira into the royal schooling, a gilded cage with sweet fruit.

After a while, they announced Mira’s engagement to Crown Prince Samir, a trumpet beneath cold banners.

By that contract, Mira’s surname changed from Douglas to the royals’ Beliol, ink binding her to their genealogy.

Since then, Mira never returned to this house, a migrating bird that forgot its nest.

Naturally, she never came to see Adelaide, a window left shut through all seasons.

Adelaide made it halfway down the training line, and her legs burned, coals under thin skin.

Her forearms spasmed on the rails, wires snapping inside wet clay.

It wasn’t far, but the finish felt like a horizon that keeps walking away.

She looked at the flag on the far wall, colors swimming like heat haze, and dizziness swarmed.

“Miss!” a voice rang, urgent as a bell in mist.

Cold kissed her cheek, bones scattered like dice, and the floor rose up like hard tide.

Her mind drifted, leaves on a stream, until she realized she’d fallen.

The doctor rushed in, urgency like rain on slate, his hands trembling as he checked her.

“This is enough for today, Miss,” he said, voice like a torn blanket. “For your heart, walking is too heavy a load.”

“The Duke and Duchess of Douglas wouldn’t want you forcing yourself,” he added, with worry like winter light.

Hearing their names cleared her fog a little, a wind through stale air.

She hadn’t seen them in a long while, a statue left in an empty hall.

Last time was right after she woke from coma, a weak candle revived at dusk.

They had the maids wheel her in, a vessel pushed along tiled water, because she couldn’t walk.

A year without speech, and they offered no greeting, only iron words dropped like stones.

“Become a royal consort, Adelaide.”

“This is your only way to atone to the family.”

Their faces hid in shadow, masks in a cave, but she heard cold and disappointment clearly.

To smooth Mira’s entry, the royals called the fire an accident, white paint over scorched wood.

But her parents were among the first at the scene, eyes that know ash from snow.

In their voices, Adelaide felt hatred, a blade wrapped in silk.

They had poured all love into Mira, a sun aimed at one tree, and pinned the Douglas Family’s royal dream on her marriage to Crown Prince Samir.

When the dream came true, Mira changed to Beliol, a river leaving its old bed, severing the link to the Douglas Family.

All because of Adelaide—because one discarded child kicked the board and spilled every piece.

That marrow-deep cold returned, frost threading bone, while her knee throbbed with drilling fire.

Adelaide clenched her hand, iron around pulp, and her teeth filled with a copper taste.

But the cold and pain gave her a vivid sense of life, flint striking spark in a long night.

“Heh… hahahahaha,” she laughed, sound like a cracked bell in a quiet chapel.

She imagined her parents’ disgust, faces carved from granite, and the laugh wouldn’t stop.

Over six months, the fog over her heart thinned, mist letting sunrise through.

“Miss… are you alright?” The servants and the physician looked lost, boats spinning without oars.

Adelaide shook her head with a smile, a lantern steady in wind. “I’m fine.”

By removing Mira, she’d forced her parents to look back at the discarded child, a mirror they couldn’t avoid.

Wasn’t that the outcome she wanted from the start, the arrow she’d aimed at the moon?

“I’m in a really, really good mood,” she said, brightness like frost-sparkles.

She pushed the physician’s hand away, a hawk shrugging off cords, and gripped the rail again.

They tried to stop her, waves pounding a stubborn rock, but she threw them off.

“Don’t come closer,” she warned, joy like fire under ice. “It’s been so, so long since I felt this good!”

Her knees and muscles trembled, strings protesting under cold fingers.

Her chest beat ragged, a drum out of time, warning with sour rhythm.

Still, she rose inch by inch, a reed straightening in storm, until she stood.

When she balanced on her own feet, breath ragged, a sharp, ironic joy bloomed, a thorned rose.

Becoming a royal consort? That would insult the god who “gave” her this third life, a cheap coin tossed at a temple.

No—she would be this country’s king, a crown earned with frost and flame.

She would climb to the highest peak, a summit no hand could reach, beyond control and threat.

Then she would prove to her parents, and to the arrogant god who thinks “fate” can break her, one truth like a carved oath.

