Chapter 258: Chapter Two Hundred And Fifty Eight
~ • A Special Chapter: Ryan’s POV Of His Past lives • ~
The memories came to him in fragments, like shattered pieces of a mirror reflecting a life that was and wasn’t his. In the quiet moments, when the world of his third life grew still, the ghosts of the other two whispered to him. They reminded him the story of a boy who had loved a girl across lifetimes.
~ • The First Life • ~
His world had shrunk to the four walls of his bedroom. The air was hot and thick, and the sheets on his bed felt scratchy against his feverish skin. He was a small boy, and a terrible sickness called smallpox had claimed his body as its own.
Through a hazy, dreamlike fog, he was aware of the world outside his door. He could hear the muffled sounds of his mother, Lyra, weeping.
"Please, Julian, just for a moment," her voice would plead, strained and broken. "I need to see him."
"You cannot, my love," his father’s deep, sad voice would reply. "It’s too dangerous. The physician was clear."
Sometimes, he would hear her press against the door, her soft cries seeping through the wood. It made his own chest ache. He looked at his hands, at the ugly red marks that covered them, and felt a deep, childish shame. He had done something wrong to make his mother so sad.
One afternoon, the butler’s voice, formal and clear, cut through the usual quiet. "Your Grace, Baron Henry requests your presence at his daughter’s funeral."
Eric heard the soft rustle of paper as his father took the invitation. He knew Baron Henry. He was the father of the little girl with bright, blue eyes who lived in the grand manor, the one he was supposed to play with when he got better.
He tried to push himself up, a wave of dizziness washing over him. From his bed, he could just see a sliver of the hallway. He saw his mother, her face pale and streaked with tears, trying to get past the guards stationed at his door.
"Am I going to die, Mother?" he asked, his voice a weak, scratchy thing.
His mother stopped struggling. She looked towards his room, her eyes wide with a love so fierce it seemed to bridge the impossible distance between them. She shook her head, a watery, desperate smile appearing on her face. "No, my darling," she said, though her voice cracked with the lie. "Nothing will happen to you. You will be well again soon."
"Really?" he whispered, wanting so badly to believe her.
Lyra nodded, tears streaming freely down her face. "Really."
His father, Duke Julian, gently dismissed the guards and took his wife into his arms. Lyra buried her face in his chest, her sobs shaking her entire body as he caressed her hair. "Henry’s daughter, too, is dead from arsenic poisoning," Julian murmured, his voice heavy with grief. "I will be attending the funeral tomorrow."
Eric heard those words from his room, and a cold, terrifying understanding settled in his small heart. The Baron’s daughter. The little girl he was supposed to play with. She was dead. The poison had taken her, just as his sickness was trying to take him.
His mother’s promise was just a beautiful lie to make him feel better. Silent tears streamed down his hot cheeks and soaked into his pillow. He didn’t want to make his mother sadder by letting her hear him cry.
A month later, in the quiet of his room, his small, tired body finally gave up the fight.
~ • The Second Life • ~
In his second life, the fever never came. He and Delia, the girl from the grand manor, both escaped the childhood death that had claimed them before. By the time Eric was ten, he considered her his closest friend.
He remembered a bright, sunny afternoon when he and his father went to see Baron Henry at Ellington Manor to discuss court matters. As the adults talked, Eric grew restless.
"Where’s Delia, my lord?" Eric asked Baron Henry, interrupting the grown-ups’ boring conversation.
The Baron smiled, a kind, indulgent look in his eyes. "I don’t know where that little whirlwind is, but..."
"I’ll look for her," Eric announced, already turning to go.
The two men laughed behind him. "Lord Pembroke is waiting for us in the study," he heard the Baron say as he hurried away.
Eric went to all their usual places—the sprawling oak tree perfect for climbing, the hidden corner of the garden where they would play on the swing, the library where she loved to read. She wasn’t in any of them. He finally heard a sound drifting from the main drawing room, a beautiful, simple melody played on the piano.
He peered around the doorway and saw her. Her back was to him, her small frame focused as her fingers danced across the ivory keys. He was enchanted by the sound, by the sight of her, so lost in her own world. He couldn’t bring himself to move, to disturb the perfect moment.
As he was about to step into the room to greet her, a boy stood up from one of the chairs. It was George, Lord Pembroke’s son. He was holding a single, perfect red rose. He walked over to the piano and presented it to her.
Delia stopped playing. She turned, and a brilliant smile lit up her face. She took the rose and, leaning forward, gave George a light, sweet kiss on his cheek. "Thank you, George," she smiled.
Eric’s heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. He quickly hid away from them, pressing himself against the wall in the hallway. He saw the easy affection between them, a world to which he was not invited.
"She doesn’t like me anymore," the childish, painful thought echoed in his mind. He turned and quietly left the room.
That day was a turning point. He began to keep his distance, watching her from afar.
At eighteen, he saw her making her dyes for the first time. She was in a small, forgotten outbuilding, her hands and apron stained with color. The dyes she created were not the bright, cheerful colors of the court. They were dark and gloomy, the colors of a stormy sea, of a bruised twilight, of deep moss in a shadowed forest. But to him, they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
They were honest. They were her. He was truly mesmerized, and for a moment, he thought of walking over, of telling her how amazing her work was. But then he saw George arrive, carrying a tray with two cups of tea, and he saw the comfortable way Delia smiled at him. So, Eric held himself back once more.
He had eyes only for her, but she had eyes only for George. At twenty, the pain of his unrequited love became too much to bear. He entered the king’s army, seeking the hardship of the field and the distance of a foreign war to forget about Delia.
When he finally came out, years later, he noticed she was gone. Not gone from the manor, but from the world. He never saw her at balls or social gatherings. The Baroness was always present with Anne, but Delia was a ghost. He asked around, but the replies were vague and contradictory. Some said she was unwell, others that she was eccentric and preferred to stay home. He would see George get close to Anne, giving her gifts.
The last straw was when he attended a winter ball and overheard a group of lords gossiping about the upcoming society weddings. One of them mentioned Delia’s engagement to George. The news was like a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs. It was final. He had lost. That night, he made his decision. He left Albion for the continent, throwing himself into his own dye business.
He was gone for a year when a coded letter reached him. It was from an unknown servant at the Ellington manor. The letter spoke of a conspiracy, of a plan to frame Delia for a murder using her own unique dyes calling them poisonous. The letter was signed with a letter P.
A cold terror, sharper and more potent than any fear he had felt on the battlefield, seized him. He had to save her. He rushed back to Albion.
In his fear, he urged the carriage driver on, his voice a desperate shout over the sound of the galloping horses.
"Faster! We have to go faster! We don’t have much time!"
The driver, trying to obey, pushed the horses too hard on the slick, treacherous road. As they rounded a sharp, blind bend, there was a sudden lurch, the terrified scream of horses, and the horrific sound of splintering wood and shattering glass.
His carriage collided with another. In the final, chaotic moment before darkness took him for the second time, he saw a figure lying on the floor. It was Delia.