Tonight is the crown prince birthday bash in the castle crazy fancy ballroom. One young lady stood there like a wallflower watching this drop dead beautiful couple dancing in the center.
The lady had wavy platinum blonde hair down to her waist and blue eyes. That is Seratina Platine, daughter of Duke Platine house which is the richest family in the kingdom. The guy dancing in the center is Seratina fiancé Schwartz Grigio. He is the handsome young man with gray hair and matching gray eyes. The girl he is staring at with those heated eyes is Lucia Lunaria. The two of them are childhood friends but Lucia is the saintess and Schwartz is engaged to Seratina. High society whispers that Seratina is the villainess who tore apart two people who were meant to be together since she got engaged to Schwartz first.
Even now it is the same story. The second the first dance ended Schwartz rushed straight to Lucia side leaving Seratina behind as usual while the other nobles around her snickered.
She sighed and sipped the wine she had gotten from a server.
The wine tastes great but these people are totally killing the mood.
She sighs again when someone said "Well well, someone is being a total downer at such a fancy party~"
A young lady approached with several other ladies trailing behind her. Her golden hair was in a half-up style tied with a jeweled ribbon.
It was Seratina little sister, Elsa.
"That gloomy personality of yours is exactly why Schwartz cannot stand you sis."
The ladies behind Elsa all nodded along with her words while Seratina was thinking about something else entirely. She wondered if she should say it here. Elsa got impatient and snapped "Well? Are you not going to say anything?" when Seratina did not fight back.
Since she was pushing it that far, Seratina set her glass down on the table and stepped in front of Elsa. Elsa tensed up when Seratina suddenly got close. Seratina reached out and fixed Elsa ribbon that had gotten a bit loose. Elsa just stared at her totally confused.
"Your ribbon was loose. Must have come undone when you were dancing."
"Th... thank you..."
Elsa must have been bracing herself wondering what Seratina was going to do. She just kept blinking and did not move to leave. Her little entourage looked confused by the weird atmosphere so Seratina asked "Is there something else you need?"
"...N-no nothing at all."
"Hm?"
What the hell did Elsa even come over here for?
She stomped off somewhere with her group and looked pissed. Her ears were red when she left and I wonder if she is feeling okay.
Seratina glanced once more at her fiancé and the saintess still dancing in the center then headed over to grab some sweets like she could not care less. Since this was the crown prince's birthday party the desserts they had prepared were absolutely gorgeous. Seratina loved opera cakes and the ones the royal castle made were definitely going to be amazing. She grabbed a small plate and put an opera cake on it and picked up a dessert fork and took a bite. Just like she had expected it was incredible. She would get sick of it if she had it every day but once a month would be perfect.
Nobody else had the guts to openly mock her like Elsa did. Elsa could get away with it because she is her sister, but people usually stayed away from her. Especially the ones with bad intentions.
It was the same way back then too.
She felt like getting some fresh air so she quickly finished her opera cake and headed out to the terrace. Looking up at the cloudless night sky brought back memories.
….
Feres...
She remembered everything about him. His silver hair sparkled like tiny stars in the night sky and his deep blue eyes held the moon, and his low voice was sweet music to her ears. Seratina had memories of her past life.
In that previous life she had been the wife of Feres who was a man from the fairy race. They are one of the long-lived races in this world. Even in her past life, Seratina had been human. The fairy Feres told her he had fallen for her at first sight and confessed his feelings and she was totally shocked. They had barely had any contact at all. She could not just accept Feres without really knowing him first. On his third confession she told him she wanted to get to know what kind of person he was before she would consider it and that is how their relationship started.
The fairy race were incredibly whimsical. They did not give a damn about helping humans or not helping them as long as their own lives were not threatened. While humans sometimes fell for the beautiful fairy it was unheard of for fairies to fall for humans who had way shorter lifespans.
That is why she was so surprised.
She accepted Feres feelings and married him and he loved her right up until she reached the end of her natural lifespan and died.
"Feres..."
It was crazy that she had started a new life while keeping her memories from the past one. About fifty years had passed since her previous life ended. Feres had been over 300 years old back then so 50 years was probably nothing to him.
She wanted to see him.
She wanted to see Feres so badly.
If he had found someone else to love that would suck so she just wanted to see him from far away just once to make sure he was happy.
She was thinking about all this while staring up at the night sky.
"Damn it is cold."
She had been out there for a bit too long. When she went back inside, Schwartz and Lucia were not dancing in the center anymore. Well they cannot dance forever she thought and started looking for them, but she did not need to search long. She spotted Schwartz right away.
He had his arm around Lucia waist escorting her like she was made of glass. He never held Seratina that close when he escorted her because there was always space between them. Seratina was watching the two of them when the people around her noticed and started snickering like vultures, but she honestly could not care less.
Actually this was perfect because she could say Schwartz was busy escorting the saintess, so she had headed home first. With that excuse ready she let out a small yawn and left the ballroom. The people around her looked shocked. They had been expecting her to leave looking hurt or upset.
Instead, she had yawned and walked out like she did not give a damn. A few people muttered that she was just putting on a tough act but most of them were left with question marks floating over their heads.
She headed outside toward the carriages but then remembered something. Since they were technically engaged, Schwartz had come to pick her up and they had arrived at the castle in the Grigio family carriage. She would need to take the same carriage home. But she could not use it by herself. The birthday party was going to go past midnight.
