The air beyond the terrace shimmered with sunlight, the kind that gilded marble columns and cast illusions of warmth upon the cold dawn of morning. She stood at the window, silk gloved hands resting upon the sill, watching the carriages weave through the cobblestone street below. The capital was alive — oblivious to the way time had unraveled and rewound, unaware that one of its daughters had clawed her way back from the grave.
Behind her, Elara moved quietly, folding freshly pressed ballgowns onto the chaise, humming a song from their childhood days. The sound twisted inside Seraphina's chest, a reminder of the girl she used to be — obedient, naive, desperate for approval. "Elara." she said softly. She paused mid-fold, straightening and tilting her head into Seraphina's direction. "Yes, Miss?" Seraphina twited a piece of hair between her fingers before turning her gaze to Elara,"What day is it?". "April 15th. The week before the Summer Gala," Elara replied, smiling faintly. "Your mother says the gown fittings will begin this afternoon. She's been most—". "—particular." Seraphina finished for her, lips curling at the sides as she attempted to keep an expressionless mask still on her face. She remembered the same conversation, the same tone, the same suffocating rehearsals. She saw them for what they were: shackles, dressed in lace and courtesy.
"Fetch my mother." Seraphina said. Elara blinked, startled enough to nearly drop the chemise in her hands. "Your mother, Miss? But she—". Seraphina raised a hand to stop her."I said fetch her." The words came sharper than she intended, the command slicing through the quiet. Elara hesitated only a heartbeat before curtsying and hurrying from the room. As the door clicked shut, Seraphina exhaled slowly, her pulse pounding. The memory of fire still lived in her bones. The night her mother's ambitions had cost her everything — the carefully arranged marriage, the whispered counsel that had turned love into death. This time, she would not bend.
Moments later, the door opened and Lady Araminta swept in, regal as a portrait came to life as Elara nervously stood by her mother's side taking a step back to disappear into the wallpaper. Elara kept her eyes downcast as Seraphina straightened her spine, glancing at her mother from the corner of her eye. Her mother's gown shimmered with silver thread; her hair arranged in flawless waves that never dared to move. Only her eyes betrayed her — sharp, assessing, a hawk raised and bedecked in exotic silks. "Seraphina," she began, voice clipped, a carefully concealed glint of distaste in her eyes. "I hear you've sent for me as if I were a common servant."
"I did not think you'd come otherwise, seeing how busy you are in preparing yourself for this social season." Seraphina said evenly, clasping her wrist with a gloved hand. She turned from the window, meeting her mother's gaze head-on, a docile smile on her face. "We need to talk about the Celosia engagement." The faintest flicker of a reckless joy crossed Lady Araminta's face. "I see. The Marquess's house sent word this morning to confirm your attendance at the Summer Gala. You'll meet him there for the first time. It is an honor, my dear, one your behavior must not—"
"Must not disgrace?" Seraphina finished, a bitter laugh escaping. "You mean I must not embarrass you. Or the family. Or the plan you've sewn into my life since birth."Her mother's jaw tightened, her lace gloved hand twitching at her side as if to strike. "What has gotten into you? Watch your tone." A tense silence fell. Her mother's fan snapped open, a delicate, dangerous sound. "Do not mistake education for defiance, my dear. You are not a soldier. You are a daughter — a commodity sealed by contract and sent off for your duty in marriage. Do not ruin what we've worked for."
In another life, Seraphina might have bowed her head. But now, she met that cold gaze and smiled — slow, deliberate, a blade hidden in velvet. "Yes," she whispered. "A life built on obedience is no life at all." Her mother's fan stilled mid-air. "What did you say?" Seraphina stepped forward, the curtains gently fluttering in the breeze of summer, the sound of her heels on the wooden floor beckoning a change. "I'll attend your fittings. I'll play the perfect lady but I will not be the pawn who kneels before a woman who uses marriage as a kind of war."
