Moments later,
Behind the garden of the Duskbane Estate,
Rina's POV
The blackness broke, not with a gentle dawn, but a violent, wrenching tear.
My consciousness surfaced into a crush of absolute, suffocating pressure. The air was thin, thick with the cloying sweetness of lilies and the sharp, earthy stench of decaying soil.
A desolate high-pitched wail - a raw sound of profound grief - scraped against the inside of my skull, coming from just inches outside.
'I am trapped...'
Panic flared, a cold brutal instinct as I thrashed, my hands striking a smooth, cold surface above my head. The horrifying impossible truth soon slammed into me: I was sealed inside a narrow, velvet-lined box... a coffin.
I screamed, but the sound died, choked by the pressure. I brought my shoulder up, a desperate, primal surge of pure adrenaline. I hit the lid. The old wood groaned. A sliver of gray light appeared, a lifeline. With a final, agonizing heave, I burst free. The lid ripped away, sending a cascade of white lilies and wood splinters raining down onto my face.
I scrambled out, half-climbing, half-falling from the polished, satin-lined hell.
The world was a blinding chaos of white marble and solemn black silk. I was in a cemetery garden, surrounded by silent, expensive grief. A small group of figures, dressed in formal black, stood frozen around an empty hole in the ground—the hole meant for the box I just vacated.
The wailing stopped instantly. A deathly, absolute hush fell, and every head turned, slow and uniform, to face the filthy figure emerging from the grave.
I stood amidst the lilies, my white burial gown smeared with dark, wet soil. I was panting, fighting for breath. A tall man in the distance whispered one chilling, cutting word: "Ghost."
Before the fear could fully register, a blur of rustling black silk surged toward me. It was the elderly woman whose despair had woken me. She crashed into me, holding me in a fierce, desperate, bone-crushing embrace.
"My Lumira," she sobbed, burying her face in my tangled, fine hair. "You're alive, you're truly alive!"
Lumira? The name was wrong, a violent intrusion, because I am Rina Vale.
But as the woman held me, a brutal, confusing flood of fragmented memories - memories of unstable power, noble contempt, and self-inflicted death - washed over my mind. They weren't mine, but they were here, anchoring me to this lie.
"A mirror," I rasped.
The voice that emerged was a reedy, unfamiliar sound, trembling with someone else's fragility. "Now! I need a mirror!"
The old woman - my incoming memories identified her as Lumira's Grandmother - pulled back instantly. Before she could speak, a man in a crisp butler's uniform, Mr. Finch, appeared, holding a small, silver-backed hand mirror.
I snatched it, but my hands shook so violently I could barely focus the reflection. When I did, the breath locked in my chest, as it was not my face.
It was impossibly beautiful, pale, and heart-shaped, with wide, bright eyes that possessed a striking, crystalline purple ring. The hair - a shocking, chaotic mess of white-blonde - framed the face of the tragic villainess.
Lumira Duskbane... my beloved character - the girl who was supposed to be dead.
I didn't scream this time, my soul did, and the mirror clattered to the dirt.
"No," I whispered, the devastation absolute. "This can't be real. I'm Rina. I am not her."
My grandmother pulled me into a secure, comforting hug. "My dear, it's the trauma. You are safe now, and you are home."
But I knew the truth, I was inside the story, inhabiting the body of the girl I failed to save. The clock hadn't been reset; the tragedy had just found its new protagonist.
The funeral was a pathetic sham. Aside from the staff and Grandmother, only two faces from the novel mattered: Beta Mason Hale and Seraphina Angelis. Mason, the broad-shouldered lycan, stood tall, genuine relief battling deep-seated shame in his eyes. Seraphina, the soft, "chubby angel," was weeping honest, messy tears.
Mr. Finch approached them after escorting the other guests out, his face a granite mask.
"Master Hale, Miss Seraphina. Thank you for attending. You must take your leave... unless you wish to accompany our mistress."
Mason stepped forward, his gaze locked on me, relief making him hesitant. "Lumira, I am truly sorry for all that happened on that roof."
"I-it's okay," I stammered, hating the weakness in Lumira's voice.
"No, it's not okay," Mason insisted, his eyes dark with rage.
"Most of our class isn't here because they're at Alpha Jaxon's wedding party. It's starting now. They are truly terrible people." He spoke through clenched teeth. "If I wasn't the best man and absolutely required to deliver the ring, I would have been here, honoring your sacrifice." He glanced at his wrist. "The wedding party starts precisely at 3 PM."
'The wedding. That bastard is celebrating while the one who saved him climbs out of her grave.'
The thought was a sharp, aggressive spike of rage, an echo of Lumira's own betrayal, now mine.
Suddenly, there was a massive, distant eruption. A thick, ominous plume of black smoke curled violently into the sky above the historic spires of the city center, followed moments later by the faint, chilling sound of mass screams, making Mason's head to snap up.
"Emergency," he stated, all warmth instantly stripped away, replaced by uncompromising steel. More like the Beta's duty and narrative pull. "I have to go immediately. I'll return as soon as I can. Seraphina, stay with her."
He pivoted sharply, gone in two rapid strides.
My grandmother, seeing the daze still on my face, took my arm with quiet authority. "Come, child. We must get you inside."
I didn't resist, but my heart was no longer sinking with grief. It was hardening with a cold, terrifying purpose.
The explosion in the city - that was the new plot starting. I was no longer a bystander to this tale. I was the protagonist of the rewritten tragedy.
I am... Lumira Duskbane.
And deep in my soul, I embraced the certainty left by the strange little girl's smile: my death was not the end. It was the prelude.
Now, against all logic, I had the chance to change the story. I would not let the villainess be forsaken again. I wouldn't let myself be forsaken.