At that moment, Ayla felt the world around her was spinning.
The drink she sipped had poison. Moreover, it was her precious father, who fed her poison.
‘Why? Why?’
She couldn’t believe the event unfolding before her.
And, she uttered her own name.
‘I am Ayla?’
Ayla, the illegitimate child of Roderick and Ophelia who was lost a decade ago….that Ayla
‘Right…..’
“I was worried that you weren’t Roderick’s daughter. You’re just as foolish as your father. Every time I looked at you, it disgusted me. Those blue eyes, just like your father’s. Your hair, the splitting image of my Ophelia, was the only redeeming feature.”
Unbelievable stories began to pour out of Byron’s mouth.
She had believed him her whole life. Lived solely for her father’s sake. Even killed for her father.
However, who she thought to be her father….wasn’t her father.
The person she killed was her biological father.
Ayla wanted to grab Roderick and ask him if what Byron said was true, but there was no way the dead man would answer.
“Ayla, Ayla. Thank you. I’m grateful to you, thanks to you, my revenge against your father was perfectly executed. Kidnapping you, raising you as my daughter, and making you kill your biological father with your own hands—that was my plan for revenge against your father.”
It wasn’t easy to accept, but unless everything Byron said was true, there was no reason for her to die like this.
Cough…
Once again, a nauseating gush of blood poured out of her throat.
She felt angry and resentful. The reason she was vomiting blood like this was probably because she drank poison, but even if that wasn’t the case, She felt like she was going to rip out her chest and vomit blood at any moment.
“Killing you on the same day as your father is my final act of kindness. It may or may not be comforting, but you don’t have to worry about your mother. My Ophelia will be happy by my side.”
Byron’s laughter echoed in distress. She tried to stand, but her legs gave way in the end.
Ayla Hdiling Weishafen lay beside her father, Roderick.
It was brutal.
More tormenting than dying itself was the fact that she had been deceived all her life. She felt unjust, angry.
The man who chuckled and smiled was a demon. There could be no other explanation.
Even in death, she would not forgive that demon. Ayla vowed to curse him, even if it meant remaining as a vengeful spirit.
The price paid for deceiving and using her would be exacted in blood.
As she made this resolution, she drew her last breath.
“Ayla!”
Someone’s voice cried out her name, and a figure rushed toward her. Her blurred vision made it hard to recognize at first, but soon it became clear.
Her mother.
The mother she had longed for vaguely all her life without knowing her real name. It was Ophelia.
Tears welled up in Ophelia’s affectionate violet eyes, and that was the last thing Ayla saw before she let out her final breath.
—
Ayla Heiling Weishafen died.
She should have died.
Betrayed by a man she had believed in all her life, she had killed her own biological father with her own hands. And she, who had outlived her usefulness, had also been poisoned by that man.
Pain, like her throat being torn apart. The agony of every single vein in her body being ripped apart. Such sensations remained vivid in her memory.
‘But why?’
Why was she alive? Why was she breathing? She didn’t even feel any pain. Her life had been stolen by venom, and yet, how could she be alive without a single side effect?
She sat up abruptly, gasping for breath. It felt like a nightmare, a terrible dream.
She jerked her body upright, gasping for breath. It felt as if she had just woken from a nightmare. A terrible one.
But there was no way it could be a dream. She had hoped it was a dream, but the memories were too vivid to deny.
The warm gaze of Roderick, who never resented his own daughter despite the harm she had caused herself, and the mocking look in Byron’s eyes as he watched her die.
In her last moments, even the tearful face of Ophelia, who had looked at her, came to her mind, and it couldn’t be a dream.
She scanned her surroundings, taking deep breaths to calm herself.
An old stone wall covered in moss. Spartan furniture.
‘What is this?’
She couldn’t understand what was happening. Where was she, and why was she not dead, alone in this unfamiliar place?
Or was it really unfamiliar? She groped through her memories, and this landscape felt strangely familiar. She had seen this kind of scenery countless times before. In her childhood, wandering with the demon named Byron…
It was then.
“You’ve awakened, young lady.”
The old wooden door creaked open, revealing a familiar face. It was Laura, her maid.
From her early years, when she wandered with Byron, to disguising herself as a lady and entering the Duke’s mansion, Laura had taken care of her. Although she was called a maid, in reality, Laura was tasked with observing her.
“Hurry up and wash yourself. Before having a meal with the master, you need to do your morning training.”
Laura spoke briskly as she set down a basin of water she had been holding on a small table next to the bed.
But as Ayla looked at Laura, she realized that something was off.
