You’d think that being born again would mean you already knew how to do all the basics—walking, talking, the usual. Not so much the case. Being born again means adapting to a new body, which means relearning everything you thought you knew the first time. 

Still, the early years fly by. Even with my memories of my previous life retained, I don’t remember much of them. It’s not like before. Mother and Father are kind, caring commoners, who tend a farm just outside the village. Everyone there knows my name—the new one I know now, not the old one that sits on a dusty shelf like a haunting memory. 

Soon, I’m a teenager again, and I haven’t told a soul about who I am, or what I’ve done—not even Mother and Father. I’ve come to quite enjoy the peaceful life on the outskirts of the Kingdom. Maybe getting reborn had been some cosmic mistake, but it worked out for me. 

In more ways than one. 

“Equinox!” A faint voice rises from further back on the road, and I pause to let the girl it belongs to catch up with me. She giggles and smiles at me as she strides up beside me, holding a woven basket with both hands. Her chestnut hair is coming loose from her twin braids, and she tucks a strand behind her ear as the winds wiggle it free. 

“Mayelle!” I answer her with a similar lilt of enthusiasm in my voice, and she flaps her hand at me in response to the taunt. 

Her ocean eyes survey the road ahead of us, which leads into town, and she smooths the blue cotton of her summer dress with one hand. “Are you hauling the crops into town for your parents again? Really, they have to stop relying on you so much.” 

“You know Father’s back isn’t what it used to be,” I answer softly, turning back to the road and continuing to wheel the cart filled with the spoils of the season into the town. It is early morning, just after dawn, and the townspeople are busy setting up the market. 

Mayelle giggles, a little skip to her step as she walks next to me. Her black boots have turned more brown from the many trips up the dirt road into town, and there are specks of it lining the petticoat that is peeking out from her dress. “You’re always so thoughtful, Nox.”

There is a soft crimson tint to her cheeks. I decide to chalk it up to the early morning cold, and nothing deeper. Mayelle and I have known each other for most of our lives—or, rather, this life, when it comes to me—and now that we’re older, she’s been acting strange. 

Besides, I can’t tell her the real reason for my kindness—that I’ve never known it before, that my last life was filled with exactly the opposite, and that it’s all I can do to show everyone how much I appreciate them. How they’ve taken me in. “I’m just trying to help wherever I can,” I say instead—and for some reason, this earns me another giggle from her. 

We’re still a good way out from town, but the morning walks always go faster, when it’s the two of us. We fall into easy conversation. She tells me updates on her family’s well being—her mother’s mysterious sickness, and her father teaching her older brother the ways of the land. I tell her about mine too—my new one, the one that loves me and homes me. The one that isn’t like Mother—rather, Queen Ceelia, the woman I have no relation to anymore. 

The Reign isn’t ideal. The village is taxed more than we can supply, and most of us live a commoner’s plight. But it’s not all bad. I know how things can be in that cold, uncaring castle—and, despite my dying wish, I have no desire to return to it. Without the Queen’s bloodline, I have no powers, and no way to get my revenge anyway.

“—lp! Help! Please, someone!” 

A soft voice, worn with age, drifts up from somewhere off the path. Mayelle and I both pause at it, and it’s almost a relief to know she hears it too. Just a bit further ahead, there are some cart marks veering off the dirt road and into the embankment near the river.

Mayelle and I exchange a quick look when we see it, and both rush to the edge. 

A cart has tumbled down the embankment, leaving root vegetables and squash strewn about in its wake. Mayelle gasps, her hands flying to her mouth and her basket tumbling into the dirt. There is an older man near the cart, the one shouting, desperately trying to lift the cart—and free the semi-conscious woman trapped beneath. 

I know him. It’s Farmer Vasteli from the barn to the West of ours. He normally has such soft, caring features—but his whole face is twisted and scrunched with fear. My feet move before I can think about the reasons for it, and I half run, half slide down the embankment to him. 

“I—I lost control of the cart when a wheel hit a rock, and the next thing I knew…” He trails off, his face white with horror at the sight of the blood trickling down the woman’s forehead. 

But blood isn’t something that makes me queasy. 

Her, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her around the town, and I don’t recognize her face, half hidden by tuffs of black hair. “I’ll need another hand,” I instruct Farmer Vasteli as I rush up to the cart and brace myself to start lifting. 

Physical strength is something I got with my new body that I quite enjoy. My old one was flimsy, relying on tricks and magic to get by. But this one is sturdy—strong like an ox—and I keep it that way on purpose. The wood cracks and splinters under my grasp, but I don’t stop trying even as my skin rips and bleeds. 

Vasteli rushes over to help, and between the two of us, we manage to get the cart off of her. I kneel down and gently roll her body over, wiping the blood from my rather small cuts off on my pants. Her wound doesn’t look nearly as bad up close—it just bled a lot because it is a head wound. I’d heard the Medic at the castle say that before. Head wounds bleed more, so make sure you cut deeper.

“Ma’am? Are you alright?” I say, and she groans and twists in my arms.

Suddenly, her wrinkled hand grips my arm with enough force that I think it might snap. I gasp, and turn to look at purple eyes as she gulps down air. She looks deep into me, and the robes obscuring most of her body carry the mark of an Oracle. 

“It’s—you.” She gasps, her voice husky and rasping like it’s being forced from her. “You’re him. The Chosen Son.

That’s all she manages to say before her eyes roll back, and she falls unconscious in my arms.