Abella was brought back to life again and again in a repetitive loop of failure and pain. She had tried to escape from the Duchy in the next eight lives, but died miserably in each. She was kidnapped and sold off as a slave until she was beaten to death; she was run over by a carriage; she was robbed and killed; she was accidentally shoved off a balcony, and so many more – from those deaths, Abella realised something rather quickly. Escape was not an option. Her destiny was to go to the Imperial Palace and suffer.

So Abella gave in to the fact that she had no other choice but to go to the Imperial Palace. In her fourteenth life, she worked hard on her reputation and became the graceful swan of high society, but she was still shunned for her lowly birth and the lack of her father and Imperial family’s favour. In her fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth life, she dedicated herself to learn magic and become a known magician in those four lives. Yet, in the end, she was unable to save herself from the fate of death. From being betrayed to being the traitor, Abella tried numerous ways. But nothing worked. In her eighteenth life, she had met a swift death at the sword of the Crown Prince before she could accomplish anything.

Then she took up swordsmanship. She became a renowned swordsman and could beat the every single Imperial soldier, captain, and guard. Another five lives of being a swordsman. Another five terrible deaths. Abella became a renowned scholar in her next few lives, but that didn’t work either.

Abella was tired. Exhausted. She wanted to die and forget everything; die and not come back to that fatefully terrible day outside Duke Silverstein’s study. But she couldn’t. To be specific, she didn’t have a choice. If only she could go slightly further back in time, perhaps to a day before she was engaged to the Crown Prince.

But her thoughts changed nothing. From being assassinated, poisoned, murdered, executed, hanged, burned at stake, tortured to death, and more, Abella died terribly and painfully in each life, people celebrating her death. She felt empty inside. She was like a hollow shell. Her eyes were always empty, and her bright smiles well-practiced and natural-looking. From years of being in high society, Abella could speak, walk, dance, eat, and move like an aristocrat perfectly, as if she had spent years practicing, because she had. But nothing changed the fact that she would always die painfully and horribly. Sometimes, she even died at the hands of her fiancé, his eyes always empty and cold as if he had been through hell and back. Well perhaps he had. But there was no hell that Abella hadn’t been to; she hadn’t come back yet though. She was in an endless cycle of hell – the kind of hell where there was no one else except blazing fires and demons eating away at her soul.

Abella was tired of living. Tired of dying. Tired of pain. Tired of having to go back each time she thought that everything was finally over. As more lives passed, Abella’s memory of her very first life grew faint. She remembered vaguely what had generally happened, but nothing in detail. The only thing she remembered clearly were the mysterious voice that spoke to her at the end of each life before she was brought into the next: “You will live again and again; repeat your life again and again; until you are finally happy in life. So go now, achieve what you want, do what your heart desires, and find a way to be happy. Only then may you rest in the peaceful blissfulness of death.”

But what did Abella want to do? What did her heart desire? What… what was happiness? It had been so long since Abella had been truly happy. What did it feel like? She could only sparsely remember what had happened, but not how the feeling of happiness had felt.

It had been in her first life. Recalling so far back was hard, and Abella seemed to have a clear memory of every single one of her lives except her first.

Her Father had been in a good mood after making a good amount of money that day, and he had complimented Abella. Abella couldn’t remember what exactly he had said, but she remembered that it had mostly been a compliment and that she felt happy because of it. Abella would have laughed at how desperate for love her past self had been. Why did it take so long, so many deaths, to realise that her Father didn’t love her? That her Father didn’t see her as more than a pawn on his chessboard? She was merely a tool at his disposal that would get cast aside once it was useless.

That was what she had always been. A tool. An object. A pawn. From the very start, Abella had always had a feeling that her Father didn’t and would never love her, but she still pressed on. She had always sought out his approval and slightest praise all her life, or at least her first few lives.

Once she realised this, Abella swore to herself that she would never seek out his love or praise ever again. Those loving and caring eyes were reserved only for children worthy of love, and an illegitimate child like Abella would never be that. Perhaps she would have been better off born as a daughter to a commoner. Commoners, despite living lives less and poorer than aristocrats, loved their children no matter who their parents were. No matter if the child was illegitimate or not. But most of all, commoners always seemed to be smiling. Happy. Content. Words that Abella had never dreamed of ever feeling ever again.

Abella tried to copy the bright smiles of the commoners, but it never looked quite right. She had a masterfully practiced smile that seemed sincere up until her eyes – at first glance, her eyes seemed to sparkle as if she was really happy, but on further inspection, one would find that her eyes were actually hollow and empty, and that it was merely the light that made it seem that way. Abella’s eyes were always naturally a bright, vibrant purple, which gave people the wrong impression that she was always bright-eyed and happy – the image of a naïve young noble girl who knew nothing of the world and would be easy to take advantage of.

Thus, Abella met many traitors and manipulators in her lives. In her first few lives, she was ecstatic that people wanted to talk to her and get to know her, but it was only on her twenty-second life and her twentieth death from traitorous people did she realise that she had been wrong. No one wanted to know Abella – they had all wanted to know the Crown Prince’s fiancée, and they had all had one thing in common: they wanted to take advantage of Abella.

There were so many traitors and manipulators that Abella couldn’t count them all. There was the snobby Marquiss Garth, there was the young and snide Viscount Ergot, there was the cunningly cruel Baroness Harp, there was the sly daughter of Count Arnold, the young, notorious playboy Marquess Venezuela, and so many more. At the mere sight of any of them chilled Abella to the core, and she had a lasting hate for every single one of them.

But the one Abella hated the most had been the notorious playboy Marquess – Riftan Venezuela. He had recently turned sixteen when Abella was fourteen and brought back to the past again, and in another two years, he became the Marquess. Abella remembered it clear as day – her sixty-eighth life, she had run away from the Imperial Palace for a rest; a break from all the judging glares. Even after living so many lives like that, Abella still felt the pressure and expectations that were set on her back.

There, under that oak tree, Abella had met an eighteen-year-old Riftan. He was funny, not so intelligent, but still managed to make Abella laugh a little. He gave Abella roses the next time they met, and the cruel people of high society immediately began spreading rumours that Abella was having a secret affair behind the Crown Prince’s back with Riftan. The rumours must have reached the Crown Prince, but he didn’t care much about it and didn’t ask Abella about it either.

Riftan didn’t do much to make the rumours better – if anything, he only made them worse. He had neither denied nor confirmed the rumours, but still confirmed them in a discrete way. Abella had claimed that the rumours were all false, but of course, no one believed the ugly stain on the white sheet. They were all waiting for what Riftan would say about it, and yet, he gave no direct answer, but he continued to be nice and kindred towards Abella, and she soon found herself in love.

But he betrayed her; sucked her dry of everything of worth and then finally showed his true self. He had been a manipulative bastard, and the first thing Abella did when she returned to the past? She had that damned oak tree cut down.