Lady Araminata sputtered, tapping her fan angirly against her dress sleeve, "Seraphina—". "Good afternoon Mother."Seraphina shifted her weight, a swirl of skirts marking her dismissal, a shiver running across her shoulders like a hand. Lady Araminta stood frozen before she turned and with a lash of her fan, knocked a porcelain flower vase forcefully off the curial cabinet near her door. The vase shattered, and Seraphina flinched before her mother's voice cut through the air like a dagger, "Your tantrum is childish and your request is ridiculous , my doll. Do not forget that you would not exist without me."
When the door shut, Seraphina's hands trembled — not from fear, but from the thrill of a small sense of power reclaiming its pulse. Seraphina exhaled slowly, her head pounding, as Elara hurried over to pick the pieces of the broken porcelain and place them into her apron. The night her mother's ambitions had cost her everything—the carefully arranged marriage, the whispered counsel that had turned love into duty, duty into death. This time, she would not bend. Like iron forged into a sword, she would now remain unbreakable. She turned from the window and walked slowly to the vanity, where the invitation to the Summer Gala glinted beneath the mirror's edge. The gold lettering caught the light; a date burned into her memory like an untended wound that festers in the dark. Her fingers brushed the edge of the parchment and a chill ran down her spine.
The Summer Gala. The beginning of everything.
She remembered the way the chandeliers had glowed like stars, the way laughter had spilled from the balconies of Archduke Beaumont's estate. A masquerade without masks and in that glittering cage, she had met him—James Celosia. The man who would become her husband. Her love the very thing that ruined him.
❀
Behind her Elara ran into a trunk with a thump, awakening Seraphina from her memories. Elara stumbled before resuming her walking as quietly as an evaporation in the morning's dusk, folding freshly pressed ballgowns and placing them into the trunk, humming a song from their childhood days. The sound twisted inside Seraphina's chest, a reminder of the girl she used to be—obedient, naive, desperate for approval. "Elara," she said softly, a tinge of apology painting her voice.
She paused mid-fold, straightening the last of her dresses into trunks for the social season having scurried back in after the earlier dismissal. Elara titlted her head into Seraphina's direction. "Yes, Miss?" Seraphina drew a circle in the soft fabric of the chaise she perched on."Has Mother ordered a dress for me yet?" "Yes she did. About two months ago. It is suppose to arrive here tomorrow." Elara replied, smiling faintly. "Elara," she said again, more firmly, as if to roll the name around on her tongue. "I need a dress. Not the one Mother chose. Something simpler. Darker." Elara hesitated, a hand picking at a thread in a dress collar. "But your mother—". "Will be furious," Seraphina finished. "Let her be." Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance, low and promising like cavalry across a battlefield.
❀
The corridors of House Araminta's were quieter than she remembered during the night. Or perhaps it was her that had changed—her ears now attuned to the silences between footsteps, the whispers behind closed doors, the weight of secrets not yet spoken.
Seraphina walked slowly, her fingers trailing the velvet-lined walls as if to confirm their solidity. The midnight moonlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, casting fractured rainbows across the marble floor. It was beautiful. It was wrong. She stilled, pressing her thin white shawl tighter around her shoulders in a desperate attempt for warmth as she rested her forehead against the cool windowpane. She had forgotten how young she had been. How young he had been. The man who would become her husband. She the executioner. Him her only love. In her first life, she had met him under the chandeliers of the imperial ballroom, a man already hardened by war, his reputation a cloak of blood and steel. He had bowed to her with the stiffness of a soldier and the disdain of a man forced into politics. She hated him and his stiffness instantly and then, slowly, she hadn't.
Seraphina pressed her palms to the cool surface of the glass, grounding herself before pulling away, and quickly walking down the hallway to enter the library. It was colder than she remembered but just as opulent. The library stretched like a cathedral of knowledge, its vaulted ceiling soaring high above rows of towering shelves carved from mahogany so dark it drank the light. Moonlight spilled through arched windows of leaded glass, fractured into amber and gold as it kissed the spines of leather-bound tomes, each embossed with curling gilt letters that gleamed like secrets. The scent of aged parchment and polished wood lingered in the air, mingling with the faint perfume of ink and candle wax.
