Chapter 1 I'm In A Storybook!

"Sister, what if she never wakes up?"

"Then she never wakes up. One less mouth to feed, right?"

"But the wedding is tomorrow..."

"Easy. We will just let the Marsh family carry her away, awake or not."

The voices faded. My head hurt so badly it felt like it was splitting open.

I woke up with a gasp. Memories that were not mine rushed into my head like a flood. I pressed my hands to my head until the pain got a little better.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. I did not know this place at all. It was an old, broken woodshed. Wind blew through holes in the walls. Firewood was piled in three corners, and I was lying on a bed made of rotten boards. My blanket was thin and gray, and hardly a blanket at all.

I stared at the roof and said nothing for a long time.

Just moments ago, I was the best assassin of the future. Then a storm hit while I was on a mission, and I shouted at the sky, "What kind of weather is this?" The sky answered with lightning. Everything went white, then black. Now I was here, in the body of a girl nobody loved.

Even her clothes were sad.

Being a poor, sad girl in a story was okay. Being thrown into a backward world with no machines was okay too. But I could not stand the woman the memories called my mother.

The girl whose body I now had was Elowen Ashford. Her father died of a serious illness when she was only five. Soon after, her mother, Margaret, married into the Thornfield family. Gregory Thornfield already had three children. Two years later, Margaret had another daughter, Fiona, who was Elowen's half-sister.

Fiona never liked Elowen. She loved the Thornfield children instead. So Elowen was all alone. She had a cold mother, a sister who did not care, and stepsiblings who pushed her out and bullied her all the time.

And now this.

Last night at dinner, my stepsister Isolde said sweetly that she would marry Edmund Hale. Edmund was Elowen's fiancé since they were children. The Hale family had already agreed. The wedding would happen tomorrow, but with a different bride.

That meant Elowen had to marry Commander Lucian Marsh instead.

Elowen said no. I could see the memory clearly. She said no again and again. But not one Thornfield spoke up for her. They said she was stubborn and ungrateful, as if Isolde had put a spell on all of them.

Then her own mother joined in. "Elowen, your sister says she and Edmund love each other. Why don't you switch places with her and marry Lucian?"

Those words killed the last hope in the girl's heart. Everything went dark, and she fell down. Her sadness turned into a high fever, and the fever took her life.

That was when I came in.

I sighed deeply. "Poor girl. Your life was so hard."

She had suffered so much, and she was so young.

I had just finished feeling sorry for her when the shed door creaked open. A woman in middle age walked in with a bowl of warm water. When she saw my eyes open, she let out a breath of relief.

"Elowen, you're awake! How do you feel? Is the fever gone?"

She reached out to touch my forehead, but I pulled away before her fingers could reach me.

Margaret's face went stiff. She knew her oldest daughter was still angry. She sighed, pulled her hand back, and put the bowl down. "I brought you honey water. Drink it fast and you will feel better soon."

Many girls would have felt touched. I did not. I looked straight at her and said, "You want me to get better fast so I can marry Isolde's man tomorrow, right?"

"I... that's..."

She stammered. She did not expect the first thing her daughter said to be so sharp. I saw guilt and shame on her face.

I almost laughed. This was a mother? She was worse than any stepmother in the stories I had read.

Margaret put the bowl on the cupboard and took my hand before I could stop her. "Elowen, I know you were treated unfairly this time."

"But Isolde is set on Edmund. If we say no, she says she will end her life. Also, the Hales have more or less agreed to the swap. If you go to their door and make a scene, they won't even listen. The only way is for you to marry into the Marsh family."

She did not ask if I was in pain. She did not ask if I could stand up. She walked in and went straight to talking me into the wedding.

My heart hurt for the girl whose body I now had.

I pulled my hand back with a blank face. "Ha. Why should I care if Isolde lives or dies? You are afraid she will hurt herself, but are you not afraid that I will?"

I already knew what she would say. And she did not let me down.

"Oh, no. My Elowen has always been good and sensible. She would never do something silly to worry me."

Of course. The words of a mother who truly loves her child.

For a moment, I wanted to shout the truth at her. Do you know that your pride and your silence already killed your daughter?

Do you know that you, her own mother, killed her?

If you had stood by her even one time, if you had stood up against this forced wedding, she would never have given up!

"Elowen, please, just listen to me," Margaret said. She saw nothing strange in my face. She patted my hand and kept talking, mostly to herself. "I have met Commander Lucian Marsh. He is a fine young man. And he is a soldier, dear. Think about it! A soldier has steady pay and a safe job."

"His family is a little poor, I admit. But if you marry him and build a good life together, I am sure your future will not be bad..."

She never finished.

"If Lucian Marsh is so great," I said coldly, "why was Isolde so shameless as to steal my engagement? If he is so great, why doesn't she marry him herself?"

My eyes started to burn.

I pushed the tears back at once.

Do not cry. Not now.

Because if I cried, it would mean I still cared about this woman.

And I did not. I could not afford to.

Tomorrow, they would drag me to the Marsh house as a bride. But I was not the girl who died in this shed. I was a blade that had never lost a mission.

And if they thought I would walk quietly to the wedding, they had just made the biggest mistake of their lives.