Face-Slapping9 min read
I Woke Up Ten Years Early — and Broke Their World
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I woke with my hands numb and my mouth full of river water.
I spat, choked, and then laughed because the face in the mirror was thirteen again.
"My god," I breathed. "I have a second chance."
"Miss?" Ma'er's voice trembled. "You're awake. You—"
"I am awake," I cut in, but softer. "Tell me everything, now."
Ma'er told me the small things first — snow on the courtyard, the punishment for the boy who had knocked over the incense, the new woman in my father's house. Her tears were real. I had watched Ma'er die for me once; I had been too proud then. I would not be cruel to her again.
"Where is Gavin?" I asked.
Ma'er blinked. "Gavin Rousseau? He is in the north garden. He kneeled in the snow. He—"
"I will go," I said, and I went.
I found Gavin standing like a statue, his shoulders dusted white, one boot scuffed, his jaw set.
"You're frostbitten," I said, too quickly.
He glanced at me, cold as the air. "You staged the rink, sent people out to laugh, and then you cried to grandmother."
"That was before," I said, and my voice shook with the memory of the other life. "Before I saw what I did."
"You have no right to pity," he said, and he kept walking.
I followed.
"You saved me when I was a child," I said, because truth is the sharpest thing. "You gave me bread when you had none."
He stopped. He did not turn. "I remember," he said.
"Then help me now. I cannot undo the houses they will burn if I stay weak."
He turned then, and for the first time I saw something like interest in his face.
"Speak," he said.
So I spoke.
I told him about the lake, about the cheap medicine, about the aunt who smiled and took bribes. I told him about the second sister who whispered with the prince. My voice was low, but I kept saying names.
He listened. He asked one question.
"Why me?"
"Because you hate me enough to do it clean," I said. "Because if you stand with me, you'll keep your hands clean and my back safe."
He looked at me for a long time. "I don't do bargains," he finally said. "I only do what I owe."
"Then owe me," I said.
He made me kneel in the snow for an hour. He kept me warm with his cloak when I could not feel my feet. I did not mind. I never had in that first life.
"Don't call me Gavin," he said once. "I do not like it."
"Then I will call you whatever you allow," I answered, and he let a small smile break like ice.
We moved like thieves and diplomats from that day. I learned which servants were paid and which were coerced. I learned the small rhythms of the house. I learned that Harmoni Doyle — Aunt Harmoni — had a taste for poison made to seem like medicine, that Molly Chaney — my sister — liked to heard praise and own tokens, and that Maximiliano Fischer — the prince — liked expensive gestures.
"You're doing this for revenge," Gavin said once. "That will rot you."
"I do not want revenge," I told him. "I want safety. I want my father to live to see me grown. I want Ma'er to sleep without fear. I want those who sold me to feel what fear tastes like."
He watched me stitch a small sachet of jasmine and iron. "You are cruel," he said.
"Perhaps," I replied. "But I was crueler before. I prefer measured cruelty to being consumed."
We set traps that were not cruel. We planted evidence and watched people make their own choices. I watched Aunt Harmoni bribe Red Smoke to lace my tonic with a stimulant and a bitter that would send me to the edge. Red Smoke confessed when I showed her the receipt and the coin. She was dragged from the servants' row, trembling.
"Please!" she cried in front of the servants. "I was paid—"
"Who paid you?" my father demanded.
Harmoni's smile stiffened into something ugly. "You would blame a servant instead of your own sister-in-law? How cheap."
"You made her lie," I said. "You made her lie with a coin that has the D of Maximiliano stamped on it."
The hall went very quiet.
"That is a forgery!" Harmoni spat. "You falsify to save your own skin!"
"No." I stepped forward. "You forged a coin to make Red Smoke confess. You wanted me unwell when the father married. You wanted me small and easy to fold away."
She laughed, then, because she believed I couldn't prove it.
I left her laughing. I have learned to keep evidence.
Months moved on. I wove circles people walked into and could not see the rope.
I sent Gavin to the mirror merchant. "Find the dress patterns sold as imperial," I told him. "Follow the buyers."
He did. He came back with a tiny paper, a scrap of thread and a name: the prince's signet, Maximiliano's token, attached to the purchase ledger. The price was paid by Molly's purse.
"Do you want him punished?" Gavin asked.
I thought of blood, of the old life. I thought of staying safe. I thought of a public ending.
"Yes," I said. "But I want it done so everyone sees who he is."
He nodded. "Public then."
