Revenge10 min read
"I Woke Up Twice — This Time I'm Taking Everything Back"
ButterPicks15 views
I opened my eyes to someone bending over me.
"Don't move," a voice said.
I tried to sit up. My head felt like it had been split. The room wore half-dark like a lamp had been dropped. Silk lay in ruins around me. I smelled wine and smoke and something else — a metal, bitter smell that stuck at the back of my throat.
"Where am I?" I croaked.
A tall figure in a red coat stood near the screen. The coat had an embroidered qilin that made my chest go cold.
"Who—" I began.
Footsteps thundered toward the door. Someone slammed it open.
"Finn Estrada!" a man's voice exploded. "You betray duty and honor to do this to my wife?"
The tall man froze. The light from the doorway cut across his face. For a second I thought I could breathe again — and then my lungs collapsed.
"Get her away from him!" Case Willis shoved me off the bed. Old linen slapped my face. "Take care of her."
I tried to look up. Finn's eyes met mine for a breath. They were not the cold, unreadable eyes the town told stories about. They were shocked and full of a kind of terrible apology.
I passed out.
"Why?" I asked later, when Case returned, when my head had stopped roaring enough to hear him.
He held a cup of pale medicine. "You fainted at the banquet," he said. "You needed rest."
"You touched me," I said. "You brought him here."
Case smiled. "He came that night. He was careless. But this is a chance. Don't you want me to be high? Don't you want my name to shine?"
I stared at him. He had pressed my chin with the corner of his thumb like a man showing off a new ring.
"Who else knows?" I whispered.
"Only what I tell them," he said. "Trust me. This is for us."
I should have left then. I did not.
"Case," I said, "I am carrying a child."
His smile went thin. He touched my face where the scar might have been, as if ownership could erase blame.
"I love you," he said. "I would never hurt you."
"Then stop," I begged.
He nodded and, with a hand that was all gentleness, forced the cup to my lips and tipped the medicine in.
I choked. The room tilted. He said, soft as a prayer, "I will be there when you wake. I will be your husband."
Then the pain began. I felt every inch of my body betray me. Blood came like the crack of a bell.
I died thinking of how stupid I had been.
I watched the world float above my own coffin. Case's hands were shaking as he held me. He sobbed loud. People patted his back. They told him he was brave. He bowed to the altar and repeated a hundred lines of grief.
"You killed me," I told him.
He said nothing. People leaned forward to console him. He performed his sorrow perfectly.
Then Finn came.
He stepped into the funeral hall like a shadow walking into light. No one expected him. He looked at the coffin. He looked at the crowd. His eyes found Case.
"Qin Ge!" someone shouted.
Finn moved like a blade. One step. Another. He drew a sword with a motion that made everyone's breath stop.
"How dare you!" Case screamed. "You will answer—"
Finn's sword bit through his words. Case's knees hit the floor. Blood spattered the white cloth that hung in the hall.
"Shut up," Finn said. "You thought you could trade a life for a post."
Case tried to crawl. He tried to speak. "No—no—Alison—don't—"
"You were willing to poison her," Finn said. "You made her a tool."
The crowd went into motion. Someone gasped. A woman screamed. A child began to cry. I floated closer, feeling both outrage and a cold amusement at the symmetry. Case rolled on the floor like a puppet pulled too hard. He reached for Finn and found only the steel point of a blade.
"Please—" Case choked. "I didn't—"
"Stop," Finn said quietly. He looked at me, not at Case. "I owe you more than that."
Then Finn did a thing the world would keep talking about: he pulled the sword free and drove it straight through Case's chest. Case's eyes found mine for a sliver. He did not beg. He tried to gather his dignity and failed.
People shouted. Someone knocked over a lantern and the hall smelled of smoke and iron. Case's hands opened and closed in a last useless plea.
He died in a mess of pleading and blood and the stunned silence that follows the end of a plan.
They blamed Finn. They called him a killer. They argued about law. None of it mattered. Case's lies could not be taken back. The truth had a way of landing heavy.
That was the end of that life. Then Finn leaned over the coffin. He touched the dead pale skin of my fingers and laid a small phoenix hairpin across my hands.
"If there is a next time," he said, voice quiet enough that only I heard it, "let me keep you safe. Let me do better. Let me —"
I woke.
I woke in my own bed in my father's house. The morning light was ordinary and too bright. I was alive. My scar was not there. My chest ached like it had been punched, but I was alive.
