REBORN AFTER BETRAYAL

I, Seraphina Vale, died on my seventeenth birthday, and no one cried for me. In the Azure Empire, the day you turn ten is the day the Gods decide your worth. A light appears over your head, and your Power awakens. If you awaken Flame, like my younger sister Liora did, the whole temple cheers. Flame is noble. Flame is for queens and war generals. Liora's flame was pure red, so hot it could melt steel. At twelve years old, she could burn a training dummy to ash with a flick of her fingers. The nobles called her "Little Sun of House Vale." If you awaken Frost, like Crown Prince Cassian Devereux did, the Emperor himself comes to bless you. Frost is cold, powerful, royal. Cassian could freeze a whole lake with one breath. He was perfect. He was my fiancé. And if you awaken Healing, like I did... They laugh. When my light appeared, it was small. Green. Weak. So weak it could barely heal a paper cut on my maid's finger. The High Priest looked at it and said, "Healing. A servant's power. Useless for a Duchess's daughter." My father, Duke Vale, did not look at me for a week. My mother tried to protect me. She said, "Healing is kind, Sera. It's a good power." But Mother died when I was twelve. She had a lung disease, coughing blood every night. I sat beside her bed, placed my fat hands on her chest, and tried to heal her with my weak green light. I tried until my nose bled. Until I fainted. It did nothing. She died in my arms, and my healing couldn't even ease her pain. After that, I was alone. That was when Liora started bringing me tea. "Drink, sister. Honey tea for your sadness. You have been eating too much because you are sad about Mother," she said sweetly every morning. I drank it. I was sad, and I was always hungry. My body started to change. My face swelled like a full moon. My arms became thick. My belly became round. My weight, which was 45 kilos at twelve, became 60 kilos at thirteen, 70 kilos at fourteen, 75 kilos at fifteen. No matter how little I ate, I stayed fat. My skin turned yellow and full of painful acne. My already weak healing light became dimmer and dimmer, until it almost disappeared inside my fat. The whole Imperial Capital laughed. "Look, the Pig of House Vale! The Useless Fat Healer who wants to be Crown Princess! How can Crown Prince Cassian marry a pig who can't even heal a cold?" I thought it was my fault. I thought I was just greedy and useless. I didn't know Liora was putting fattening poison and power-sealing powder from a witch doctor into my tea. Powder that Cassian himself paid for. He told her, "Make her so fat and ugly that the Emperor will have no choice but to break my engagement with her and let me marry you instead. Her Flame is stronger." For five years, they poisoned me. On the morning of my seventeenth birthday — the day before my official engagement ceremony to become Crown Princess — Liora came into my bedroom with a final cup. "Happy birthday, dear sister," she smiled, her perfect Flame mark glowing on her forehead. "A special tea for your special day. Drink it and you will be beautiful tomorrow for Prince Cassian." I was so happy. I thought she finally loved me. I drank the whole cup in one gulp. The poison for five years was slow. This one was fast. It felt like a thousand knives stabbing my stomach at once, then fire burning my veins. I fell off my chair onto the cold marble floor, my 75-kilo body shaking violently, black blood coming from my mouth. My weak healing power flickered green, trying to fight the poison, trying to save me — but it was too sealed, too weak. Through blurry eyes, I saw Liora walk calmly to my desk and pick up the golden scroll — the Imperial Edict of Engagement, sealed by the Emperor, with my name: Seraphina Vale. "Finally," she whispered, holding it to her chest. Then the door opened. Cassian. My fiancé. Tall, handsome, his Frost power making the air cold. The boy I had loved since he saved me from the lake at age ten. He saw me dying on the floor, choking on black blood, and his silver eyes showed only disgust. "Is she dead?" he asked Liora, not even looking at me. "Almost. The witch doctor said this final dose will stop even a healer's heart," Liora giggled and threw herself into his arms. "Now everyone will think the fat, useless healer pig died from a heart attack because she was too fat. Then Father will give you my hand. My Flame and your Frost are a perfect match, my love." Cassian wrapped his arm around her thin waist — a waist half the size of mine — and said, "Good. A useless healer like her never deserved to be Queen. I could never touch that fat body. I only endured her because of her Duke father." I died listening to their laughter. My soul floated out of my fat body. I saw myself lying dead, ugly, pathetic. I cried as a ghost. Why was I born with useless healing? Why was I born fat? And then, my dead body gasped. A second soul, bright like a thousand stage