A soft knock pulled her from her thoughts.

“Mama?”

The voice was timid, small, and too sincere for this world of etiquette and whispers. A little boy peeked in, clutching a carved wooden horse in his hand.

Alaric.

His dark curls framed a pair of solemn eyes that seemed far too wise for four years old. He stood in the doorway as if afraid she might vanish. When she smiled—awkwardly, uncertainly—he brightened and rushed to her side.

“You’re awake again,” he said, climbing onto her lap. “You don’t smell like medicine anymore.”

That made her laugh quietly. “Do I smell bad?”

He shook his head, serious. “No. Just… different. Like sunshine after rain.”

Her throat tightened. “I think that’s a good thing.”

Alaric nodded and curled against her, and instinct made her wrap her arms around him. For a long moment, she simply held him—his small heartbeat pressing against hers, steady and real. She didn’t know this boy. Not really. Yet something in him pulled at her, grounded her. Maybe this was the part of Vina that lingered—a mother’s love that refused to die.

The servants noticed the change almost immediately.

Lady Vina, who had once spoken curtly and preferred silence, now lingered in the kitchen to ask about the cook’s day. She took her meals with Alaric instead of alone. She stopped wearing corsets that pinched and gowns that disguised her curves, choosing instead to breathe freely, even if society whispered that her figure was “too full.”

Her maid, Lydia, exchanged worried glances with the others. “She’s… softer,” they murmured. “Kinder. But she looks at us like she’s never seen us before.”

Some evenings, Willa—Vina—walked the gardens barefoot, feeling the grass between her toes, her son giggling as he tried to catch fireflies. She’d pause sometimes, eyes distant, remembering flashes of city streets and forgotten faces. And always, she’d whisper the same promise under her breath:

If this is a second chance, I won’t waste it. I won't go searching for love much less what I desire, in this life I'll live solely as a mother and as a noble.

At night, the dreams returned.

The rain. The headlights. The screech.

And then—the image of another woman, still and pale, lying in the same bed she now slept in. Vina.

Their eyes would meet for an instant in that strange dreamspace, and Willa would feel both gratitude and guilt. As if she were living someone else’s unfinished story.

When she woke, the fire would still be burning low. Alaric would be asleep in the next room. And for the first time in years, she’d feel hunger—real hunger—not just for food, but for the life she’d never known she wanted.