At the heart of the room, a massive hearth crouched beneath a marble mantel carved with hunting scenes, its fire casting restless shadows that danced across the Persian rugs sprawling like jeweled tapestries across the floor. Wingback chairs upholstered in crimson velvet flanked the hearth, their arms worn smooth by generations of hands, while a long reading table stretched beneath a chandelier dripping with crystal teardrops, each prism scattering light like shattered stars.
Above, a mezzanine circled the chamber, its wrought-iron balustrade curling in delicate scrolls, accessible by a spiral staircase that wound upward like a serpent of bronze. Ladders on brass rails gleamed along the shelves, waiting for hands to guide them toward forgotten corners where dust lay thick as whispers. Every surface spoke of opulence and obsession—a sanctuary for those who sought dominion not through swords, but through words. Seraphina stood in the center of the vast chamber, surrounded by shelves that stretched toward the vaulted ceiling like the ribs of some ancient beast. Dust motes danced in the shafts of morning light, and the scent of old parchment and lavender oil clung to the air.
This was where she had first learned the truth.
Not from a whispered confession or a lover's slip of the tongue—but from a letter, misfiled and forgotten, tucked between volumes of military history. She remembered the letter that had arrived that night before the Gala. A letter that had unraveled the empire's lies and set her on the path to ruin. Anonymous. Accusing her of treason. It had sealed her doom. Now as she pondered the fresh fate in front of her she wondered. Who had sent the letter? Who had wanted her gone? She moved with purpose now, her fingers trailing along the spines of books until she found the one she remembered: The Treatise of Border Conflicts, Volume III. She pulled it free, heart pounding, and flipped through the pages until—
There.
The letter was gone. Of course it was. It hadn't been written yet.
She exhaled slowly, folding the book shut. This time, she wouldn't wait for the truth to find her. She would seek it out, piece by piece, before it could be used against her. Her fingers traced the gilt lettering of forgotten histories on each nearby book, each title a monument to wars fought by men who believed themselves immortal. How many of them had fallen to ambition? How many had been betrayed by those closest to them? She wondered if James Celosia's name would one day be etched among them—if she would be the reason.
The fire in the hearth crackled softly, throwing restless shadows across the marble floor. She sank into one of the crimson wingback chairs, the velvet cool beneath her palms, and stared at the spiral staircase curling upward like a bronze serpent. Above, the mezzanine loomed, its iron balustrade gleaming faintly in the moonlight. It felt like a gallery of ghosts, each book a silent witness to the empire's sins. Her gaze fell to the long reading table beneath the chandelier, its crystal teardrops scattering fractured light like broken stars. She remembered sitting there once, feverishly reading the letter that had condemned her—a letter that had turned love into treachery and loyalty into a blade at her throat. Tilting her head up to gaze at the constellations painted across the ceiling she whispered, " I will not be a pawn again."
❀
Back in her chamber, the night pressed close against the windows like a woman eager for gossip, the city beyond a lattice of lanterns and shadow. Elara stood in the darkness with a cup of steaming tea, her hands trembling slightly as she offered it. "You seem... different, Miss." Seraphina took the cup, her hands steady. "I've had a nightmare. A long one." Elara perched on the edge of the chaise, leaning her body towards her master, her eyes wide. "You were ill. We feared you wouldn't wake."
Seraphina reached out, touching her maid's hand—a rare intimacy, a promise forged in silence. "I need your help, Elara. I need someone I can trust.". The girl nodded without hesitation, her voice barely a breath. "Always, Miss." Seraphina's lips curved faintly, though the weight in her chest felt heavier than steel. Always. The word tasted like a promise—and a warning. A distant sound broke the silence—a carriage wheel grinding against stone, then voices, low and clipped, carrying through the open terrace doors. The raucous noise of swords against metal, as soldiers called for horses to settle. Seraphina stilled, her pulse quickening as the words reached her ears. Elara squeezed her hand, a growing concern coloring in her eyes."…Your brother has arrived." Seraphina's breath caught. Too soon. Far too soon. She turned sharply, skirts whispering against the floor, but before she could speak, the door to her chamber was flung open without a knock.
And there he stood.