There was no way Schwartz would remember she existed. He even forgot their monthly dates sometimes. She had gone to their meeting spot once and waited but he never showed up and never sent a word either. She had been totally fed up.
She was trying to figure out how to get home when someone called out "Sis."
She turned around to see Elsa standing there with her arms crossed all by herself.
"Elsa? What is up?"
"What is up? I came to laugh at you for getting forgotten by Schwartz and having to go home all pathetic and alone."
"I see. It is getting cold at night this time of year so you should head back inside soon. You used to catch colds all the time when you were little."
Elsa had been pretty healthy lately but when she was young, she had spent most of her time stuck in bed. Their parents had totally spoiled their sickly daughter. They had already liked Elsa better than Seratina anyway, because Elsa looked like their mother while Seratina took after their grandmother, so even if Elsa had not been sick she still would have been the favorite.
Seratina looked away from Elsa who quickly said in a flustered voice "I-I got tired so I told dad and mom I was heading home early. I am leaving too."
"Oh? Well be careful getting home."
"H-how are you planning to get back? You do not have a ride home right?"
"Nope."
She sighed looking troubled. For some reason Elsa got this smug look on her face but before she could say anything, Seratina started walking toward the castle exit. Elsa called out to her again sounding panicked, so she turned around.
"What is wrong?"
"Where are you going?"
"I am going to walk to town and catch a carriage there. You should head home soon too."
"The castle is way far from town!"
"Yeah I know. But walking all the way from the castle to our mansion would be brutal so I will go to town and…"
"If someone sees you walking to town it will be a total embarrassment for the Platine family! I really really do not want to, b-but I guess you can ride with me."
She sounded like she absolutely hated the idea, but her cheeks were red for some reason. She looked flushed which made Seratina worry she might be getting sick. Thanks to her past life memories Seratina knew way more about combat and attack magic than your average noble lady. Even if something happened, she could handle herself just fine. But she wanted to get Elsa home safe so they headed to the carriage together.
When they reached the carriage with the Platine family crest, the coachman eyes went wide when he saw Seratina.
"Huh? I thought Lady Seratina was going home in Lord Grigio carriage tonight?"
"Plans changed a bit. Take Elsa home quickly because she is not feeling well."
"You are getting in too sis!"
"Whoa!"
After the coachman opened the door and Elsa got in, she grabbed Seratina arm and pulled her inside. The coachman shut the door once he saw both of them were in, so Seratina had no choice but to sit across from Elsa.
"Why did you drag me in here?"
"I-I already told you."
"It is fine. Everyone is still at the party right now so we are probably the only ones leaving this early."
"You think a noble lady can just walk around town alone at night and be totally safe?!"
"I am pretty good with magic so if something happened, I could handle it myself."
"W-well yeah... you are better at magic than most people b-but..."
The Platine family might be the richest in the kingdom but whether it was genetics or what even though they had tons of magical power they sucked at using magic. They were great at business but magic? Not so much. The only reason Seratina was any good at it was probably because of her past life memories. Pretty much nobody else in the family could use magic. Her father had a complex about being worse at magic than Seratina. Her mother was not great or terrible at it but she kept her distance from Seratina because she reminded her of her strict mother-in-law and she ended up hating Seratina just to go along with her husband.
"You got engaged to Schwartz because Duke Grigio was impressed by your magical talent, right?"
"That and he wanted our family money."
"He did not get engaged to the saintess because of that?"
"It is a bit more complicated than that."
Her relationship with her parents was hopeless. Her relationship with her sister was bad too though you could not really say it was completely awful. Elsa would pick fights with her, but she could never quite become a total villain. When it was just the two of them like this, they could actually have normal conversations.
"Most saintesses throughout history marry into the royal family. The current saintess is not any different. She was originally supposed to get engaged to the crown prince. But..."
Before the crown prince and the saintess could get engaged he got engaged to the second princess of the neighboring empire instead. There was only one crown prince and he had two younger sisters who were princesses. There were not any other royals who could marry the saintess. If Schwartz could have gotten engaged to her at that point it would have been fine, but he was already engaged to Seratina. It had been about two years already. Duke Grigio wanted the Platine family wealth and Seratina talent so he would not break off the engagement.
That is when it started. High society began treating Seratina like the villainess who was tearing apart two people who belonged together.
"The crown prince engagement to the empire second princess is a political marriage to strengthen ties between our countries. Nobody is going to object to that."
"The second princess did not come today, right?"
"Nope. She caught some disease that has been going around the empire. But this morning newspaper said the empire mages found a cure so she should recover soon."
"Y-you read the newspaper?"
"Yeah."
She wanted to stay on top of what was happening in her own country and other countries too. Reading the newspaper always made her think about her past life. She and Feres had lived deep in a forest far away from the empire. They had spent their whole time together there.
Feres had told her once that he had been living there for a hundred years before he met her.
"Duke Grigio knew Schwartz and the saintess were crazy about each other but he still made Schwartz get engaged to you."
"The saintess was supposed to marry the crown prince originally. Even when that fell through it was not a good enough reason to break off my engagement with Schwartz."
She wanted Schwartz to call off their engagement himself. She had been waiting forever for him to do it but nothing. She was the reason he could not get engaged to the saintess Lucia like he should have, so of course he hated her. He had hated her from the moment they met, but it got way worse after the crown prince got engaged to the second princess.