Too Lazy to be a Villainess novel Chapter 256

Chapter 256: The Cost of Fate

[Divine Library—Lavinia’s POV]

The diary quivered in my hands as though it resented being touched. My pulse hammered, every part of me screaming not to open it—yet my fingers moved on their own.

The handwriting. It wasn’t Papa’s.

My heart lurched. Those strokes—sharp but careful, steady even when the ink bled—I knew them. I would know them anywhere.

"Ravick..." I breathed.

After Papa, there had always been Ravick. He had been my shadow, my shield, my second father. He had taught me to hold a quill when my fingers were still too small and had knelt beside me as I traced my first letters. Those hands had steadied mine. Those letters had always been full of warmth.

And now... that same handwriting stared back at me from a book that should not exist. I felt myself tremble. The air grew heavy, the silence pressing against my skull as I began to read.

"Today we found... His Majesty has a daughter. I cannot forget his stunned expression. The princess looks exactly like him. Finally, His Majesty will not be alone anymore. He has a family now. I shall serve the princess with all my heart."

My lips twitched into a faint smile—small, bitter, and broken. For one heartbeat, I was eight again, clutching Ravick’s sleeve.

But the next page made my smile die.

"How... how can His Majesty say something so cruel to a child? She is merely eight years old and... he called her ’stain.’ How can His Majesty call the princess that?"

The words struck like a blade. My hands shook violently, the parchment crinkling under my grip.

Stain.

The word echoed through my skull, dragging memories I didn’t want to remember—memories of a voice, cold and distant, dripping that same poison. Emperor Cassius. Papa. My father.

"No..." My whisper cracked, a splinter of sound in the cavernous hush. "No, he never—he wouldn’t—"

But deep down, I knew. I had heard it before. In a book I didn’t remember reading. In a life I didn’t remember living.

My breath hitched as I turned another page.

"I can see the pain in His Majesty’s eyes. He does not wish to hurt the princess but... what can a broken father give to his daughter? Yet I believe the princess never deserved to be neglected. His Majesty said, ’If she stays with me... she will disgust me, Ravick. She will be scared of me and hate me. So it is better to cast her aside. Just make sure she gets what she wants.’"

My throat closed. Tears blurred the ink.

Cast aside.

I pressed a hand against my chest, as if I could hold the pieces of myself together. Papa’s voice—my father’s voice—repeated those words inside my skull.

I turned the page, desperate and sick.

"Today the princess is set to be engaged to Grand Duke Osric. She seems happy. I hope Lord Osric gives her everything. I hope she really finds her happiness."

A tremor ran through me. Osric. His name cracked like thunder inside my head.

And just like that, I kept reading. I couldn’t stop. Every line was a mirror reflecting back the life I thought I’d only imagined—a story, a novel, a lie. Grand Duke Regis’s death. Osric’s grandfather is dead. Osric leaving for war. Him choosing Eleania over me. My hatred. My jealousy. My death—poison in a glass of juice from Caelum’s hand.

Everything. Exactly the same.

Tears spilled down my cheeks, dripping onto Ravick’s ink. My vision swam as I turned the next page.

"His Majesty has lost his temper... he is killing every noble and every knight after the princess’s death. I need to find a way. I need to stop him. I recall His Majesty telling me the story of the First Emperor and how he brought his daughter back. He said he felt absurd as he read the First Emperor’s diary. But if it’s true... then we can turn time to bring the princess back too."

I froze.

Bring me back. Bring me back.

The words rang through my mind like a tolling bell. And the next page was blank.

Just like the First Emperor. Just like Lilith.

. . .

. . .

"So...I was brought back?"

The diary slipped from my hands and thudded onto the marble. My knees gave out, the cold seeping into my skin as I slumped to the floor.

My chest rose and fell in jagged bursts. My hands clawed at my dress, at my own skin, as if I could peel away the memories pressing against me from every side.

Now that I realize from the moment I was born, I had known the palace corridors and the names of people I had never met. I had known who would betray me, who would love me, and who would die.

Was it because I had lived it?

Was I because I had died and was living twice?

"I..." My voice came out as a strangled gasp. "...who am I?"

Reina Suzuki. Lavinia Devereux.

Two names. Two lives. Two sets of memories bleeding into each other until I could no longer tell which one was real.

Had I truly turned back time? Or had someone else done it for me?

If yes, then what about Reina Suzuki?

I had been abandoned once. By my father. By Osric. By the life I thought was mine. And now here I was again—caught between two lives, two names, and two truths.

"I don’t know..." My voice broke into a sob. "...I don’t know who I am anymore."

And then him. Rey.

"So... you’re the Supreme Archmage."

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