The Order of the Crowned Star couldn't kill me.
So they did something worse.
They revived the original Seraphina Vale.
The one who died screaming. The one whose story I was supposed to continue.
But she didn't come back the same.
She came back twisted and furious.
She sees me as the imposter.
"You wear my face," she hisses, in a dress of veined ice and shattered memory. "But you are not me."
I step forward, barefoot in a circle of ash.
"No," I say. "I'm not."
And that's why I'm still alive.
She summons a spear of light.
I raise a finger and it melts.
Because she fights like a heroine who lost everything.
But I?
I fight like a god who's done losing.