The first thought Ophelia had upon waking was that the afterlife was disappointingly dusty.
The second, far more useful thought was that her abdomen didn't hurt. She wasn't bleeding out on cold marble, staring at a dead man and cursing her family. Instead, she was staring holes into a familiar vial of herbs at her bedside.
It had taken three days of feverish, disbelieving prodding to confirm the facts. Three days of walking the halls bustling with servants that should have retired months ago. Three days of watching the maids bring her food like she hadn't just bled out the night prior. The evidence was undeniable: her body was a year younger, her health yet to deteriorate further, the trees outside yet to shed their final goodbye for the upcoming winter. Ophelia didn't need to say it out loud to know she was a year earlier in the timeline of her slow, agonizing demise.
She picked up the vial between her fingers, feeling the cool glass on her even colder skin. A gift, she thought, a grim, humorless smile pulling at her lips. The gods must have a truly wicked sense of humor to throw me back in time.
Ophelia fiddled with the small bottle in her hand, the glass catching the morning light. "Herbs meant to soothe her persistent fever", as insisted by the physician. It was just useless, expensive water, as far as she was concerned. For a moment, she considered flinging it out the window, imagining the costly, fluid splatter across the manicured lawn. If the servants found this shattered vial, Dr. Alistair would be summoned, and Ophelia would be swaddled in blankets and smothered with concern she doubted was genuine.
Instead, she popped the cap with a thumb, turned toward the window, and poured the contents— the cloying, half-soil, half-rotten 'remedy' into her potted point.
"Drink up, little weed," she whispered to the plant. "See if you can survive the Golden family's generosity."
Ophelia swiftly tossed the empty vial back on the table, the glass treading softly against the wood. A thin, sticky film of the liquid still clung to the inner walls, marking the years she had obediently swallowed the useless draughts. She ignored it, her attention caught instead by the tall, ornate mirror standing sentinel across the chamber.
She drew herself away from the window and crossed the floor, her body heavy yet unfamiliar in its ease—a ghost of the girl she used to be.
In the heavy, gilded frame, the shadow stared back at her. Dark skin, smooth yet drained of warmth, caught the sunlight like polished bronze— a shade that had always set her apart, long before the fevers did. The illness was only ever the reason they spoke their disdain aloud. Silvery-white hair, cropped just above her shoulders, framed her face in uneven waves that glinted faintly with each movement. And then there were her eyes, blue as the Empire's banner— the cursed inheritance that marked her as one of them. Had they not been her own, Ophelia would have gladly erased those eyes from existence.
For a long moment, she just stared. It was a face far too alive for someone who had already died once—warmth lingering where there should've been pallor, breath steady where it should've been met with a coughing fit. The sight felt like a divine joke to Ophelia— life returned but not restored.
A soft knock on the door pulled her from her thoughts. "Your Highness, it is Lira. May I enter?"
"Enter." Ophelia answered, her gaze still fixed on the mirror, unwilling to surrender the staring contest with her own reflection.
The door creaked open on rusted hinges, and a young maid slipped in—a sweet-faced girl dusted with freckles. In her hands rested a single envelope, its wax seal gleaming blue beneath the light.
"The steward has sent a reply to your letter." Her voice was cautious, as though the paper itself might carry bad news.
That caught Ophelia's attention. Finally, she thought, reaching for the letter with a steady hand. The seal was still warm from the wax, the mark of the steward pressed deep into the blue—proper, officious, and faintly irritating.
When she had first awoken in this gilded cage of a room—alive again, or something close to it—her very first act hadn't been to pray to gods unknown, or to weep, but to write. A letter to the steward of the East Wing, crisp and curt, requesting the replacement of the palace physician. Dr. Alistair.
The memory of his squirming form almost coaxed a smile from her. As much as she'd relished watching him stammer through excuses and false assurances, the man had been a fool draped in the Emperor's favor. His remedies were water and his confidence disappointingly thinner. She'd simply been too indifferent, too tired of it all, to send him away before she died.
But indifference had died with her.
She tore open the letter and scanned the words with practiced indifference. The feeling didn't last long; her gaze snagged on a single, neatly penned line: Request denied. His Majesty has personally appointed the current physician, and his decision stands.
A dry, amused smile ghosted across her lips. "So that's how it's going to be."
"Lira."
The red-haired maid startled at the sound of her name. "Y-yes, Your Highness?"
"Prepare my formal attire," Ophelia said, her voice calm—almost lazy in its composure. "And have the guards ready a carriage for the Palace of the Veil of Stars." She crumpled the letter in her fist and tossed it aside, as though it had personally insulted her.
Lira hesitated at the mention of the palace, fingers tightening around the folds of her apron. She could see it in her eyes— Her Highness was up to something. "May I be so bold as to ask why Your Highness wishes to go to the Palace of the Veil of Stars?"
Ophelia didn't answer right away. Her gaze lingered on the mirror instead, on the faint curve of her own smirk reflected back at her. "We're paying the Emperor a visit." The words left her like a quiet promise, sharp beneath the calm. Then, with a soft laugh, she turned toward the maid. "It's time to make a scene. A noisy one."