Heartbeats Amid Fire

2 - Transmigrated

Alysa pov:

Gasping like a fish out of water, I sat up very much alive and drenched in sweat from the startle of what had just happened.

I stayed unmoving and trembling a moment, a shiver going down my spine as a gentle breeze cooled my sweat-drenched skin. Silence hung thickly in the air but there was a mild ringing in my ears that remained. Groaned at the pounding in my head, I caressed it with one hand while closing my eyes.

Slowly but surely, it came to my notice that I was lying on a soft mattress and a thick blanket covered me till my waist. The rustling of leaves and chirping of birds was audible and seemed to come from a window on my left but it was a few moments before I felt well enough to open my eyes to notice my surroundings.

Much to my surprise, I was not in a hospital as I thought I would have been with a worried Julie and her family by my side. I was not even in a room that was familiar to me. The room I was in was plain and simple with minimum furniture – the bed I was on, a cupboard and a simple dressing table beside it. Thin, translucent curtains covered the double window on the side, and the door of the room on the opposite wall was closed. Perhaps I was still unconscious and dreaming...though the obvious soreness of my body had me thinking otherwise.

"What in the world?" I mumbled to myself. "Where am I?"

My attention was averted from my surroundings when I suddenly realized that I felt no pain in my torso where I had been stabbed. I glanced down over myself only to frown at the attire I wore – a white, frilly night gown, and certainly one I did not remember ever having my possession. Ignoring that though, I touched my torso and yet again felt no pain in the place where the wound should have been – in fact, there was no wound at all.

The sight of my hands had me looking over them curiously after once again confirming that there was no wound on my torso. They were smaller and more delicate than I remember, as if they weren't my hands at all.

Another throb through my head had me shut my eyes with a wince, for it was sharper than before and a series of chaotic images flashed behind my closed lids. One image caught my interest – that of a young girl my age or perhaps just a little younger with blonde curls and glimmering turquoise eyes. Her life story began to play out to me as if I was watching a movie.

She was the only daughter of an earl and countess, both who were kind and hardworking people. When the girl was merely ten years old, her mother passed from an illness and they were followed by the misfortune of going bankrupt because of a noble who had had the earl sign a debt guarantee but absconded, leaving the heavy debt to be paid by the earl's family. Considered careless because of his actions, the imperial family had reduced his title to that of a baron. As such, his duties too had reduced, and he remained as one of the poorest fraction in nobility.

Because of all that had happened, the baron and his daughter's status in society had greatly declined, resulting in being shunned and ridiculed by most other nobles. As such, the daughter grew up to be quite pitiful, introverted, silent, and accepting insults and bullying from her peers as if she deserved it. She was often mistreated in gatherings and she did nothing about it but tremble in fright the entire while she was around anyone besides her father.

Despite all that they had to go through because of one mistake, the baron wasn't entirely timid. He was a hardworking and honest man, well versed in the ways of business and social life, a one who cared for the people he governed under imperial orders. He took care of the lands and hearing reports about estate crops, harvests, and supplies. He was also responsible for managing the finances of the estate he governed, which included taxes, rents, and dues. His honesty was his weakness, and was the cause of the other nobility disliking him and wishing for his disappearance – they found him to be a hindrance in their plans of embezzling money.