She—Adelaide von Douglas—would never bow to this world, a banner that will not fall.

A year later, early spring arrived with a lingering chill, breath white in morning air.

The roadside trees weren’t bare now, but few leaves had opened, only sparse green buds like jade beads.

“Spring… is a fine season to begin again,” Adelaide said, voice like sun through thin clouds. “Anisa, don’t you think?”

The maid pushing the wheelchair hesitated, a foot held over a stream. “Yes, Miss.”

“I used to think spring meant rashness and immaturity, a colt breaking fences.”

“Now, with this light, I can taste the hope poets praise, like honey on new bread.”

She plucked a twig with tender leaves, a green whisper, and rolled it between her fingers.

“Anisa, do you like spring?” she asked, tone soft as moss.

“S-sorry… I’ve never thought about that,” Anisa said, voice tight like a knotted ribbon.

She was newly assigned, young and nervous, a fledgling wary of the sky.

So Adelaide smiled, practiced warmth like hearth fire, and softened her tone.

“You sound tense, Anisa,” she said, gentleness like warm tea. “Did I put too much pressure on you?”

“Eh? N-no! It’s just… my previous masters rarely spoke about such things, so—eh?”

Adelaide cupped her cheek, a feather touch, and guided her face downward gently.

“With me, you don’t need to be stiff,” she said, a breeze in a curtained room. “Treat me like a friend, okay?”

She tucked the twig into Anisa’s side hair, a green pin against dark silk, and adjusted it.

“Mm, beautiful,” she said, satisfaction like a small chime.

Anisa paused, freckles dusted like tea leaves, then flushed pale-blue, hands fluttering like startled swallows.

“F-friends? How could that be…?!”

“But you’re my personal maid at school,” Adelaide said, eyes flicking to her legs like shadows. “In this state…”

She stopped a moment, a cloud over the sun, then sighed and shook off the weight.

“Anyway, on campus I’ll need your help for so many things, threads woven together.”

“That way, being friends is less awkward, right?” she asked, smile steady as a quiet stream.

“Miss…” Anisa pressed a hand to her chest, expression shifting like clouds over hills.

Adelaide waited, patient as a stone gate, while the storm passed inside her.

Finally, Anisa’s face settled into care and duty, a lamp lit for dusk. “I understand. I’ll be Miss’s friend!”

Adelaide’s eyes lit like a lantern at dusk; she squeezed Anisa’s hand, light as a bird on a twig.

"Really? That’s great! Then, as a friend, I’ve got a tiny favor—when we enter the classroom, can you keep pushing me like this?"

"Of course… huh?" Anisa caught herself mid-breath, like a kite snagging a branch. "B-but the duke and duchess ordered it—during introductions, my lady should stand."

Adelaide clicked her tongue inside, a pebble skipping over still water.

They had sounded so righteous, like banners in a stiff wind—“For the Douglas Family’s honor, you must walk into class on your own.”

She could leave the wheelchair for short stretches, like a heron testing shallow water. But if she acted as proud and hard as her parents wanted, this “older transfer” would find slurs carved into her desk by morning, like bark scratched by rude knives.

She kept her gaze steady on Anisa, eyes soft as evening rain, and pleaded.

"But I got up so early; I’m tired already, like fog clinging to hills… It’s fine, I won’t tell Father or Mother. Let this be our little secret between friends, tucked like a note under a leaf."

Anisa was wavering already, like grass in a breeze; the word “friend” struck like sunlight, and she nodded.

Heh, easy to guide, like a boat on a calm current.

Everything slid along Adelaide’s plan, chess pieces moving like shadows at sundown.

The moment Anisa pushed Adelaide’s wheelchair into the room, the class fell quiet, like a pond without ripples; holiday chatter stilled, and their awkward stare at “the transfer student” arrived just as she’d foreseen, like thunder on a clear ridge.

The teacher gave a brief intro, voice flat as chalk dust. When he mentioned her two-and-a-half-year absence, he brushed it off as “personal health reasons,” like a curtain yanked shut.