lights, crashed into my chest. It was not from our world. She wore strange, glittering clothes that showed her long legs. Her hair was long and beautiful. Her soul was strong and fierce. Her name was Elena Cruz. 23 years old. On Earth, year 2025, she was a famous singer and dancer. Not a noble by blood, but a queen by talent. Thousands of people screamed her name every night on stage. In her last memory, she had just finished her biggest concert of the year. Her body was covered in sweat, her heart beating fast from dancing. She was humming her last song as she entered the elevator of the Star Tower to go to her dressing room. Then — CRACK. The elevator malfunctioned. The lights flickered. The elevator dropped down fast, then stopped violently with a jerk. Elena's body flew up, and her head slammed hard against the metal wall. A loud crack. Blood running down her face. She died instantly from the head trauma before the doors could even open. Her soul, lost between worlds, was pulled by fate into the only body that had just died at the exact same second — mine. The body of the fat, poisoned, useless healer. My body — OUR body now — sat up, coughing black poisoned blood onto the floor. Liora screamed and fell back. "You! Impossible! You drank the whole cup! That poison kills even a level 3 Healer!" Cassian's Frost exploded around his feet, his sword fully drawn. "Seraphina?! You should be dead!" But Elena was not looking at them. She was looking straight at me — my ghost floating in the corner of the room. She was the only one who could see me. Liora and Cassian were looking around, seeing only empty air. "You... you are the ghost of this body?" Elena whispered, her voice my voice but with a singer's strength. Only I could hear her true meaning. _Yes... I am Seraphina... please, who are you? Why are you in my body?_ I floated closer, crying ghost tears. _I am Elena. I died... in an elevator... my head..._ She touched my fat stomach, feeling the weight, feeling the poison still burning. Then she felt the memories — all my memories flooded into her. Five years of poison. Being called useless healer. Being called pig. Mother's death. Liora's Flame. Cassian's Frost. Her face — my fat, ugly face — twisted not with sadness, but with a rage I had never felt. A performer's rage, a fighter's rage. _They did this to you? They sealed your power and made you fat on purpose? They called Healing useless? In my world, I was told a dancer could never be a singer. I proved them wrong. Your power is not useless, Seraphina. They are just afraid of it._ She reached out her fat hand, and even though no one else could see me, her soul touched my ghost's hand. It was warm. _Listen to me,_ she said to my soul, her eyes fierce. _You suffered too much. Let me take this body. I will detox this fat. I will make your healing power so strong that their Flame and Frost will look like candles. I will make them kneel and apologize for calling you a pig. I will avenge you. I promise you as a fellow performer — your story will not end as the useless pig._ Hearing that promise — the first time someone ever said my healing was not useless — my ghost finally felt peace. For 17 years I was told I was weak. For the first time, someone believed in me. I smiled, my ghost tears turning into golden light. _Thank you, Elena... make them regret... make them see that healing is not useless..._ I waved a final, slow, beautiful goodbye with my ghost hands, and my soul turned into golden dust and flew up into the sky, through the ceiling, finally free to be with Mother. I was gone. Elena was now alone. No voice in her head. No second soul. Just her, in Seraphina Vale's 75-kilo body. She stood up slowly. As a dancer, she knew balance, even with 75 kilos. Her legs shook, but she stood tall. She looked at Liora, whose Red Flame was flickering on her fingertips in fear, and at Cassian, whose Frost was cracking the floor. Then, without a word, Elena picked up the tray with the remaining honey tea — the poison that had sealed my healing for five years — and walked to the potted Moon Orchid, my mother's favorite flower, pure white. She poured the whole cup into the pot. HISSSSSS. The white orchid turned black in three seconds, withered, and crumbled into black ash, dead from the power-sealing poison. The room went dead silent. Elena then turned to Liora and smiled. It was not my weak, shy smile. It was the dangerous, confident smile of a star who owned the stage. "Dear sister," she said with my voice, but with a power that made the air shake, "if my healing is so useless... why did you need five years of poison from a witch doctor to seal it?" And then — for the first time in five years — from her fat, ugly palm, a small but pure, furious, emerald green light of Healing flickered to life, so bright it lit up the whole bedroom, and Liora's Flame went out like a scared candle. Liora's face turned paper white. Cassian dropped his sword.