Ayla observed Laura with a growing sense of unease. Laura seemed somewhat younger than she remembered. Laura must have been in her early twenties, yet why did she suddenly appear like a late teenager?
And the words she used, morning training?
Despite her short eighteen years of life, Ayla had dedicated her lifetime to rigorous training. It began at the crack of dawn, with basic physical conditioning. She learned how to wield a dagger, practiced archery, hitting small targets from a distance.
She studied where to strike on a lifelike human model to kill swiftly and mastered the handling of poisons. But that was all before the age of sixteen, before she entered the Duke’s mansion.
Disguised as a lady – well, not really disguised, now that she thought about it – once she entered the mansion, Laura hadn’t awakened her for morning training.
Well, revenge against Roderick had been her sole purpose in life. She had occasionally done some secret strength exercises in her room, fearing her skills might rust, but that was it.
“Why are you staring like that? You need to wash up and change your clothes quickly.”
Laura spoke brusquely, as if she were the mistress of the house herself, then left the room.
Left alone, Ayla found herself lost in thought as she stared at Laura’s retreating figure. It was as if she had gone back in time to her childhood. An absurd thought, wasn’t it?
But it felt as if… She examined her own hands. They were small and childlike, almost as if they belonged to a young girl.
Since there was no mirror in the room, she took a look at her reflection in the basin Laura had left behind. The face that stared back at her appeared to be that of a young girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old at most.
‘It’s unbelievable. There was no way… It feels as if I have…’
She hesitated, then took a deep breath and whispered to herself, ‘Time-traveled back to when I was a child?’
The next day’s scheduled event was of great importance to the Weishafen Duchy. It was a grand celebration marking Ayla’s eighteenth birthday, the daughter they had lost, and the official announcement of her as the heir.
To prepare for this grand event, laborers were urgently brought in from outside, and messengers from various corners of the Peles Empire tirelessly shuttled to the mansion, delivering birthday gifts to the young lady.
No matter how strict the security was tightened, there were bound to be gaps, and Byron had seized upon this opportunity.
However, the face reflected in the washbasin didn’t look anything like an eighteen-year-old about to enter adulthood.
Ayla seemed mesmerized by her own face. It was an extremely perplexing scenario.
‘…Have I returned?’
‘Could it be that time had rolled backward, returning I returned to my childhood?’
She knew it was impossible. Time was an immutable force of nature; it couldn’t be reversed. Yet, no matter how she thought about it, all the evidence pointed in that direction.
Laura treated her as though nothing had happened, her face, her hands, everything had become younger. These were all impossible without time being turned back.
Somehow, this seemed like a chance granted by fate. A chance to take revenge on the man who had deceived, used, and then discarded her, the man who had manipulated her entire existence.
And…
‘Mother, Father.’
It had been only about two years, a short time, but during that time, her foster parents had loved her more warmly than anyone else. A chance to reunite with Roderick and Ophelia.
Even the love between her and her foster parents, something that had shaken even her, the foolish girl who had lived solely for Byron’s revenge.
At first, she had ridiculed their foolishness. She had seen them giving their all, unaware that she was the assassin sent to claim the Duke’s life.
But as time passed, she felt guilt and hesitation. Was Roderick truly the villain deserving of death?
These thoughts began to plague her.
Whenever such doubts arose, Laura, who had never left her side, murmured like a brainwashing chant, “Don’t forget what that wicked man did to father.”
In hindsight, the foolish one might have been her all along. Unable to recognize her real parents even when they were right in front of her, playing into the devil’s hands, and even killing her own father, she had been an unparalleled fool.
Ayla’s tears fell into the calm washbasin, leaving ripples.
Why hadn’t she recognized them? Ayla sighed as she gazed at her reflection in the basin.
Back then, when she had been deceived by Byron, she hadn’t even suspected. But now, looking at herself, Ayla couldn’t deny that she was undoubtedly Roderick and Ophelia’s biological daughter. She resembled them so closely.
Her distinct eyes, her sturdy nose, and even her ocean-colored irises, which seemed cool at first glance but actually held warmth, were just like Roderick’s. Her overall facial structure, petite lips, and hair with a hint of silver seemed to be a perfect match for Ophelia.
‘Father…’
As the last image of Roderick, gazing at her with affection even as he was dying, resurfaced in her mind, tears welled up in Ayla’s eyes once again.
To think she had killed such a person with her own hands.
Ayla lowered her hands, which still bore no trace of Roderick’s blood.
‘The blood that will stain these hands will now belong to that devil.’
