Page 6 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time
Isn’t she?
“Are you quite all right, my lady?”
My lady. Not ‘Your Grace’.
Has Selene lost her mind? Perhaps she hasn’t died. Perhaps the entire year was some incredibly detailed dream brought on by nerves over her impending engagement. Maybe nothing happened at all.
No. That’s ridiculous. No one could dream anything in such awful, excruciating detail. She members dozens of balls, engagements, births. She remembers ships sinking, mountains trembling. She remembers her grandmother’s funeral, right down to what was served at the wake and the deep purple petals on the mahogany coffin.
She remembers what it’s like to be kissed, to be touched, to experience marital relations—things she knew nothing about before marrying.
She remembers what it’s like to be shot.
She’s experienced a hundred sensations, a thousand memories.
Everything that happened, happened. She married the Duke. He took her grandmother’s estate, tunneled through to Ashvold, and helped King Eirik invade their lands.
And yet… she doesn’t think she’s dreaming now, either.
Her heart pounds as she gathers the sheets tightly in her fists. “The date, Cassie,” she manages, her voice hollow. “Tell me the date.”
Cassie’s frown deepens, but she humours her. “The third day of Springrise. Why? Are we wanting to commit it to memory?”
Selene barely hears her. She is back, impossibly, on the very day that started it all—the day she accepted the Duke’s hand, and his terrible plan was set in motion.
Something happened to her in that temple. She isn’t dead.
Somehow, for whatever reason, the gods have sent her back in time.
She isn’t married to the Duke of Drakefell. Her grandmother is alive. He hasn’t taken her land or allied with their enemies. The border between Haverland and Ashvold still holds.
It means she is free.
Her pulse quickens, her mind racing to grasp this impossible, delicate web of opportunity before it vanishes like smoke. She can stop him this time. All she needs to do is refuse his proposal, and he will never gain control of her grandmother’s land.
Cassie’s gaze lingers on her, brows pinched with concern. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, my lady?”
“Yes,” Selene lies, forcing herself to meet Cassie’s eyes. “Just… a strange dream.”
But the word “dream” doesn’t settle in her throat the way it should. Everything around her is too vividly, achingly real—the faint prickle of goosebumps on her arms, the distant trill of morning songbirds, the soft creak of the floorboards beneath Cassie’s steady feet.
Cassie’s fingers brush Selene’s shoulder. “Shall I pour you some tea, my lady? You look as if you could use a bit of a boost.”
“Yes, please,” Selene murmurs, her voice tight with a mix of gratitude and lingering disbelief.
Cassie pours her a cup, and Selene rises slowly from the bed, each step testing the floor’s solidity, as though it might vanish beneath her at any moment. She sits at the table and lifts her cup with shaking fingers. Cassie butters her toast andspreads marmalade for her—something she hasn’t done in years. Selene feels too weak to swallow at first, but somehow, she manages.
After she finishes, Selene sits at her vanity. Cassie brushes out her ash-blond hair until it shines like silk. Selene’s reflection catches her eye in the mirror. She is twenty again. The differences should be imperceptible. How much could she have changed in the space of a year? And yet a relative stranger stares back at her. Her face is younger, her cheeks softer, no shadows yet carved beneath her vivid green eyes. She can’t remember them being so bright, can’t recall the last time her skin seemed so light and dewy.
The woman she sees is… hopeful, perhaps. Foolish. A stranger to everything she will come to lose.
Cassie helps her into her gown, the soft lavender silk rippling around her as she fastens the dozens of buttons down her back. The dress is adorned with delicate pink roses and more lace than Selene remembers being strictly necessary, but she had adored it all the same. She smooths a hand over the bodice, remembering how often she reached for this dress in the early days of her engagement, until the Duke hinted that it was ‘too girlish’ for a future duchess.
She took it with her to Blackthorn House nonetheless, but he had removed it from her wardrobe after a few months, as casually as he might have swatted away a cobweb.
Yet here it is, just as she left it. She’s almost afraid to admit how relieved she is to see it again. It’s just a dress, after all.
Cassie gives a satisfied nod, admiring her handiwork. “There now. You look as lovely as a spring dawn, my lady.” Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she meets Selene’s gaze in the mirror, so sincere that it nearly undoes her.
