They say resurrection is a gift.
But I feel the debt in my veins every time I breathe magic.
At night, my dreams unravel like rotten silk. I see her not the other Seraphina. No, this one is faceless. She stands in the snow, wearing a crown made of everything I buried: grief, rage, shame, longing.
She wears it better than I ever did.
"You left me behind," she says without lips.
"I was never supposed to survive," I answer.
She tilts her head. "And yet you did."
When I wake, my hands are bleeding. Not from battle. From scratching at my own chest in my sleep digging, searching.
Searching for what?
I find out later that day.
Korrin returns, barefoot, his coat soaked with sacrificial oil.
He says nothing, just tosses something small at my feet.
A ring.
Silver, etched with runes of possession. It glows faintly familiar.
Because it once belonged to me.
"Where did you find this?" I whisper.
"In the temple of mirrors," he replies. "In the hands of a girl with your eyes."
My chest tightens.
"She calls herself Seren," he adds. "And she's not just like you. She is you."
I laugh, but it's sharp. Desperate. "Impossible. I'm whole."
Korrin steps closer. "You're powerful. But not whole. Something was sliced off you in the resurrection. A sliver of soul. It found its way to another vessel. Or maybe it was given."
"Who gave it?"
"The gods. Or the enemy. Same thing."
My reflection flickers in the ring.
Not one face two.
Seraphina Vale.
And Seren.
And for the first time, I wonder
Am I the villainess?
Or the villain's shadow?