Last Chance [Extra #2]

Part 28

Edgar's mind was a mess. He couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something going on between Celosia and the Grand Duke. She casually called him by his first name, and he called her Celi, as though he knew who she was. It wasn't possible, at least in Edgar's mind, that Celosia would tell the Duke the truth about herself after meeting him briefly once.

The only conclusion he could come to was that they had met before, probably during the time Elena was missing and Celosia entered her body. But that was also suspicious, as the Duke was then at war.

Where could they have possibly met? That thought didn't leave Edgar's mind the whole way home. He needed to share the truth with his parents. He couldn't and didn't want to leave his Ellie in the hands of a man who slaughtered thousands.

He didn't even realize that Celosia had revealed to him she had killed even more people than Cassian, simply because he couldn't fathom her being that cruel. He still saw her as a gentle and kind woman and refused to believe she would ever take a life.

While Edgar was on his way to the Heroux Manor, the Grand Duke's palace bustled with gossip. The young lady the Duke intended to marry had publicly revealed she remembered her previous life, and all the servants were busy talking about it. She went as far as saying it was 'one of' her previous lives, meaning there were more than one. Did she mean she remembered all her previous incarnations? The news shook the whole palace and some of its people's beliefs.

"Do you want me to order them to stop speaking of this?" Cassian asked worriedly as he sat at his desk, unable to concentrate on the marriage contract he was supposed to write.

Celosia seemed unperturbed by this, quietly drafting up her part of the contract. "No, there's no need. If you forbid them from speaking about it in the palace, they will simply talk elsewhere. If anything, it would be better for me to ask them to not let this truth leave the palace's walls. That way the rumors that will undoubtedly spread can be contained within one place."

"Stefan, you heard it. Please tell everyone to keep their mouths shut outside of the palace."

"As you wish, Your Grace. And Madam, I am not sure if you are aware, but even as the servants talk between themselves about what you had revealed, no one speaks ill of you. It was simply surprising to everyone, but that was all. I assure you, no one sees Madam in a different light."

"It's fine, Stefan. I don't mind it. I've long stopped caring what people say about me," Celosia assured him with a smile.

Her forlorn expression told a different story. The Madam was definitely disturbed by the gossip surrounding her.

Truth was, she hardly cared about it. She was simply reminiscing about her past lives and the way people sometimes talked about her. The servants' talk was completely harmless, unlike the vicious rumors spread about her in her tenth life. She used to work as a photographer, as that was the dream of the original owner of her body back then, but one of her assistants, who strove to set up a studio of her own, started spreading malicious rumors about her. She even reported her to the authorities for taking inappropriate pictures of children and spreading them. And that rumor wasn't even the worst. There were so many that Celosia ended up closing up her studio. After her appearance changed back to the way she had looked in her first life, just like it always happened, she legally changed her name and came back to the city and started working with one of the most prominent designers. The assistant that drove her out of the town had achieved her dream of setting up her own studio, but it was soon shut down due to the bad reviews she received.

Celosia's tenth life was not the only one in which people spoke of her. Her thirty-sixth life ended specifically because of gossip. After rumors about her being a witch spread around the village she was living in, she was burned at the stake without trial. No one wanted to hear her side. All that mattered was that she was different from others.