FTWS Chapter 1

Memory

Heavy air, a priest's prayers, and the suffocating scent of lilies. In this landscape that felt unreal, Nishina lifted her head, which had been facing downward all along.

The clear blue sky was unnervingly strange.

In the Snow Empire, there was a saying: "Rain falls from a clear sky." It heralds exactly that—the death of a member of the imperial family.

When the imperial bloodline, said to carry the blood of water spirits, grieved so deeply it pierced the soul, the sky would weep alongside them. Because of this, on the day when a family member loved by the imperial bloodline—that is, an imperial—closed their eyes, rain would fall even from a clear sky.

Yet the sunlight, warm to the point of scorching, stabbed at her eyes. Only then did Nishina lower her irritated eyes.

Beneath light that seemed capable of blinding her, she could clearly see her white fists trembling. She clenched her teeth as she watched the Emperor hand over a single flower with an indifferent expression.

Aiden Heinrich Aren of White Snow.

Prince of the Snow Empire. The only child of Empress Kiyonné, the subject of this funeral. And Nishina's half-brother.

Passing by the Emperor who hadn't spoken a single word even at the end, Aiden ascended the platform and offered a flower to the Empress, who appeared to be merely sleeping. A lily—the Empress's favorite flower. Every time they'd encountered her in the palace, the suffocatingly fragrant scent of lilies had clung to her.

As Aiden delivered his final farewell, having placed the pure white lily—untouched by even a speck of dust—into the Empress's hands, the sky gradually began to darken.

No one panicked at the belated rain. The attendants had been waiting with umbrellas in hand from the start. The moments just before, when it hadn't been raining, must have been the truly bewildering part.

The raindrop that struck her cheek felt cold. The reason this rain, falling so late, felt so bitterly cold was because the sole source of this rain was the Prince's grief.

A maid who had approached without a sound of footsteps held an umbrella over her. But her already-wet cheeks were damp, as if she'd been crying.

Nishina blinked her water-soaked eyelids slowly. Through her increasingly blurred vision, she could see the Prince standing alone.

He had even dismissed his attendants, receiving the rain without any shelter whatsoever. Though his stubbornly raised head appeared no different from usual, did it seem precarious—or was that her imagination?

As Nishina gazed at him endlessly in sympathy, she suddenly met his piercing blue eyes.

In that moment, Nishina realized her concern had been a mistake. What rippled within those eyes wasn't anything like precariousness.

An emotion more violent than grief.

It was fury.

She reflexively stepped back from that chilling emotion. Even as Nishina's confused pupils wandered without direction, Aiden's eyes persistently expressed that emotion.

Her breath, which had stopped without her realizing, lost its rhythm and scattered. Her breathing grew labored. Her ears hurt from the harsh sound of rain. And above all, her head spun far too dizzy.

This terrible sense of déjà vu, so inexplicable.

Rain soaking her feet, people in black clothing, dizzying lily fragrance, and beast-like fury that seemed ready to tear everything apart.

"...!..."

Nishina's mouth opened at the scenes that invaded her mind like stabbing needles. The memories accompanied by pain weren't hers, yet simultaneously they were hers.

The moment she finally read the conclusion to all of this at the end of memories flickering like film, Nishina's body collapsed. After that came darkness.

A cold season when breath became visible. In a dark forest where snow poured down heavily, Nishina looked up at the towering presence. Bright red eyes, in stark contrast to herself, gazed down at her with detachment.

The hunter sent by her brother had one purpose. To kill the troublesome prey.

Soon the gleaming blade in the man's hand would sever her neck.

Why did she feel not even a trace of fear, even as she sensed her approaching death?

Perhaps because she'd always had a premonition that such a day would inevitably come.

Her brother, who despite being the Empress's bloodline had been threatened even in his rightful position as Crown Prince simply because he was a child born without love. He who'd had to endure alone while being constantly weighed against her—though she was merely the Imperial Consort's bloodline, she was a child born of love.

Behind her peaceful childhood had always lain his misfortune.

How much had she regretted it when she was finally appointed Crown Princess?

She'd never anticipated that the water spirit's healing ability she'd awakened so belatedly would become such powerful support. If she'd known she would be praised by the people and ultimately steal even her brother's position, she would have kept it secret for life.

Only after the situation had deteriorated beyond repair did Nishina feel desperate regret.

At herself for being nothing but his enemy.

At every moment she'd turned away, afraid of his hatred.

If she hadn't resigned herself to his cold rejection and had found courage instead, would something have changed?

But regret always comes too late, and what-ifs are futile.

The sword tip of her brother, who had returned grasping victory from war, pointed toward the imperial palace as if it were the natural course of things. With the Empress's homeland and supporting factions at his back, he had nothing to fear.

She remembered clearly the scene of carnage filled with blood and screams. In that hellish sight, the moment her mother's and father's heads were severed. Those eyes filled with fury, those eyes steeped in emptiness—she could never forget them.

In that moment, she'd realized it. The depth of the despair he'd endured.

Perhaps the reason her throat caught more with regret than resentment was because of that.

From that day forward, she'd thought every day about the end that would someday come.

A quiet final moment in the vast forest. Compared to what she'd prepared herself for, it wasn't such a bad ending.

Nishina calmly closed her eyes without any disturbance.

"Any last words?"

The man asked in a tone as indifferent as his gaze. His low, sunken voice pooled thickly in her ears.

Last words for him...

When she'd been cast out to a place lower than the ground instead of death, Nishina had settled in a shabby clinic. A place where the boundary between life and death differed by a hair's breadth. Because of this, she'd heard more than enough people's last words.

People confessing love, people offering thanks, people sobbing that they didn't want to die, people spitting resentment and curses.