"Jaden?" a voice called. It was Nena — my maid, purple-smocked, eyes like a startled bird. "You are awake!"
"I am," I said.
"Good," she said. "Miss Allison keeps asking if you will go to her home."
Allison Guerin. She had sent me a polite, eager invitation. Her brother Finn — no, the soldier who had cut Case down — had family there. I ought to have been careful. I was careful now.
I learned quickly that the world had given me a second chance. Remembering everything from the life I had just lost was like having a map of all the dangers. I kept my face neutral. I kept my voice light. I re-built my life as if I were laying bricks with the hands of a woman who had learned what building burns are like.
I learned the truth of who had cut me before I had but a scar to show for it.
Everly Romero.
"Everly!" I said one afternoon when she came to fawn at my side. "So good to see you."
"Jaden, my sweet, you look better than ever." Everly pressed her hand to her chest and made the world of sympathy.
"Do you recall the potion?" I asked.
She blinked. "Potion?"
"The one you offered when I was to go to the court banquet," I said. I let my voice be small and soft. "The one that made me faint last time."
Everly's smile twitched. "Oh, Jaden, you have such a sharp memory. I don't know what you mean."
"Tell me then," I said. "What small trouble did you mean to do me?"
She laughed too quickly. "You are making me uncomfortable."
"Good," I said. "Then make me a promise. Come to the Broad Garden on the day of Allison's wedding. Bring your head up straight. Bring your best dress. Bring all your friends. Because I want everyone to see something."
Everly kissed my hand. "Of course. Anything for you."
I had a plan that took days to set and one hour to finish.
Allison's wedding was as bright as a new coin. Laughter and silk filled the courtyard. I arrived with an armful of small gifts and a face that everyone said suited joy. My heart beat like a drum. I wound through the rooms until I found the place I wanted — the dais where Case Willis had once stood in the life I had lost, the place where lies had been made into some man's stepping-stones.
"Jaden," someone called. "You look beautiful."
"Thank you," I said. "Is everyone ready?"
I arranged everything very simply. I put the phoenix pin in my hair. I stood under the paper lanterns and looked at the crowd until I could find the faces I wanted to see.
Everly was there, arm linked with the two sisters who had been loud in their cruelty. She was fanning herself in a dress the color of old roses, three pearls at her throat. She laughed at a courtier's joke. She did not see my smile as I crossed the floor.
"Friends," I said, loud enough for the courtyard to hush, "I would like to make a toast."
They turned. The bride and groom smiled. Allison came close, beaming, and I leaned forward like a woman about to tell a secret.
"Last time I was in court," I began, letting the words land, "I fainted. I woke up in a strange room, with a strange man wearing a qilin on his chest. I woke up to accusations that nearly destroyed a man's life. I woke up to a husband who told lies. I woke up dead."
A bead of silk fell from someone's sleeve. A child made a small noise.
"I know you all loved the story," I said. "But I have a confession to make. I was not the poor, helpless puppet you took me for. I was used. I was betrayed. There is evidence. There are witnesses. There are matching receipts. There is a paper that says — and on this paper, a copy of the recipe for the green medicine that makes a woman bleed. Do you want to guess who wrote that paper?"
Everly's smile blistered like something burned. "Jaden, what nonsense is this?"
"Allison," I said, looking at her with what I could manage to make look like pain, "you sent me a note to your home. That note mattered. But not as much as the note your sister sent to Case. He believed it. He set the trap."
"Who would dare—" murmurs spread like gusts of wind.
"This paper," I said, "has Case Willis's handwriting on it. This tiny vial found in a drawer has the same bitter herb the apothecary sells only to those with a license from the left guild — and Everly, you were seen in the apothecary that night, and you left with a blue-paper parcel."
Everly went white as paper. She stepped back. "No—"
A man in the crowd who had been a house steward sobbed, "I delivered that parcel. I thought it was for medicine. I was told it was a tonic."
"You were told lies," I said. "Everly, why did you help him?"
She laughed, a small dry thing. "Because he promised me — he said he could make me rise. He said if I helped him, my family would be set."
"Is that what you wanted?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I wanted—"
"You wanted me ruined so you might be clothed," I finished for her. "So you might move up."
The courtyard stilled. Someone swallowed loud enough to hear it.
"I will not let you explain," I said. "I will not let you spin silver where you sewed steel."
Everly's face burned. She touched her pearls as if they might bite. "I will be ruined, then," she whispered. "I will—"
"You will be named." I picked up the bundle of receipts and handed them to Allison's steward. "These are copies. These are the apothecary receipts. These are your signatures, Everly. These are your letters. We have them all. We have witnesses."