The day I arranged would be remembered.
I sent word to the mirror house. I sent Zhang the ticket to sell the embroidery, and he sent me the papers. I had Gavin plant the right rumor in two teahouses. I had Buck Rizzo — strong and loud, the man we called "the muscle" — tell a servant of the prince that tonight the embroidery would show a signet.
"You're certain?" Buck asked.
"I told you," I said. "If he thinks he can trade my family's safety for a token, he can show himself."
Night came like a blade.
The great hall filled. There were nearly five hundred people there: merchants, cousins, ministers, my father's officers, old soldiers. My grandmother Kathleen Duncan sat at the dais; my father Foster McDonald stood near her, proud and stiff. Gavin sat three chairs over, eyes a knife. Maximiliano Fischer—the prince—was there, tall and comfortable, with a smile as thin as a wire.
Molly sat at his side, mimicking a smile so often it had no warmth.
"Welcome," I said when the assembly quieted. "Tonight is for thanks, and for revealing truth."
There was a ripple. "Speak, Izabella," my grandmother said. Her voice shook like an oar.
I did not stand behind an accusation. I displayed paper.
"These are three things," I said. "One: the ledger of purchases at Mirror House. Two: the ticket that sold the embroidery. Three: a coin."
"Where did you get them?" Maximiliano's voice was silk and steel.
"From the merchant," Gavin said, and his hand moved, curling paper into a bowl. "From those who trade in silks and lies."
"Your courage amuses me," Maximiliano smiled. "You accuse royalty with a scrap of paper?"
"Accuse me," I said. "Tell me your story."
He laughed. "You have little sense."
I unrolled the ledger. The ink was fresh to the eye. "Here. Your signet, Prince Maximiliano. Here. Molly's name signing for the payment. Here. A list of times the Mirror House sent invoices to a private chest under the prince's name."
I felt the room tilt.
Maximiliano's face lost color.
"I can explain," he said. "This is—"
"A gift," Molly cried, and she looked to him as if a lie were an embrace. "He gifted me this to honor my family."
Gavin spoke, low and lethal. "Gifts have receipts, Prince. You do not give valuables without records and you do not buy silence with tokens."
A man in the crowd — an old soldier — shouted, "Show the token!"
"Yes!" hundreds echoed, voices like a wave.
I had prepared the final piece.
"Master Zhang," I called. "Bring the embroidery."
The embroidery glided in. The pattern teased the hall; every eye fixed. I guided a servant to unroll.
On the inner fold, stitched into the silk with a hand that knew palace threads, was a tiny symbol: the prince's cipher.
Molly's face when she saw it went pale.
"Impossible," she whispered.
The prince rose, forced his smile. "This is a fabric's detail. Anyone can embroider a mark."
"A mark that matches the prince's private cipher," I said. "And the coin found in the servant's hand matches the purchase. The purchase came from a chest in the north wing. Your name is on the list seven times in the last month."
"You're mad," Maximiliano said, but his voice shook.
"You wanted to bind my family," I said. "You wanted my father's troops to be a favor you could call. You used gifts and favors to tie us to you. You used my sister's greed."
Molly's eyes filled with fury and then shame. "I—"
"You sent men to the Mirror House to make the embroidery," Buck Rizzo shouted, stepping forward. "You paid with Mollie's purse and the prince's chest. I saw the men."
The prince sputtered, then crawled for excuses, then snapped like a thread.
"Enough!" he barked. "Guards!"
"Stop!" I cried. "Do you call guards to protect one who trades in my family's safety?"
He went white.
"Prove it," Maximiliano begged suddenly, "prove I did this."
I held up the coin. Everyone leaned forward.
"Do you remember this?" I snapped at Molly. "You signed for this after telling your mother you would gift the prince a token. You lied to cover your part."
Her face crumpled. "I—"
She lunged. She tried to take the coin, then to snatch the embroidery. Her hands shook.
"Take her," I told Buck.
They moved—ten, twenty of them. The prince stepped back, then fell to his knees before my father in a move of theater.
"Please," he cried. "I—"
"Please what?" my father said. "Please let me keep my troops? Please keep your favors?"
The hall filled with noise. People spat, some to the ground near his knees. The scribe at the side tore a page into pieces and cast it like confetti.
"Shame on you," an older woman hissed.
"How could you?" a soldier muttered.
The prince's mask came off in pieces. "It was only a plan," he said. "Only a trade. I didn't think—"
The crowd jeered. "You didn't think," they chanted. "You didn't think!"
