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nChapter 46: Chapter 46

nIt was a bit difficult for me to start writing at first. However, when I wrote down the first few letters, all kinds of memories burst out quickly. Seeing the crown prince when I was ten, starting classes on empress when I turned twelve, attending his coming-of-age ceremony when I was thirteen…

nWhen I grew older by one more year in my past, I became more and more choked with emotions. In no time, my eyes were filled with my tears. They fell onto the paper.

nBut I did not stop the pen, and I couldn’t. I kept writing down what I experienced in the past, so much so that I didn’t know whether I was writing or the pen was encouraging me to write.

nHow much time passed? I felt that my arm was getting stiff and my hand was slowing down. I felt exhausted physically. Unlike the fatigue of my body, the more my mind cleared.

nAll the painful and sad memories came to my mind and hovered in my head.

nPages covered in black letters piled up. I felt someone brought something to drink and eat, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop my hand holding the pen from moving. I wrote down the memories that floated in my head, rubbing my eyes that kept closing.

nOnly when I reached the moment when I died at seventeen did I close my eyes.

nMy stiff arms fell down.

n“Ugh?”

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nSuddenly, the surrounding atmosphere around me changed. I was in a room surrounded by mirrors. Where am I? Apparently I wrote down my memories up to my age of 17 before closing my eyes. If so, am I in a dream now? I looked around, but I couldn’t see the way out because I was blocked by mirrors around me.

nWhat should I do? When I was looking around for an exit, I suddenly saw myself in the mirror in front. There was a thirteen year old girl who hadn’t grown up yet. When I slowly reached out, the girl in the mirror also reached out to me. The moment the two hands touched each other with the cold metal in between, the girl in the mirror changed. She changed into a child who was about 10 years old. Stunned, I turned to the left. There was a 10-year-old girl. I saw the same girl to my right and in the back.

nWhat happened?

nAs I couldn’t understand the situation, I just blinked. At that moment, the girls in the mirror on three sides began to move.

nA little girl was reading a book. The girl was reading, rubbing her sleepy eyes until the dark window was lit by the sun. She sorted out what she read on the paper next to it. While I was watching outside the mirror, the little girl continued her routine life. She read books, memorized the contents, learned about etiquette and dancing, and the rule of the people.

nShe sometimes cried alone on a night when no one was there, but she never revealed her weakness to anybody.

nThe girl met the emperor. She also met the crown prince who was cold and heartless. I saw a girl smiling brightly at the emperor, who called her a daughter-in-law, and the crown prince staring at her. The emperor hosted a meeting between the two and asked them to have a good time, saying they would be destined to be a couple, but the prince never appeared, so the girl sometimes spent time alone, and sometimes with the emperor.

nWhen she turned 13, the girl twisted her ankle while dancing at the prince’s coming-of-age ceremony, and the prince laughed at her scornfully. The girl trembled among the nobles, who scornfully laughed while pretending to comfort her.

nAfter that, she began to show less emotion day by day, and in the end, her facial expression disappeared completely. Even in her eyes that people said reflected the sun, there was no more light. What she was left with was her face with no emotions and her hollow eyes.

nWhen she was fourteen and fifteen, the girl tried her best to make a debut in social circles in order not to be ridiculed by nobles. At some point, she began to be praised as the flower of the empire. Sometimes, there was desperate wistfulness in her eyes when she looked at the crown prince, but it was fleeting.

nWhen she turned sixteen, her world crashed when a woman with dark hair appeared.

nWhen she was seventeen, the girl ended her short life.

nThe mirrors on the three sides turned black at the moment she saw the frightening light of the axe. Instead, the front in the mirror shined brightly. The girl who was touching me started moving. I saw the girl running towards the training place of her house in the capital. She saw a silver-haired knight who soothed the young girl as she suddenly jumped into his arms and cried. On the day, she returned after seeing the emperor, I saw the crown prince’s eyes looking at the girl. His eyes were as cold as I saw them in the mirror on the three sides. Unlike the days when he treated me more and more coldly over time, he showed little emotion except when he occasionally showed hostility.

nWhen she was eleven, the girl started practicing fencing. Unlike the girls in the other mirrors, the expressions on her face were vibrant. The girl sometimes smiled gently at her father or the boy with light green hair.

nWhen she was twelve, the prince escorted the sick girl back home, though he didn’t like it.

nWhen she was thirteen, the girl nervously attended the crown prince’s coming-of-age ceremony. Unlike the past when he simply ignored her and treated her unkindly, he showed some interest in her. When he noticed that she refused the position of the crown prince’s wife, he, who would have been furiously upset in the past, responded rationally and told her they would talk later instead of getting angry. Unlike the past when he went away, leaving me alone when I was bleeding, I saw him checking her condition in embarrassment when she passed out.

nClang!

nAll the mirrors except the one in the front broke suddenly. The girl in the front mirror, who fell with a pale face, opened her eyes. The girl’s eyes, who were looking around for a moment, met mine outside the mirror. She approached me and said something.

nI opened my eyes wide to understand what she was trying to say.

n“Oh, do I still look the same?”

n“…No.”

nI shook my head because the old me reflected in the mirror was different from me now.

nThe girl in the mirror smiled at me. As if she shook off all her worries, she smiled brightly and waved to me. As she looked so happy, I smiled at the girl. The girl in the mirror was disappearing gradually.

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nA bright light surrounded me.

n“…Oh, it was a dream. ”

nSlowly raising his body, I muttered. My whole body ached because I fell asleep on the table covered in stationery.

nI picked up the pages piled up high and read them again. It was the same that I saw in the mirror room. I chuckled.

n‘You were stupid, Aristia. Your past and present were already different, and you are changing your destiny little by little. ‘

nFoolishly enough, I didn’t realize that even if my change was not tangible enough, the future in my memory could change as long as the present was changing little by little.

nI felt as if a burden had been lifted off my mind that felt stuffy all the time. The moment I was about to get up with a light mind, I found a yellow-green letter among the pile of pages. It was Allendis’s letter.

n‘Right. Come to think of it, I didn’t finish reading it as I was absent-minded.’

nI took it out from the heap of letters and began to read.

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