"No—no—" she choked. She looked to the crowd. "They—I'll call my father—"
"Call him," I said. "Call him while the whole courtyard listens."
She turned pale, pulling out a small writing strip with shaking hands, voice thin as thread. "Father will not help me," she said. "He will not—"
"You promised to help ruin me for a better dress," I said. "You promised Case the story of a woman who fell for a soldier. You promised him you would be honest to get his favor. You did not know how cruel men like that were. You were greedy and you were small. You thought you could climb."
"My father—" she pleaded.
The steward's wife spat on the ground. "You took a life," she said. "You helped take a life. My sister mourns her friend. You took a life for a silver comb."
Everly's knees bent. She fell to the stone, hands up in a small useless prayer. "Please," she begged. "I didn't know— I didn't mean—"
"Meaning does not return a life," I said.
People began to crowd around. Phones did not exist here, but hands reached for fans and for the wooden signs houses kept for gossip. Someone began to clap slowly, and then others joined — not to praise but to mark the rhythm of public verdict. A neighbor threw a chip of bread at her, a coarse thing, and someone laughed hard as tears started.
"Strip her of the things she bought with ill luck," someone called. "Send her to the market and have her call out the truth. Let the left guild refuse her business. Let everyone know what she did."
"I will do no such thing alone," I said. "Let the guilds know. Let the merchants know who buys their poisons. Let whoever took money from her answer."
Everly's face crumpled. She tried to crawl toward me. "Jaden, please—"
I stepped forward and took her hands. "You will tell the truth," I said. "You will speak in front of the magistrate. You will name the man who gave you the coins and you will take what comes. You will apologize to the family who buried me."
Everly sobbed, the sound of someone being broken. People took out pens to sign complaints. The steward nodded and said, "I will go to the magistrate now."
Everly's father arrived, breathless, followed by two household servants. He saw the crowd, his daughter's face, the receipts in Allison's steward's hand, and he covered his eyes with both palms.
"He will make a statement," I said. "He will show who gave the money. The truth will move like water."
Everly looked at me with a broken, pleading look. "I didn't mean—"
"You meant to climb," I said. "You used me."
She dropped her head.
When the magistrate came days later, the case was thick with words. Everly admitted to going to the apothecary. Case Willis was posthumously accused of murder for the business he had done to get his post. The guild revoked licenses for those who'd sold rare concoctions without proper names. The household steward's report led to fines and public loss of standing.
Everly's public punishment was sharp: the magistrate ordered that she be forced to stand on the steps of the market for three days and recount, aloud, what she had done — the pills she bought, the lies she told, every name, every note. Merchants would refuse her business. The prestigious families blacklisted her father’s contacts. Friends who had once laughed with her turned their backs. She begged, she knelt, she screamed. The market crowd hissed like a thing burned. Children pointed. Men spat. Her name was not cleared.
She crawled back to our gate at dusk on the third day. No one greeted her. I met her at the gate. She tried again to say a soft excuse.
"I want to die," she said.
"You helped kill me," I said softly. "You gave a man the coin to buy a bottle. You helped him make choices he already wanted to make. You owe more than a word."
She clung to me, weak as a leaf. The world had been harsher than the small prizes she had hoped for. She had learned a hard truth — that the ladder she tried to climb had rungs made of other people's falls.
I let her go.
After that, I chose who I trusted with my heart. Finn and I met in a small room with the curtains drawn. He knelt once — once — and handed me the phoenix hairpin he had placed on my hand the day I died.
"I could not keep you then," he said. "But I can now."
I closed my fingers over the pin. "I never wanted to be anyone's tool," I said.
"You will never be," he promised.
I married who I wanted, not the man who had used me. The city watched as Case Willis's name was stripped from plaques and his deeds examined, as Everly's place at the table emptied. People muttered that justice had gotten its due. It did — and it did not. No verdict puts back what was taken. But they saw the guilty stripped bare.
On the day we burned the last paper that had named me ugly and small, I fastened Finn's phoenix pin into my braid. I walked through the market. The smell of frying fish and flowers rose and sank. A child looked at the pin and stretched a hand forward.
"What's that?" he asked.
"A phoenix," I said. "It is a promise."
He smiled, bright and stupid and perfect. I squeezed his small shoulder and kept walking.
This time, I kept everything that mattered.
The End
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