TRHK Chapter 1

The arrow had gone clean through my chest.

Into the burning and the dark and the fading edges of everything, my sister Dana's voice came like water finding cracks in stone.

"NO! This can't be happening. Sis!"

I wanted to tell her I was fine. My lips wouldn't so much as twitch.

My body had made its own decision. My eyelids were sliding closed as though they'd already accepted what my mind hadn't yet.

Probably wouldn't open again. My instincts told me that plainly.

If I had regrets—and I supposed I did—they were small ones. That I wouldn't see Dana's wedding. That I'd never gotten to see the wider world.

I had spent most of my life confined to a forest.

That was where I died.

1. Maylin Who Became Maylin

When my mother contracted an illness that no physician could name, and the doctors began visiting only to leave shaking their heads, the village people started to murmur. Cursed, they said. The woman's been cursed.

In the end we were driven out—both of us, mother and daughter—to a small cabin at the forest's edge, where even the sight of us on the village roads was considered a form of contamination.

My sister Dana was fortunate, in her way. A childless relative in another village, kind-hearted and with room enough in her life, took the girl in and raised her as her own. It wasn't possible to visit often—the gossip had eyes—but knowing Dana was alive and well had been enough.

Years passed. My mother died. I was preparing, at last, to step out into the world, when Dana came to find me at the forest cabin with news: she was to be married. A baker's son, she said. Simple and sweet, she insisted, though I had never laid eyes on him myself and took her word for it with appropriate caution.

The sky darkened faster than it should have that evening. I worried about Dana making her way back alone through the trees, and so I followed—secretly, at a distance. My plan had been to watch only until she cleared the forest.

No beasts appeared. No brigands. What I hadn't accounted for was a hunter's blind arrow, aimed at Dana—my dark robe having apparently convinced him she was something worth killing. He shouted look out an instant too late. I was already running. Already throwing myself between the arrow and my sister.

That was how I died.

I remembered the exact moment death settled over me like a second skin. I had been certain that no physician, no matter how skilled, could undo what had been done.

And yet.

My eyes opened.

The arrow that had gone through my chest was simply gone. No scar. No wound. I lay there for a very long time with my hands pressed to unbroken skin, failing entirely to make sense of it.

"...What exactly are you doing?"

"Oh—"

The unfamiliar voice hit me like cold water. I turned. A young woman I had never seen sat on the adjacent bed, watching me with the expression of someone who has witnessed something they cannot quite categorize.

"Why do you look so startled? And—" Her eyes dropped. "Why are you touching your own chest?"

"..."

I learned her name later. Eifel. My roommate, and a maid of House Courtner. Brown hair. Upturned eyes that gave her face a sharp, arresting quality. She didn't seem especially fond of me—but there were moments, when my bewilderment was too plainly visible, when something that might have been concern flickered across her face before she looked away.

She had excellent reason to find my behavior strange.

I had woken in a different world entirely. Same name. Same face. Everything else: completely foreign.

If that had been the whole of it, my confusion might have resolved sooner.

As it was, this different world was—

A novel I had read.

〈The Sword God's Adventure〉 was the story of a protagonist who overcomes every hardship and obstacle thrown at him, ultimately achieving the rank of Sword Master through talent and sheer stubbornness. The kind of novel that kept you turning pages.

Of all the books I had read aloud to my bedridden mother, that one had stayed with me most clearly—partly because it was genuinely good, but mostly because a minor character shared my exact name. I hadn't known she'd also share my face.

The maid 'Maylin' of House Courtner.

"Maylin, from the very moment I first laid eyes on you, my soul became imprisoned in a cage called love—"

For reference: the Maylin of this world received this sort of declaration multiple times a day.

Golden hair that caught the light softly, like sunlight given form, cascading as she walked, such that the whole village would stir—a breathtaking beauty—

Something along those lines, if I recalled correctly. In my previous life I'd had black hair, spent years hidden under a hood, and the village people had given us wide enough a berth that none of this had ever applied to me. There had been one boy who'd drawn close, once, but that memory led somewhere darker—

"Maylin? Are you listening?"

The man blocking my path pulled me back.

"Ah. I—I need to get back to work."

"Just a moment, Maylin! I haven't finished—"

He reached for my arm. I stepped back quickly.

"Oof!"

He stumbled, lurching forward as though the floor had betrayed him, nearly going down entirely before catching himself. The water bucket in my hands sloshed violently. A merchant, I recalled vaguely—here to sell something to the Count's household. I had already forgotten his name.

