She opened her eyes to a white unfamiliar ceiling. Moonlight was peeking through the curtains of her bedchamber.

'So it's transmigration this time ?' She mused to herself quietly, gaze following how the orange flames of the lit candles swayed slightly to the breeze that brushed past.

'Wait, breeze ? But all the windows are closed. Where did the wind flow from ?' No. She wasn't panicking because she found herself in a foreign body that she had transmigrated into, but because someone hadn't closed the door or someone tried to sneak into her room while she was sleeping.

She got her answer as the door to her room creaked open when a young woman dressed in a maid outfit slipped into her room, shadow as silent as a predator inching towards her prey, steps as light as a feather blown through the wind. It didn't take a genius to figure out the supposed maid wasn't any ordinary maid. After all which ordinary maid would move with the grace of an assassin.

"Poppy," a voice called out to the maid, slipping past the door without making any noise with practiced ease.

"You know, Ben. She's not supposed to get involved in the mess. Can't we find another way to do this ? We have enough time until tomorrow."

She had an underlying desperate tone to her words, despite trying to feign indifference. The figure in the shadows appeared next to the maid, placing a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder as if to get his message across her mind. Their lords have been trying to get their hands on any information and evidence that would connect duke Nouvel to the slave trading he has been doing with baron Duetos among all his misdeeds. But they haven't been able to gather the related evidence despite Ben Keeper being the head butler and Poppy Keeper, his younger sister being the exclusive maid of the second daughter of the duke Lucas Nouvel, Stelara Nouvel.

She was a timid person despite being the second daughter of the most influential man in the Obreado kingdom after the king, Julius Drake. It wasn't really a surprise as duke Nouvel was a cruel man. He treated her second daughter as if she were a mere pest in his eyes. Lucas Nouvel was a powerful fire mage at the stage of 5th circle. Also he leaned more towards the secondary gender without even giving a second glance at a person's actual qualifications. Duke Nouvel may look like an ignorant man but he was far from it.

Behind the facade that he showed to the world was a smart, meticulous and cold man who did horrible things covering the eyes of the many. When it came to that, he was careful enough to make sure only the capable hands would handle those matters. He may be a cautious trader but he was an irresponsible father.

Ordelli Nouvel was his first daughter who presented as a beta and she was a 3rd circle wind mage. Sure she wasn't the best but Lucas considered his unpresented second daughter who had no affinity towards any magic as a disappointment in his eyes. Because of her family members' negligence and harsh treatment, Stelara grew up to be a timid girl. She would do anything to get her father's acknowledgement.

So when the opportunity arose she volunteered to take her sister's place to deliver a package to baron Duetos. She didn't know what was in the package, of course. But it must have been important enough for duke Nouvel to send one of her family members instead of his one of the trusted aides. Poppy being her exclusive maid got the wind of this news and they had planned an ambush to kidnap her and figure out what Lucas had told her to do, under the orders of their lords.

There was a high chance that this was a trap set up by duke Nouvel. Since their lords had been getting in his way with their men ruining his plans for a long time, there might be a risk that this was a very well plotted plan in duke Nouvel's twisted mind. But assassins like Ben and Poppy were not one to question their missions. It was not their place to do that. Never had they done that and they would never do that in the future. Ben would make sure of that both Poppy and Ben, himself would follow their well constructed plan and stay loyal to the order given to them.

"Poppy, you can't get attached to her and you know that. You can't take your role as your real life, sister," he said bluntly but not unkindly.

"Can't we really Ben ? Haven't we already way past the line between a role and a real life ? Are you not already attached to her ?"

She narrowed her eyes at Ben. Ben may follow the orders given to them without a shred of hesitation feigning ignorance and indifference. But Poppy wouldn't be his sister if she wasn't anything but perspective. She could read between the lines and she was observant enough to know when her brother would lie to himself. She saw through him in a matter of seconds to know that his brain would follow the order while his heart followed a different master despite him not admitting it. Also the deafening silence in the room already answered all her questions.

"We don't have a choice in this matter. This might be our only opportunity to get our hands on evidence about Nouvel's evil deeds. People are suffering at the hands of Lucas and this is a chance we can't neglect if we can put a leash on him using the evidence."

Now it seemed more like he was trying to reassure himself that what they are going to do tomorrow isn't wrong, rather than making a logical point because they didn't even know whether the evidence that they might get their hands on was anything solid. Hell, they didn't even know whether they could find any evidence tomorrow. A crease appeared between his eyebrows with a hint of worry in his eyes as he spared a glance towards the sleeping 17 years old girl that was sleeping on the bed, her back facing towards them.

"But..." He hesitated before adding, "But if she's in any immediate danger, we will make sure she survives that. We'll make sure she returns," he looked at his sister when he uttered those words quietly as if he was afraid that what the words he breathed out indicate might come true just from mentioning it. Poppy let out a soft sigh and turned to leave the room with her brother after sparing one last look at the slumbering silhouette. Stelara slowly opened her eyes when she felt that they had both left. She breathed out a soft, tired sigh at her expanse.

'I guess it was too much of me to expect a few centuries of peace,' she mourned to herself that in the never ending cycle of reincarnations, the peace she enjoyed for the last few lives she spent will soon end with this life. She wondered about whether it would be a rebellion or a war between angels and demons. Or maybe a continent conquering quest or a war between few kingdoms. Anyways, she had something do to before figuring out what's going to happen in the future.

She opened her third eye and connected it with her mind, so she could let the memories Stelara had made up until now to flow into her and familiarize herself with them. Along with that she started to absorb her mana from the soul into this feeble body. She felt a distant yet familiar sensation at her soul when the mana her soul released started to fuse back the soul fragment she had fractured in her previous life to send it to this world-line, where she was supposed to reincarnate as Stelara. In her previous life she was a well known poet in another world-line.