He crawled from the dais and tried to stand. A hand grabbed his hair. The young men near the wall started calling servants to bind his sleeves and turn his coat inside out. His armor, polished and fine, was a costume now. They stripped the signet ring from his finger and tossed it to my grandmother.
"Beg," someone called from the crowd. "Beg like you own nothing."
He kneeled, pressed his forehead to the floor, and for the first time I saw fear true and raw across that face.
"Please," he said. "Please, I misjudged. I will do anything. Forgive me."
The soldiers laughed. Someone spat in his direction. A few of the younger noble wives took out their fans and snapped them in his face.
"Look at him," Molly sobbed, her head buried in her hands. "Look at what we did."
"Stand him up," my father said, voice low and cruel. "We will not kill you, Prince. We will not banish you. We will humiliate you properly."
They dragged him to the front. My grandmother, whose days had been long and hard and sharp, pointed.
"Public confession," she said. "In the great square at dawn. You will speak your faults and you will name whom you bribed. The treasury will be searched. The Mirror House will be cleansed. You will return all that you stole."
Maximiliano's mouth moved. He tried denials, then tried bargaining. "No—no, I will pay fines. I will retire to the countryside—"
"My house will not be bought," Foster said. "You will go where exposes grow like weeds."
"Please!" Maximiliano began to sob. He dropped to his knees again. "Please—"
Molly rose and walked to the prince. She took his hand and pulled him up so they were eye to eye.
"We were both fools," she said. Her voice was flat. "We believed we were owed more than we were. I—I'm sorry."
The crowd hissed. Some applauded. I watched Gavin's hands clench and unclench. He did not smile.
They made them bow, kneel, sit on the cold floor while servants poured water over their shoes, then salt spilled in neat lines at their feet to mark shame. Someone had the nerve to tie their hair up badly, to let it fall. The humiliation was measured, public, and complete.
The prince begged and promised, and the crowd watched every second.
When they dragged them out at dawn to read a confession in the square, Maximiliano's voice shook like a reed. He named names. He begged for mercy. He did not receive our pity. He received the accountability he had hoped never to meet.
It was enough for the crowd. It was enough for me.
After the scandal, my father looked at me in a way that hurt like rain.
"You saved us," he said. "You used your head. You used your danger. You gave me a chance to fix this house."
"I repaid you," I answered, and meant it.
Gavin came to my room that night. He did not knock. He simply came in and sat at the edge of my bed.
"You used them well," he said.
"I used them," I answered. "Not well. I was merciful when I could have been cruel."
"Do you regret it?" he asked.
"I regret that I couldn't change everything without pain," I said. "I do not regret protecting Ma'er."
He stayed until the dawn light burned the fog off the courtyard. He left me a small thing before he went.
"A coin," he said, sliding it across the table. "Not a prince's, not a forgery. A simple coin. Keep it."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you are not a token to be bought," he said. "Because some things you must keep for yourself."
I slipped the coin into my pocket.
Months later, Aunt Harmoni was taken away in the middle of the market, bound and disowned. Red Smoke's fate was less kind; she confessed again in the public square and had to work the kitchen until her hands shook no more. Molly volunteered to stand for community service and read names in the lists at the temple.
The prince retreated to a small house three provinces away. He offered gifts, lists, names of men who had sold him favors. He begged and lost more each day.
Did I break them? I broke the power they had used to crush my life, and in doing so I saved the ones I loved.
One night I sat beneath the plum tree where I had first fallen into the lake those ten years ago.
Gavin sat beside me. "What will you do next?" he asked.
I looked at the frozen branches. "I will make sure my father never has to pay for our safety with loyalty he did not own."
He put his hand over mine. "And me?"
"You'll keep me honest," I said.
He smiled, small and honest. "I will keep you safer than you kept yourself the first time."
I leaned my head on his shoulder and let the snow fall.
There were names to clear, debts to pay, and more people who would test us. I knew the road would be long.
"Will you marry me?" he asked suddenly, in a voice that had found softness.
I laughed, and it came out like a broken bell. "You'll kill me if you do it without me."
"Good," he said. "Then we'll do it together."
We rose. The plum branches cracked in the cold. I kept the coin in my pocket and I kept Ma'er's hand in my memory.
Outside, the town whispered my name. Inside, I slept like a person who had learned how to fight low and keep high.
I had woken up ten years early — and I had broken their world so mine could keep breathing.
The End
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