The Countess of Chester ( editing )

Chapter 2

Carla was feeling an extreme pain in her back,  cheeks and arms. She seems to have been hit.

While she was trying to get her bearings a cup of freezing water and a rag entered her vision. She could vaguely hear a woman say something about respect and nanny.

"Where am I?" She whispered before struggling to her feet to look around.

It did not look like paradise. Because she was sure she died mere seconds ago. The phantom pain of broken bones and misplaced organs was making her shudder.

She was in what appeared to be a library. Book towers were in every corner and every shelf was filled with them. It was dusty and and old. There was an old sofa with a paper thin blanket over it. And not much of anything else just books and boxes. The architecture was pretty thought, she thought.

Her heart was pounding. Carla wondered if she reincarnated somehow. But shouldn't she be a baby?

She looked out the window and saw large alley and a beautiful garden that seems to extend beyond her view. It was a really familiar sight.
"No way"

She turned and looked  around for a more reflective surface. The window was too dirty, she could only see outside thanks to the broken corner.

Her suspicions were confirmed by the broken piece of mirror she was holding in her trembling hands.

"It's not my face" she said in shock.

But one she knew, Katrina Elyana Chester. Light brown skin, clear maroon eyes, long curly hair, little nose, plumpy lips, freckles. One of the most pathetic characters she's ever read.

Carla died moments ago and is now in a book she particularly affectioned. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure it was real but the headache she felt was proof enough.

It was one of her favorite historical fantasy called Nina. The story is told from the point of view of the main character Nina,  Katrina's cousin. It's a trilogy she particularly cherished since it was her introduction to the fantasy genre. She read it more than five times. Between revenge, well-crafted plans, the tension between the Nobility and the Royals, wizards, love, adventure, it's really intense.

In summary, Katrina's father Marquis Praus hated his older brother and killed him to become the patriarch. He proceeded to poison his wife and children and threw them out of the estate. They fell prey to traffickers, only Nina the middle child survived and swore revenge, understandable. She became a professional assassin a spy of the future Duke Armah in order to make every member of the Praus family suffer like her brothers and she suffered.

In the book she ruined the Marquisate financially and involved Marquis Praus in a rebellion schemes that killed Katrina's step-mother and her half-sister.
Since Katrina was protected by her Countess title, she was exempt from the punishment but died later from slow painful poisoning.

The worst in this situation is that Nina dies. She was stabbed by the then Duke Armah mere days after completing her revenge and being used by him to conquer the North and kill the count.

"What the fuck? Why didn't I reincarnate in a story with a very tsundere male lead at the beginning and total fluff after 35 chapters? Why this? I loved the scheming and careful manipulation but not on me!"

She obviously WAS Katrina, a character who suffers for more than half of the timeline of the series. Katrina is abused by her stepmother who hated her, sent in marriage to Count Chester at the age of 17, manipulated by Nina, schemed by the male lead's aunt who hates her for allegedly taking her place, cheated on the Count after a couple years of marriage, divorced and die frozen to death and poisoned on her way back to her father's ruined territor.

Her life was truly pathetic. It all happened in a little less than ten year.

The prestige of the Praus Marquisate came from the fact that there are descendant of one of the founders of the Allyan Empire, the Magic Swordmaster Praus. Katrina was born with the potential to be a renowned Mage or a sword master but years of neglect and Nina prevented her from developing. It's too sad.

They were some illustrations in the books, that's why the garden seemed familiar to Carla, and most characters had a presentation with illustration when they were introduced.

It seems to be the beginning of the first volume. Katrina is not married yet and Nina is the playmate of Sarah, her half-sister.
She must be around fourteen years old.

She looked at the reflection a second time to admire this beautiful face. She saw tears pour from her eyes. Her life was gone. Truly gone. She did not have much of an entourage but she had two precious friends. She had little to grieve but it still hurts.

She took a deep breath as she heard someone enters the room loudly to give her a tray with soup and a big bread. A servant then.

" Eat and go accompany the young lady during her lesson. She is such a pure soul to let a stain like you near her. And stop crying you're even uglier. It is a fit at this point."

Lie. Katrina was objectively very beautiful. The Count of Chester, a man of few words who only knew the sword admitted it himself the first time her portrait was sent to his estate. Carla herself had eyes too.

She glared at the transparent liquid in front of herself like a stare could change it into something more consistent.

When she read that Katrina's suffering, she empathized a lot. Katrina was a victim of her circumstances, not necessarily a bad person, just dumb, and dreamed of strangling her stepmother Eloïse.

Now that she was in her boots, she was scared. She will have to go through all of this. There is no way back home. There is no body for her to go back to. Not that she knows. The pain that she felt after being hit by this car was engraved in her memory. She did not survive.

It's so simple to gloss over abuse when it's mentioned in a five sentences paragraph, but to live it...

She cried again and drunk the clear brew. She ate half of the round bread and hid the other half. You never know.

She will have to brace herself. Imagining what to do is not without consequences anymore. It is her life. She will not be led around.

"I am Katrina Elyana Chester. I will not die."