A HEART REBORN FOR REVENGE

THE TASTE OF POISON AND ASHES The scent of lilacs was thick in the air. Lira Vale blinked slowly, her limbs heavy, her chest rising and falling with shallow effort. The grand banquet hall blurred before her eyes — gold chandeliers dancing above crystal and silk, laughter echoing like ghosts. A soft gasp slipped from her lips as the cup fell from her fingers, shattering on the polished marble. No one noticed. Of course, they didn’t. Lira collapsed onto the cold floor, her vision tunneling. A moment later, a voice — sweet, honeyed, and chilling — whispered into her ear. “You should have stayed quiet, little shadow.” The last thing Lira saw was the smirk of her half-sister, Celestine, heir to House Vale, as her silken heel clicked away, leaving Lira to die alone in a room filled with light and celebration. She expected the dark to last. It didn’t. Lira awoke with a scream trapped in her throat. She shot upright, gasping, clutching her chest — expecting blood, pain, the sharp sting of poison — but found none. Her eyes darted wildly across the room. It was not the grand banquet hall. It was— Her old room. Her childhood room. The worn wooden beams, the moth-eaten drapes, the books stacked messily by her bedside — all of it untouched by time. The mirror above her desk was still cracked from the day she tripped and knocked it down. Her hairbrush still had the missing bristles. It was all the same. “No,” she whispered. “This… this is a dream.” But the pinch she delivered to her arm stung with clarity. Her hands — smaller, softer, unscarred. She scrambled to the vanity and stared into the mirror. The face that looked back at her was a child’s. Her face — not at eighteen, when she’d died — but thirteen. Still rounded at the cheeks, still timid in the eyes. She backed away slowly, her breath hitching. “What—what is happening?” The answer came in waves — memories, clear as crystal and twice as cruel. The poison. Celestine’s smile. The dismissal. The loneliness. The death. All of it replayed in vivid, unforgiving detail. And then… this. A second chance. Or a cruel joke. But one truth rose like fire through her veins: she had been reborn. Lira sat on the edge of the bed, hands trembling. She remembered the choices she made — her meekness, her silence, the way she always yielded, always stayed hidden in the shadow of her sister. She remembered thinking if she just waited long enough, someone would save her. Someone would care. No one had. And it had gotten her killed. A slow, cold determination settled in her chest. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Whatever this was — magic, curse, miracle — it was her chance. Not to live. To avenge. The morning light filtered through her window, warming her face. Lira had not slept. She had spent the night listing every event she could remember from the years to come — the scandals, the alliances, the disasters. She would need them all. There was a knock on her door. A familiar voice followed. “Lira, breakfast. Don’t make your sister wait.” Her father’s steward. Always polite. Always dismissive. She swallowed the bile in her throat and forced herself to respond, her voice just the right pitch of docile. “Yes. I’m coming.” The halls of House Vale were exactly as she remembered — high stone arches, tapestries woven with gold thread, floors so clean they reflected your shame back at you. The servants didn’t look twice at her. Why would they? She had always been the forgotten daughter. The quiet one. The shadow. But now, she watched everything. At the dining table, Celestine sat poised in the center, radiant in a blush silk gown, her hair pinned in soft curls. Lira had once worshipped her sister. Now, she only saw the knife behind the smile. “You’re late,” Celestine said, voice smooth. Lira sat without flinching. “Apologies.” Their father, Lord Thallan Vale, barely glanced up from his scrolls. “Don’t start,” he muttered to Celestine. “The girl’s not worth scolding before coffee.” Lira smiled inwardly. Not yet, she thought. The rest of the day was a blur of familiarity — etiquette lessons, posture corrections, embroidery her fingers had long since forgotten how to fumble with. She bore it all with grace, keeping her eyes downcast, her ears open. By the third day, she had mapped the entire estate — every secret passage, every overheard whisper, every careless word. She feigned headaches to slip away early, to begin training. She found the old cellar where the servants gossiped and began storing stolen books, weights, knives, anything she could learn with. The magic would come later. She wasn’t strong. Not yet. But she would be. A week after her rebirth, Lira stood alone in the family crypt beneath the chapel. Dust cloaked the ancient statues of her ancestors. She approached the sealed tomb of Lady Elenore Vale — her great-grandmother — who had once been rumored to traffic with blood mages and necromancers. She pressed her palm against the stone. “If the rumors are true,” she whispered, “then I need your help. Because I will not die like a lamb again. I will become the wolf. And I will rip every lie from this house, every secret, every mask—until I make them all choke on what they did to me.” The air seemed to shift. A breeze danced through the still crypt. Lira Vale, reborn, smiled for the first time since her death. It was not a kind smile. It was a promise.