"Hey. What do you think you're doing to a lady?"

A man passing through the corridor placed himself between us before I'd decided what to do with the situation. A knight: red hair tied back at the shoulder, long sword at his hip. In this castle, the armed ones were always knights.

"I—it was nothing, sir. Forgive me—"

The merchant retreated at once, and that might have been that.

Except the knight didn't leave. He lingered in my path, shifting his weight slightly, clearly waiting for something.

Right. I hadn't thanked him.

"Thank you."

"...Ah. Of course. Lady."

Lady was a form of address I associated with noblewomen, not maids. This knight used it for me regardless, every time.

And he was still standing there. I had spent over ten years with no one to speak to except my mother and, occasionally, my sister. Whatever social instincts ordinary people develop in company, I had evidently not cultivated them. I did not know what I was supposed to say next.

"Which way were you heading? I—I could carry that for you."

He made a somewhat frantic reach for my water bucket. I pulled it back.

"I'm fine. I need to get back to work."

One brief bow, and I walked past him. He looked as though he had more to say. He didn't stop me.

"My Lady. I've brought the water. Let me wash your feet."

I raised my voice deliberately as I entered the dark room—making it warm, bright, purposefully cheerful—and drew back the curtains before the old woman could startle. Sunlight poured in.

The Countess's mother blinked at the sudden warmth. I guided her to the chair by the window, angled her toward the view, then knelt and went about the work of washing her feet. That was what the water was for.

Ten days since I'd woken in this world. Ten days of bewilderment in every direction, except one: caring for a sick person. That, I knew how to do. I had been doing it since I was small.

"Look at that cloud—shaped just like a bird, isn't it? That part there—that could be the beak. Don't you think?"

Talking to myself was familiar too. The old woman never spoke, but she didn't ignore me either. When she turned her head toward the cloud I'd pointed to, I found myself smiling.

I chattered on until she dozed off. Then I stepped out into the corridor and eased the door shut behind me.

If anyone had been watching, they would have seen my expression change the moment the latch clicked.

"Maylin! You washed the old Lady's feet, I hope?"

The head maid materialized from somewhere down the corridor—sharp-faced, perpetually unconvinced.

"Yes."

"I have no reason to take your word for it. Slack off again and you'll regret it."

The original Maylin had been creative about avoiding her duties. The head maid's skepticism was well-founded. I nodded once and melted into the group of maids sweeping the hall. Behind me, I heard her mutter.

"Why is she so quiet lately?"

Because the contents have been replaced, I did not say.

I had no idea what had happened to the original Maylin. Perhaps she had gone into my old body, in exchange. My old dead body. The timing would have been unfortunate, if so.

Thwack!

"Oh, sorry. I was trying to pass it to you."

A broom struck me squarely in the back. A few nearby maids found this funnier than was strictly reasonable.

The household maids didn't like me—or rather, they didn't like Maylin. From what I had gathered reading the novel and listening at corners: the original had spent her time boasting about her appearance and talking down to everyone else. I understood the animosity. I didn't particularly take it personally.

My roommate Eifel was cleaning windows on the far side of the corridor. She didn't look over. I registered no particular hurt at this.

...It felt, with unexpected precision, like being a child again. The days just before my mother and I were driven from the village—the neighborhood children, certain our curse was contagious, finding any number of creative ways to make their position known. I remembered how I'd handled it then.

Thwack!

"Oh—!"

About like that. The maid who'd thrown the broom hadn't expected me to throw it back. She sat down hard on the floor, startled. I walked over, picked up the broom, and said, in a tone I hoped conveyed appropriate remorse:

"Sorry."

My social development had not advanced since childhood. I didn't wait for a response. I began sweeping.

Behind me, aggrieved sounds. I swept.

The original Maylin, for all her difficult personality, had reportedly been genuinely distressed by the maids' treatment of her. Her solution had been to report it to Joel Courtner—the Count's son, her primary admirer—who had promptly had a significant portion of the household staff dismissed.

I would not be doing that.

Not for their sake. For mine.

'Because that's what gets me killed.'

I was inexplicably alive. The world I had landed in was a familiar one, held at the right angle—same name, same face, same household, and no one here was afraid I'd curse them by standing too close. I could have, theoretically, simply enjoyed it.

That had been my first instinct, in fact.

Right up until I remembered that the maid Maylin in 〈The Sword God's Adventure〉 dies.

Not from illness. Not from any ordinary accident.

From murder, dressed to look like one.

At the hands of the Count and Countess of House Courtner.