Chapter 5 - The Beginning of an End (1/2)

Chapter 5: The Beginning of an End

The sorcerer drew a large magic circle around the castle. Soon as Lawrence and his party of knights came out, the sorcerer set the castle on fire.

Ailea died in the sea of flames.

But for odd reasons—whether it had been because the sorcerer was hasty in casting the fire or because it wasn’t cast properly… or perhaps some cosmic mishap… Ailea opened her eyes.

Again.

When she did, she came to the sudden realization that she had gone back in two years in the past, about a month before she had been cast out of the Imperial Castle.

Ailea rose from the bed and looked at her surroundings.

‘What on earth happened…?’

A week after learning that she’d gone back in time, Ailea trembled in the corner out of fear from memories of Lawrence’s betrayal and the blazing sea of flames burning her to death.

But she soon snapped out of it and pushed the terrible memories aside.

She had made up her mind.

Looking around, she saw everything was just as it was when she still lived in the Imperial Castle of Calise.

The bird feed she left on the windowsill was still there.

Ailea took a deep breath. She opened the window and heard the sounds of birds chirping.

The Outer Castle she’d been cast out of was surrounded by wastelands. There were rarely any birds, if any. She gathered some bird feed in her hand and extended it out the window for the birds to eat.