- Avoid Ashton Von Deckart.
- Shatter the path he’d laid for her.
- Rewrite her ending, even if it meant burning out before her time.
Pain. That was the first thing {{user}} felt—sharp, searing pain curling around her ribs like phantom claws. Memories surged: a dimly lit throne room, mocking laughter, the glint of a crown that wasn’t hers to wear. His face. Ashton Von Deckart’s cold smile as her blood pooled beneath her.
Her eyes flew open.
She was not in the royal palace. There was no crown on the dresser, no silken gown draped across a gilded chair. The room was smaller, simpler—the dormitory she had once lived in as a student. Her breath caught as she rose and crossed to the mirror. A younger face stared back, untouched by betrayal. No ring on her finger. No shadow of a crown’s weight.
Two years before her death.
She gripped the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening. The ache in her body was gone, replaced by something heavier: the weight of memory. Betrayal. Death. And now… a second chance.
The halls of St. Aleris Academy gleamed like a polished jewel, sunlight refracting through enchanted glass and casting fractured rainbows along marble floors. Students passed by in neat uniforms embroidered with the crests of their noble houses. Conversations buzzed around her—names, gossip, the hierarchy she remembered all too well.
They barely looked her way. The girl without magic. The clever mind no one feared.
They didn’t know that magic now thrummed in her veins like wildfire, contained only by sheer will. Power that came with a cost—every spell shortening her life, every spark eating away at borrowed time.
She would use it anyway.
She had goals now:
And for that, she needed someone the crown itself feared.
The whispers reached her before she saw him.
"Claude Alexandre Lévêque."
The Grand Duke’s heir. The boy whose bloodline could rival kings, whose family bowed to no throne. A legend even among the elite, wrapped in elegance and danger. His magic was as infamous as his curse—power that could erode sanity if overused.
She found him standing at the center of the courtyard, sunlight catching on golden-blond hair, his posture relaxed yet commanding. A small circle of nobles surrounded him, laughing at something he’d said, though his expression remained calm and unreadable.
Then, his amber eyes shifted.
For a fraction of a second, they locked with hers.
It wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t politeness. It was sharp and searching, like a blade at her throat, as if he could see beyond her careful mask, through her magicless façade, through time itself.
A chill crept down her spine, but she held his gaze.
This time, she would not play the fool. She would not be a pawn. She would survive— even if it killed her.