But for him, to whom she could spit neither resentment nor love—what words should she leave?

Her deliberation wasn't long. Only one lingering attachment remained in her heart.

"...May you become the sun that shines even to the lowest places of the Empire."

The moment the cold snowflake that touched her cheek melted and trickled down, Nishina finally awoke from her sleep.

Feeling her parched mouth, she slowly pushed up her eyelids. Her brow furrowed involuntarily at the splitting headache and the thirst that felt as if she'd been thrown into a desert for days.

Once her vision finally focused, she saw a familiar canopy. The ceiling of her own room.

"The Princess has finally awakened!"

"Shina!"

She turned her head weakly toward the woman rushing to her side. Her eyes, damp as if she'd been crying, gazed at her desperately.

"...Mother..."

When she called out in a severely hoarse voice, the woman burst into tears again. While she felt apologetic for worrying her mother, the crying made her head hurt even more.

The physician, who'd noticed her worsening complexion, gestured to the maids.

"Shall we sit you up?"

When she nodded, Joy carefully supported her body. Only after swallowing a few sips of the water Joy handed her could she finally speak.

"Mother, I'm fine, so please stop crying."

"Sob, but—! You didn't wake up for days, and this mother thought something had happened to you...!"

In the past, after she'd fallen gravely ill, her mother had been startled even by mild colds. She'd probably spent these days by her side without eating or sleeping.

It might sound ungrateful, but at times like this, she wondered if it wouldn't be better for her mother if she were loved a little less. As she smiled awkwardly, the physician soothed the Imperial Consort in her stead.

"She should be fine now, but Your Highness still needs rest. Since the Imperial Consort hasn't rested for days either, I believe it would be best if you withdrew for now."

"...Sniff, all right."

The Imperial Consort, swallowing her tears, nodded. After promising to visit again tomorrow morning, the Imperial Consort finally left, and the physician also withdrew after leaving a few precautions.

Joy insisted on staying, but at the request to sleep quietly, she turned away with reluctance dripping from her back.

Only then, in the now-quiet room, did she exhale calmly. From the moment she'd opened her eyes and seen her mother, she hadn't been able to show it, but her head was so chaotic it felt ready to burst.

She'd had a dream. No, not a dream—a memory. On a day when snow poured down, she had been killed by her brother's knight.

That wasn't all. She remembered everything that had happened until now, and everything that would happen in the future.

Looking back, she'd often felt a strange sense of déjà vu since childhood. When she'd received a rose garden as a surprise gift on her seventh birthday, when her nanny Michelle had left the palace for personal reasons—it all felt familiar, as if she were experiencing things she'd already lived through.

By that point, feeling familiarity toward people she'd never met or vaguely knowing how situations she'd never faced would unfold was no longer strange.

She'd simply dismissed these indescribable sensations, thinking perhaps there had been similar situations, but the memories that struck when she met Aiden's eyes were decidedly not within the realm of déjà vu.

They weren't things she'd experienced. They were things she'd seen.

His fury would sever the Emperor's and Imperial Consort's heads, stab countless retainers, and ultimately drop even her own head. She'd seen that horrific future.

The 'me' who had lived in another world—and in a book, at that.

She couldn't remember anything concrete about the 'me' and 'world' from that place. Only one book she'd read there remained in her memory. The book's title was 'For the White Snow,' a work depicting one protagonist's life saga.

The novel roughly depicted the process of a protagonist who grew up unloved becoming Emperor. It was a common story about how the female lead, who'd been raised with abundant love, brought peace of mind to the Emperor who'd become devoid of blood or tears.

If there was anything unusual about this unremarkable novel, it was that the author had engaged in massive misdirection at the story's beginning.

The early part of the novel portrayed the Princess as if she were the protagonist. While describing the Princess, the author made a point of mentioning her black hair and pale skin—signifying white snow.

But as the story progressed, it became clear that the protagonist, Snow White, wasn't the Princess but the Prince. Because it wasn't only she who had skin as white and beautiful as snow—the Prince looked that way too.

The shocking twist had left the back of her head tingling, but now, whether someone was the protagonist or not didn't really matter.

What truly mattered was that the protagonist Prince—that is, her brother—would overthrow the imperial palace by force and seize the blood-stained throne.

Nishina recalled her own death from the memories she'd recovered.

The Princess, exiled alone, lived quietly in the shadows healing the sick, but as the Princess's faction still existed and her name gradually grew as a saint against her intentions, Aiden ultimately sent his knight to kill her.

Such a wretched death. All the more so because she died as his enemy to the end, contrary to the Princess's true heart.

She'd had no resentment even in the moment of death. The 'me' from that world had clicked her tongue at such a Princess, but now that it had become her own affair, it wasn't exactly incomprehensible.

Because even knowing this cruel future, she felt no hostility toward him whatsoever.

Probably, even if the same situation came again and the moment arrived when he severed her neck, she still couldn't hate him.

But still, she'd rather avoid such an ending this time around.

She didn't want to witness her family's deaths, didn't want to lose all her precious people. Moreover, she didn't want him to seize the blood-soaked throne and tumble down a thorny path.

She had no intention—not even a speck—of competing with him for the throne.

So if she could safely hand over the crown to him before things went wrong, there would be no need for Aiden to walk a blood-soaked path to inherit the throne, nor would she need to lose everything.

Of course, to do that, she'd have to make the Emperor acknowledge that the Prince was more suitable as a leader than she was, and at minimum, she couldn't be hated by Aiden.

And above all, she needed to earn the sympathy of that knight who had severed her neck.

Like the hunter who, unable to kill Snow White, had helped her escape.