She had to stay in that previous life to decipher a poem or more like a prayer written for a god by a late poet that was discovered by some historians. She knew the risks of not continuing the cycle of reincarnations when she was in a mortal body. Oh, she knew really well, alright. She had first hand experienced those consequences. So she took measures to prevent that. Now that she was here, she had to fuse it back to her.

The soul is the mirror of the life you have lived. It is more like a recorder that held records of your emotions, behavior and the people you have met, a book that wrote itself on its own with the magical hand called life, a painting drawn sometimes by a gentle artist called fate or sometimes by a cruel artist named destiny. When you fracture your soul into fragments, the very first fragments that will leave you are the very first moments and memories you have made. So the soul fragment she sent here was a fragment of her childhood self in her first life which she became a slave who freed herself from the clutches of slavery and cruelty of world to the most powerful soul magician of all time in that world.

Being a slave at such a young age had a heavy impact to her soul, which resulted in Stelara becoming a timid person in the expanse of that fragment. But she grew up to be a formidable force to be reckoned with because of her quick witted brain. When one took a glance at her, they would see someone with black hair upto her waist and black eyes along with her thin frame. Now that she was inspecting her body, a trickle of amusement flooded her mind.

'Would you look at that ?' Stelara smirked when she found an advanced spell on her body altering her real appearance. It wasn't that hard to guess who placed such a spell on her now that she had her memories. Her late mother Elvira Morgan, duke Nouvel's second wife was a powerful mage. Even more so than Lucas himself. But at the clutches of Lucas's cruelty and in the face of confinement, she was reduced to a feeble bodied woman. Nothing like the royal princess she once was. Elvira was the niece of the former tyrant king, that got himself killed in the rebellion conducted by the current king, Julius Drake with the aide of Lucas.

During the rebellion, the royal palace was burnt down by the enraged subjects. Since no one found even ashes of the bodies, people believed that Morgon blood line had ended. So the snobbish nobles who had wanted to escape the wrath of the citizens for supporting the former king had agreed to hand over the throne to then head of the Drake family, one of the founding families of the kingdom. Stelara mused to herself as the memories played behind the closed eyelids like a play written by a passionate play writer. Lucas had kidnapped and confined Elvira without anyone's knowledge restraining her mana.

Like a caged bird who had their wings cut off. Like a pitiful beast left to suffer the torment of the world alone as a hunter chipped away its life force little by little. Lucas had an unhealthy obsession with her. If she were to admire a bird soaring high up in the sky in her room, the bird would be shot dead. If she were to appreciate the beauty of a flower in the garden, it would be trampled on.

All this happened when Elvira was pregnant with Stelara, so the mind eye or the third eye had absorbed some of her mother's memories when she was in her mother's womb. By the time Elvira gave birth, the light in her eyes had shattered. She had only touched Stelara only to feed her. Otherwise she had opted to only spare her a glance and act like her only child didn't exist while her nanny took care of her.

She was a mother only in blood as she couldn't shower her daughter with the love and care she wanted. She was a mother only in blood because she shed her blood to give birth to her, shed tears to bear the pain of having her flesh being torn apart into pieces. She was a mother only in blood because she was a mother that grieved for her daughter despite Stelara being alive.

She was a mother only in blood because she sacrificed her heart, where she held most of her mana to cast one last spell to seal of her daughter's enormous mana which she had inherited from both her parents and alter her appearance to hide that she was kin of the former royalty. She was a mother only in blood because she gave up her heart and became bedridden and feeble bodied. She was a mother only in blood because she tossed her own life away so easily to protect her child like her life had no value at all and kept quiet about it even until her last breath.

A strange hollowness made its way into Stelara's heart as a lone tear slid down her pale cheeks. She grieved a death she couldn't before, as her hands clenched into fists on the white sheets. Her omega that she had managed to hide even from Poppy ever since presenting, whining in distress, howling in pure anguish and snarling in utter fury expressed her real emotions despite her not having outright sobbing hysterically.

Stelara slowly sought after her thoughts one by one and made up her mind. She had lots of things to do, most important one being getting rid of Lucas. Plan after plan conjured up in her mind as she hid her feelings about her mother's death behind a door that she turned the key in her mind to lock them away until it was the right time to open and just feel them. She couldn't wait until tomorrow. She didn't have the heart to remove her mother's only trace in her body, but she couldn't leave it at that.

So she modified the spell with a few adjustments and took control of it. Also she started to change her thin frame into a lithe figure that would move as fast as an assassin, hold up attacks in a sturdy body as of a swordmaster's. Of course she wouldn't make it glaringly obvious while she absorbed the the mana accumulated in her soul all through out the reincarnations. But she can cover that up as her body had always being on the thin side. Sharpening her senses as of a swordmaster, she made sure all the skills and knowledge that she had accumulated over thousands of reincarnations integrated into her body and mind. With that she let the curtain of sleep cover her to bring her much needed rest due to the volatile state of her body and soul.

She would make sure to get rid of Lucas, make him pay for every wrongdoing he did to her mother that she didn't deserve. She would make sure of that. She wasn't a vengeful person that was easy to anger by nature, she had after all mellowed down her feelings over the millions of years she had lived. But she was also not a person that would walk away when someone hurt a person she held dear to herself. True, getting so attached to another wasn't in her nature. Because that would inevitably hurt herself since she was the only one who could remember and be a prisoner of fading memories along with time. Also she didn't like to owe to anyone. More than that, she didn't want her mother's sacrifice to be in vain. With that as her last thought in her mind, she let the sleep pull her over.