CHAPTER 2: A SLOW PROCESSION

I had only been back for a day.

One day since the world snapped, twisted, and flung me six years into the past.

One day since I died and opened my eyes in the same fifteen-year-old body I thought I had permanently escaped.

A day, and I still wasn't used to how small my hands looked.

How light my limbs were.

How my skirts dragged differently.

How the world felt taller again.

The courtyard was draped in white silk and pale flowers that looked bruised by the rain. The morning light was soft, cold, diffused through gray clouds that hadn't moved since dawn.

People gathered in solemn clusters. Servants bowed low. Nobles murmured condolences that sounded more like obligations than grief. The palace, with all its polished stone and gold trim, had never looked colder.

I stood at the back—always the back—and watched as they lowered her casket.

Her face beneath the veil was peaceful.

Softer.

Younger.

Almost gentle.

And that was how I remembered her now.

Not as the woman worn down by fear.

Not as the woman whose hands sometimes trembled with desperation.

But as warmth.

As quiet humming in late afternoons.

As fingers smoothing my hair.

As whispered "You did well" after a long, terrifying night.

As a smile that was fragile but real.

Only that version lived in my memory now—the soft, blurred one.

The one who loved me.

The bells tolled once, twice, three times.

And with the sound, another memory came.

A memory not from this world.

Metal bleachers.

Cold wind cutting through my too-thin school uniform.

The smell of wet asphalt after rain.

The boy's sneakers tapping lightly against the concrete.

We were both twelve.

We sat under the shelter of the old walkway behind the gym. The fluorescent lights buzzed above us. My backpack was soaked from the downpour. His jacket was draped over my shoulders, warm from his body heat.

He nudged my knee gently, trying to make me laugh.

"You look like a sad blobfish," he said, grinning.

I sniffled.

He pulled out a crumpled packet of chocolate biscuits from his pocket.

"Here," he said. "You like these."

I took them with shaking fingers.

He watched me for a moment—really watched—then reached out and took my hand.

His palm was warm.

Always warm.

"Whatever happens," he whispered, "I'll take care of you. Always."

In that moment, under the flickering light, with rain dripping off the metal roof above us, I believed him.

Believed in forever.

Believed in promises.

The bells tolled again, ripping me back to the funeral.

The warmth in my hands vanished.

I blinked hard, forcing down the ache rising in my chest. I stayed only until the final bowing of heads.

Then I slipped away.

No one noticed.

No one ever did.

The palace interior felt colder than the courtyard.

The air was too still, too controlled.

Every footstep echoed like a warning.

My body still remembered being twenty-one.

The weight of armor.

The ache of old wounds.

The heaviness of holding a dying emperor.

Now everything felt too light.

Too raw.

Too fragile.

I drifted the east corridor on instinct, my feet moving on paths I had walked a hundred times before in other lifetimes.

Golden light spilled through the tall windows.

Dust swirled lazily in the beams.

The curtains fluttered softly.

This corridor had been the only gentle place within these halls.

Where the Empress first touched my hair.

Where she first called me "little one."

Where she held my trembling hands and whispered, "It'll be fine."

I pressed a hand to my chest.

That memory—soft and blurry at the edges—hurt more than the truth ever had.

I stood there, letting the warmth of the sun touch my face, grounding myself.

But then—

Footsteps.

Soft.

Measured.

Painfully familiar.

My breath caught.

I knew those footsteps.

Knew them from lifetimes.

Knew them even when he was twenty-one and bleeding out in my arms.

But hearing them at fifteen again...

Relief rushed through me too fast, too warm.

Terror followed immediately.

Cold.

Sharp.

Merciless.

I turned.

Maximilian stood in the middle of the corridor.

Fifteen years old.

Alive.

Breathing.

Eyes swollen from crying.

Hair wind-tousled.

Black mourning clothes too formal for his still-growing frame.

He looked at me with the same expression he always wore on this day: curios, sad, soft.

But to me, he looked like a ghost resurrected.

"You're... Chloe," he said.

The same words.

The same tone.

Everything the same.

As if the world was replaying a scene it refused to let go of.

I forced myself to nod.

"Yes."

His eyes softened at the sound of my voice, just like before. He held a slim journal against his chest.

The Empress' diary.

My stomach twisted.

He stepped closer, his voice gentler than the sunlight.

"My mother wrote about you."

The world tilted, familiar in the worst way.

"I remember," I whispered, before I could stop myself.

His eyes flicked up at that, confused—but he let it pass.

"She wrote..." He frowned slightly, choosing his words carefully. "...so much about you."

A soft ache spread across my chest.

"How kind she was," I murmured.

That was the version that lived in my memory now. The only version I could bear to hold.

Max looked at me with a grief I could not bear to meet.

"She never showed that side to anyone else. But then again, despite being her son, I never truly got to know the person that she was."

I swallowed hard.

"She tried," I whispered. "She really did."

He inhaled slowly and steadily.

"Chloe," he murmured, almost too softly to hear, "she trusted you."

The words echoed perfectly.

Exactly the same as before.

Every detail leading to this moment felt repeated.

Scripted.

Locked into place by fate.

Except—

Max hesitated.

His gaze softened in a way it hadn't before.

Not in this exact moment.

And he said the one line that didn't belong:

"Take care of yourself."

My breath shattered.

He had said that to me once—when he was twenty-one.

When he was dying.

When his hand slipped from mine and his eyes turned glassy.

But he had never said it here.

Not as a fifteen-year-old prince.

Not in this corridor.

Not on this day.

It was new.

Impossible

Wrong.

I forced my voice out.

"I'll try."

My voice didn't disguise the tremble.

Max blinked, puzzled, sensing something he couldn't name.

But he didn't push.

He stepped back, giving me space he didn't understand I desperately needed.

He didn't ask for anything more.

Didn't question me.

Didn't reach for me.

He simply nodded, softly.

Then turned his gaze away.

I walked away with trembling steps, the corridor blurring at the edges.

Relief.

Terror.

Heartbreak.

Déjà vu.

All tangled into one unbearable knot.

A shiver crept up my spine.

Something was shifting.

Something unsteady.

Something new.

And I didn't know if it would save us or destroy everything all over again.

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