Most students here were nobles or merchant heirs, faces polished like marble; Mira’s royal adoption was a storm they all had heard, even if distant.

The royal family had erased most traces, like footprints swept from sand. That bred rumors, a swarm of gnats; as the teacher touched the topic, whispers buzzed.

Facing the unfriendly air, sharp as frost, Adelaide stayed calm, like a lake under moonlight.

Her gaze drifted over the room like a slow wind, and at the edge she caught a boy staring. His face was flushed, a ripe apple; the instant their eyes met, he looked away like a startled sparrow.

A kid who couldn’t hide his feelings, a drum beating in plain sight; Adelaide gave him a smile, warm as tea steam.

"Classmate Toniel?"

"Huh?" Called by name, he jolted like a cat from a twig; his voice cracked, "Eh?? Senior Douglas… knows my name?"

"Mm, I remember. I went to your cohort’s welcome ceremony too, didn’t I? Toniel, have you forgotten already?" Her tone was light as wind through reeds.

Adelaide waited while Toniel stammered, words tangling like vines; then she sighed, soft as falling snow.

"It’s normal to forget—after all, that was two years ago. I’m no longer your senior, like a star moved to another sky."

The hushed whispers in the room thinned, like smoke blown aside.

"Maybe some of you have heard the name Adelaide von Douglas; maybe we crossed paths on campus once, like boats at dusk. But, as you can see…" Her voice dipped like evening light.

She set her hand on her thigh and glanced at the wheelchair, metal quiet as a moonlit rail.

"Because of my health, I had to take more than two years off. I’ve shifted from being your senior to being a transfer student, like a leaf borne to a new stream."

She felt their eyes gather, a flock circling; the chilly air eased, like frost giving to sun.

She had expected this, like a map drawn before the road.

Yes—being frail was one of her few advantages, a soft reed to pluck for sympathy; using it smartly was wise, like sheltering under an eave in rain.

Adelaide lifted her head, mustering a smile like paper lantern light—forced, yet warm.

"Sorry—I drifted into heavy waters without meaning to. I’m truly happy to be your classmate. Since I’m no longer a senior, please just call me Adelaide; that would make me glad, like a bell rung clear."

When she finished, the room paused, a held breath; then Toniel stood with a clang, like a desk leg striking stone, and split the hush.

"…Adelaide, welcome to Year Three, Class Three!"

His voice was a fuse, and greetings flared one after another, like sparks across dry straw.

Adelaide knew she’d taken the first step in, sure as a footprint in wet clay; she raised her head and offered the room a proper smile, polished as jade.

Just as she’d expected, student cliques could be cruel like nettles, yet simple like spring water. Win the gatekeeper, and the rest flowed easy, like a door opening to light.

After that, several classmates offered to share her desk, hands lifted like birds. In the end, the teacher said she needed her personal maid’s help, so she got a single desk, an island in a bright sea.

After the first period, Toniel walked to her desk, steps quick as sparrows.

"Adelaide…" He stalled halfway, his face reddening like sunset.

"Just call me Adelaide." She met his eyes, smile resting at her lashes like dew. "Did you need something, Toniel?"

He hesitated for ages, seconds trickling like sand. He dropped the “classmate,” and said, "I didn’t expect you’d still remember me…"

Adelaide nodded with a smile—though of course not, a mask smooth as still water.

She had simply memorized the roster and their backgrounds, a hunter learning paths, hoping to break the ice today like tapping a frozen brook.

"Naturally. Your speech when you ran for student council treasurer was impressive; I remember it like a banner in bright wind."

She smiled as she spoke, drawing a little closer like stepping into sun. Then she cupped her hand near her lips and whispered, just for them, like a secret folded into silk.

"And… thank you for standing up for me just now."

Toniel’s blush surged to his ears, red as maple. Even a polite “it’s nothing” tangled on his tongue like a snagged kite.

When she offered her hand, he took ages to react, then his palm met hers slick with sweat, like rain on stone.

Seeing his pure, fumbling look, Adelaide laughed in her heart, a bell muffled by cloth.

"Then, for the year ahead, let’s get along well, Toniel~" Her voice curved like a ribbon in the breeze.