When She Rose From the Ashes

Chapter 120 The Forgotten Memory

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Her reflection still looked like herself, yet not quite. Most of her features remained, but her contours had been subtly refined. At first glance, she was still Natalic. Look longer, and she had become something else entirely.

Before, Natalie’s beauty had been soft, like a lily–delicate and pure. Now, she was a blazing red rose, sharp–edged, dangerous, breathtaking with a kind of defiant allure.

“Is this really me?”

She raised a trembling hand, fingers brushing her new skin.

Baron’s smile deepened. “It’s you. At sixteen, you were already this dazzling, this untamed.”

Sixteen?

Natalie blinked. She wanted to argue–when had she ever been so bold? But then, unbidden, a memory she had long buried broke the surface.

That year, she had gone abroad for a dance competition. For once, away from home, she dared to try a striking makeup look–fierce, smoldering. The effect was stunning. Too stunning. Strangers stared, whispered, followed. What should have been triumph ended in fear.

She remembered the leers, the mocking laughter, and the accusation that her beauty was an invitation. She had cried, ashamed. In that moment she learned–sometimes, beauty itself was treated as a sin.

After that, she swore off heavy makeup. She wore simplicity like armor, and over time, even the memory blurred.

was hers alone to carry. And yet here was

he once said they had met

it have been

searching the fragments of that night. And

her heart pounding after the harassment. She ducked behind a row of trash

unseen.

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120 The Forgotten

And then–she stumbled.

A body.

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smeared, indistinct in the dark, but when she tried to retreat, a hand

he rasped–in

this close to death. Her instincts

little she had–her

don’t want trouble. Here–take this. Call

at

groaned, rolling back against the filthy bricks. Only then did she see

the copper stench, the sight of

whispered. “Bandage me, and

to be kidding

He was blackmailing her?