Eve's Gambit

Evelynn Rosetta never saw it coming.

One moment, she was having a drink with her lover, the Emperor of Valtara Emperor Ronald de Regulus, enjoying a conversation about his exploits, the next she was on the floor, her magic gone, a dagger in her stomach.

She lay there surrounded by seven people she thought were her friends.

Evelynn blinked, she expected them to look shaken. Perhaps display a little guilt on their faces as they watched the woman who helped them achieve everything that they wanted bleeding to death.

They did not.

The smiles on their faces spoke volumes.

They were smirking at her as if her death was something that they had anticipated all these years.

On the other hand, the man she had eventually learned to love over the years, looked at her as if she was an inconvenience.

"W— Why?" she stuttered. The poison in her system was slowly taking her ability to move her limbs.

"Evelynn… my dearest Evelynn…" a woman with white hair and black lipstick lowered herself to the floor and closer to Evelynn. She touched Evelynn's cheek, her cold fingers sending shivers down Evelynn's spine. "Dying without knowing is better."

"Michaela, leave her. She will soon succumb to the poison," a man wearing a black long coat said. He was someone that Evelynn had saved more than a hundred years ago. The Undead, the vampire Lucious. At one point in time, Evelynn thought of him as her younger brother.

For years, Evelynn thought that these people had her back. She considered them the solace to her chaotic world. Her anchors, the ones keeping her human.

The betrayal was unexpected.

The betrayal hurt.

"Heed my words!" Ronaldo said. He was still standing not far away from her, drinking a glass of wine as if the woman that he had been sleeping with for years, the woman who helped him secure the crown was not bleeding to her death in front of him.

The wooden floor of her small house had been heated by her sorcery but tonight, it felt cold. Everything around her was turning colder as she stared at his nonchalant expression.

"Evelynn, the Evil Mistress, is dead. She was caught trying to kill the Emperor. Evelynn betrayed her Emperor." He made a deliberate pause.

"W— Why?" she mustered the strength she had left to speak. She wanted to know why he would dare betray her. Why her?

"Leave us," the Emperor spoke.

"Are you going to be alright?" Amara, another one of Evelynn's friends, asked the Emperor, concern written all over her beautiful face. She touched Ronaldo's arm.

"She cannot touch me," Ronaldo said. "Not with that body."

The others nodded and left, their footsteps echoed inside the small cabin where Evelynn had been living for the past few decades.

Her gaze found Ronaldo's eyes. The lack of emotion on his face stung her.

All these years, the only one who was with her was this man.

Ronaldo kneeled.

"I'm sorry," he said. How could he say those words right after he stabbed her?

"An emperor never— apologizes," she said, her voice trembling.

"You are no longer a friend."

She blinked her eyes, confused. If she was not a friend then… what was she?

"Evelynn…. You are a threat." His gaze turned complicated. For the first time, she thought she spotted guilt in his brown eyes.

Yet, it vanished as quickly as it came.

"The war has ended. I won— we won. However, I cannot let someone like you live, I cannot let someone that could destroy my empire in a blink of an eye, survive." he added.

"I would never—"

"Shhh—" he placed his index on his lips. "You have become a monster Eve…"

A monster, he said?

"Power has corrupted you," Ronaldo sighed.

"I did it for you." Why would someone like her, who did not have a family, who was an orphan, who grew up on the streets, seek power? Wasn't it because she wanted to help the forgotten prince of the Empire, who had once given her a piece of bread? She started coughing, blood trickled from her lips.

Her heart broke as she slowly reached out to her neck, and touched the key necklace that he once gave her when they won their first war together.

"You—" She started coughing once again. It was as if someone had pierced her chest with a sword and ruthlessly twisted it. She blinked, and a tear fell down her cheeks.

She only wanted the power to help him, to help them.

"You, the evil mistress?" he shook his head, his lips twisted into a ridiculed smile. "You killed those people because you wanted to Eve. It was unnecessary to involve me in your actions."

"No—"

"There is no point in speaking." He got up and looked at the door of her wooden cabin. "They are here…"

As if on cue, the door burst open, and knights that Evelynn did not recognize barged into her house.

"The witch is here!" Ronaldo's voice boomed. "Drag her outside…"

"No," Evelynn tried to move but she could not do anything. A poison that sucked out all magic inside her body was something that could easily kill any sorceress.

Except her.

The Evil Mistress Evelynn Rosetta was not just a simple sorceress.

While the poison would easily kill anyone else, it only rendered her unable to use her magic, unable to use sorcery to defend herself.

Two strong arms picked her up and she felt her body leave the cold hard floor. Then the light assaulted her senses.

She heard screams, cheers, and people calling her name.

"Kill the Evil Mistress!"

"Kill the Evil Mistress!"

Evelynn frowned. The sun seared her eyes yet she could perfectly hear everything. The curses and cheers of her soon demise.

What was wrong? She wondered.

She, the one who helped the Emperor unite this Empire was now treated like the enemy. She stood by his side when he had nothing.

When they conquered the Empire eight years ago, he promised to let her leave after the war, he promised to give her a life away from the palace, away from the schemes and blood.

He did give it to her.

For eight years, she had been living next to the forest. Alone.

*BANG*

Evelynn felt a solid object hit her head.

"You witch! You killed my child!"

"You drink my child's blood to maintain your youth!"

"Die! Vain witch!"

She had done none of those things, Evelynn wanted to say.

"Die, witch!"

"Cut off her head!"

"Kill her!"

"Feed her to the dogs!"

The cheers continued, and the mockery intensified.

While she did not know what was happening, she understood one thing. These people hated her for something that she did not do.

The once respected sorceress was now nothing but a hated villain.

When did it all change?

She opened her eyes, and for the last time, she met the eyes of the man whom she respected and treated as a friend all her life.

Ronaldo de Regulus.

For a moment, he looked regretful. Then he smiled.

"The Evil Mistress had not only kidnapped the children of the Empire! She has been working with the dark forces, betrayed her emperor, and used dark magic to maintain her youth!" Ronaldo said. "I, the first Emperor of the Human Empire, will now give a judgment!"

He raised his hand before he continued. "Death!"

The cheers of everyone around them echoed.

"Death to the Evil Mistress!"

Everyone started chanting.

Evelynn closed her eyes as she thought of the key that was hanging around her neck. She could feel its temperature rising, burning her skin.

A life for a life, she uttered inwardly.

Soon, the chants of everyone around her grew quieter. Her consciousness drifted away.

The spell was working, she thought. She was going to the past to change everything.

She was going to the past to make all those who betrayed her pay.

She expected to find herself in the past to rewrite the wrongs.

Instead, she found herself in a strange carriage… inside a body that was not her own.

....