~Chapter 3~
As soon as her voice fell, the three people in the room surged forward as if pulled by a rope.
The moment her long-silenced voice spoke, silence crashed down upon them like a hammer.
“…What? Must you make such noise?”
The words slipped from pale, dry lips. The sound felt like ice crackling across the room.
The Duke, Shurell, and Khalid froze where they stood.
A strange tension gripped Khalid as he hovered beside the bed, hand still halfway reaching for Rivie.
Why was it that seeing her awake felt more suffocating than watching her collapse?
Why was the moment he had long hoped for making him feel like he was teetering over a precipice?
“Rivie.” The Duke stepped closer, voice wavering with guilt. “Are you alright? Do you feel any pain?”
Khalid felt the sudden sting of jealousy and terror burning within him. Somehow, in this moment, the sound of the Duke saying her name felt like a blade.
He clenched his hand until it shook, and then quietly spoke, voice low. “Rivie.”
A flutter of long lashes responded, rising like silk threads brushing air, and then—
A pair of luminous golden eyes appeared, brighter than the morning sun.
Khalid felt the breath rip from his chest.
Those holy eyes…eyes he had cherished…eyes he had long missed.
But this was not the same gaze he remembered.
These eyes, although beautiful, held none of the warmth that had embraced him for the last five years. No trace of the light that came from the heart.
Why?
Why did they now feel like a blade aimed directly at him?
“…Crown Prince?” she asked sharply.
Khalid flinched. The sound of that title felt like a blade pressed to the throat.
“Crown Prince”… So formal. So cold.
So very unlike the woman who had refused titles between them, calling him by name as if it belonged to her.
Since the day they promised themselves to one another, she had called him “Khalid,” with a voice that promised belonging. In this whole sprawling empire, only one person had been allowed to call him by that name.
Her.
But now, that name was gone.
A terror unlike anything he had felt in battle rose within him.
Rivie pressed a hand to her temple and pulled herself slowly upright, brushing the bedclothes aside.
“Why is the Crown Prince here?” she asked, voice sharp as steel. “And you two as well…?”
Her gaze swept across the room like a blade, brushing from the Duke to Shurell, and settled upon them with faint suspicion. Suddenly, a bitter laugh bubbled from her throat.
“So, you came running after I nearly died?” she said quietly, brushing the room with an arch of the brow. “That must have been disappointing for you all.”
The words landed like a slap.
Shurell blanched, going from pale to deathly blue. The Duke stiffened, lips pressed tight, unable to reply. Khalid felt a faint sting in the palm of his hand where the nails had dug deep.
“Of course, none of you would want a holy priestess like me to survive. Not when it’s so convenient for certain people if she disappears.”
A faint smirk twisted the corner of Rivie’s lips. The voice was soft, but sharp enough to draw blood.
“Well. Too bad for you. The holy one doesn’t die so easily.”
Shurell was shaking now, unable to muster a word. The Duke averted his gaze, guilt burning in his chest. Khalid felt the sting deepen as he tightened the fist at his side.
The woman before him felt like a stranger. Yet she was the same Rivie he had cherished for five long years. The same voice, the same delicate gestures. Yet this was not the Rivie he knew.
“Rivie,” the Duke spoke quietly, voice hoarse, “do you remember… what happened?”
Rivie pressed long, pale fingers to her temple, brushing away a faint wince. “The carriage crashed down the ravine. Someone tried to kill the holy priestess. I assume you’ve caught the culprit, Father?”
A stillness weighed down the room.
A silence cold enough to crack stone.
“To try and kill the holy priestess herself,” she continued, voice rising like a whisper of doom, “such a person doesn’t deserve mercy. I trust the culprit has been punished?”
The Duke drew in a slow breath. The air felt like ice between them.
This Rivie spoke like the woman she had been five years ago—a woman the Duke had hoped would never return.
Khalid felt the room shift, the walls tightening. The Rivie before him was sharp, wary… a version of the holy priestess he thought long gone. Yet here she was, as if resurrected from a grave no one knew had been dug.
He sank deeper into silence, unable to force words from a throat suddenly dry and burning. Even when Shurell spoke, voice wavering with desperation, Khalid said nothing.
“Rivie,” the younger man stammered, “you’ve lost five years of your memories. The accident that you recall… it happened five years ago. The person responsible was caught and executed long ago. You… lost your memories then. And only just awakened recently.”
Rivie tilted her head slowly, golden eyes narrowing like a beast that had just spotted its prey.
“Five years?” she repeated, voice soft and dangerous. “Then… you’re telling me that this is the second time I’ve woken from death? The second time I’ve forgotten?”
Her voice sank lower, almost a whisper.
“Then this means I’ve lost five years of memories.”
The room felt suddenly too small, too tight for those present.
“Then you can rest for now,” Khalid said, voice taut as a drawn bowstring.
“Even the High Priest said you should recover first.”
He rose sharply, swallowing down words that refused to be spoken aloud. Words like love. Words like desperation.
With a clenched jaw and burning chest, he turned and left the room.
“Of course,” the Duke offered quietly as he stood. “The High Priest said she needs rest.”
With that, he and Shurell departed, leaving Rivie alone upon the bed. The sound of their retreating footsteps felt like a death knell.
Khalid stood motionless in the hallway, spine rigid, fists clenched tight enough to draw blood.
“Your Highness,” the Duke said quietly.
Khalid raised a hand sharply, silencing him. No more words. Not now.
But Shurell refused to be silenced.
“Your Highness, if my sister truly has lost five years of memories, what about the wedding…?”
Khalid pressed a hand to his face, brushing away a wave of emotion that felt too dangerous to name.
Even now, he could remember the sting of silence that had fallen between him and the woman he thought was his Rivie.
He drew a breath, sharp and cold. “Even if she forgets… she is still the woman I chose. The woman I love. The wedding will wait until she regains her strength. Whatever memories she has lost, she will remain mine.”
Shurell sank into silence, unable to answer. Khalid pressed a palm to the ache in his chest and refused to waver.
“She may have forgotten five years. But for me, she is still Rivie. Whatever she is now… she is still the one I chose, and the one I will stand beside.”
The words felt like a desperate oath pressed deep into the marrow of his bones.
Meanwhile, within the room, Rivie sank slowly from the bed.
She walked to the window and gazed out upon a garden bathed in midnight mist. The Arfin estate felt both strange and heartbreakingly familiar.
A garden of golden winter aconite winked faintly in the dusk.
“Five years,” she breathed, brushing hair the color of midnight silk from her pale, sharp face. “What have you done in five years, Rivie?”
Each breath felt like a knife pressed to her ribs.
Her gaze swept across a room she no longer recognized.
A room stripped of its opulence and replaced with neutral simplicity. Not the rich mahogany and crimson silk she once claimed as her signature. Not the warm, decadent space she had molded herself.
This room felt like a witness… a witness to someone else’s life.
A bitter smirk twisted her pale lips as she pressed a hand to the mirror.
Silver hair framed a translucent, holy face. Golden eyes shimmered, sharp and unreadable.
“Have you made yourself at home in a body that wasn’t yours?” she breathed, voice laced with scorn.
“Have you claimed my name as if it were your own?”
Her fingers pressed harder until the sting felt like burning.
“Then remember this well…”
Through gritted teeth and a voice shaking with quiet fury, she promised herself:
“This body. This name. This holy power. This life. It is mine. And I will take it all back.”
With that, Rivie Arfin stood tall before the mirror, surrounded by silence, and embraced the rising storm within.
