Chapter 1
My husband of thirty years, a man I had honored and respected our entire marriage, gripped my wrist tightly as he lay dying.
“My lady,” he rasped, “if there is a next life, I beg you… let your stepsister have the chance to save me from the mire. Let me have one lifetime of love with her.”
Tears streaming down my face, I nodded. “I will.”
A biting spring wind swept across the cobblestones. I found myself staring, frozen, at the destitute young man collapsed on our
doorstep.
This time, Josh, I will grant you the life you always yearned for.
1
Patches of unmelted snow clung to the crevices between the stones, and icicles hung from the eaves, their last drop of winter hesitating to fall. The familiar scene jolted me back to reality. I had been reborn, thirty years in the past.
in
The jeering shouts of a servant rang my ears.
“Get out of here, you filthy beggar! Be off with you!”
I instinctively hurried toward the gate. A thin back was hunched over in a threadbare tunic of dark indigo. The young man was knee- ling on the steps, and the hands that had once penned such magnificent prose were now blue with cold, so pale they were almost
translucent.
It was Josh Atreides, age nineteen. The man who would become my husband for three decades of cool, respectful distance.
In my memory, his withered, dying hand tightened on my wrist. From within the heavy, medicine–scented bed curtains, his clouded eyes glistened. “My lady, if there is a next life, I beg you, give the chance to save me to your stepsister, Isabelle. Let me be bound to
her for one lifetime.”
A twig snapped under the eaves, and I jolted back to the present. I could still feel the phantom chill of tears soaking my collar, the ghostly touch of his burial shroud on my palm.
The soft patter of footsteps approached from behind. My stepsister, Isabelle, was heading this way with her maids, a crimson blossom trembling in her hair with every step.
“Eleonora?” She stopped, puzzled. “Aren’t we going to the High Chapel to pray for blessings? Why have you stopped?”
I dug my nails into my palm, the sharp points pressing into an old, faint scar I had brought back with me from my past life. Josh’s final sigh echoed in my ears: “Thirty years of mutual respect… but in the end, it was a love I could never have.”
I pushed the thought away and looked at the bright, charming girl before me.
“Isabelle,” I heard myself say, my voice hoarse. “We won’t go today. I think I heard an injured sparrow crying by the gate. Why don’t
you go see?”
The girl’s almond–shaped eyes lit up, and she lifted her skirts and ran toward the entrance.
I stepped back, hiding myself behind a stone pillar, in a perfect position to see everything unfold.
“You tricked me, sister! There’s no cute little sparrow, just a beggar! Ugh, don’t come so close to me.”
