The chains burned.
Not from heat, but from the memory of what they meant. The clink of each rusted link echoed louder than the screams rising from the crowd, a cruel reminder of how quickly loyalty turned to fury. Lyra Virell stood barefoot on the execution platform, her once-snowy dress torn and soaked through with ash and spit. The fabric clung to her skin like shame.
She didn't tremble.
Not as the firewood was stacked around her feet.
Not when they nailed her arms to the blackened post.
Not even when she saw his face in the crowd.
Elric.
The man who once kissed her fingertips and called her "my light." The man who now stood at the front of the crowd, robes of gold brushing against the bloodied steps, a crown hanging loosely in his hands. He didn't wear it yet. Not officially. Not until her corpse was nothing but soot and silence.
"I did everything for you," Lyra whispered, her voice raw, but still noble. "And you… you gave them this."
Elric didn't flinch.
The High Priest stepped forward. His voice rose over the silence like a funeral bell.
"Lyra Virell, former Empress Consort, you stand condemned of treason, of consorting with the Forbidden Arts, and of plotting to poison His Royal Majesty."
The crowd roared. Names were thrown at her like knives.
Witch. Snake. Whore.
"Do you deny these charges?" the Priest asked.
Lyra's lips cracked into a bitter smile. "No," she said.
Gasps followed.
The flames had not yet been lit, but her body already felt like it was burning from the inside. Her soul had already been judged long before this day.
"I deny you. I deny this Empire. And I deny every lie your lips have ever spoken."
Someone threw a stone. It struck her cheek. She bled. But she didn't stop.
"I have loved this land more than it ever loved me. And you... you will regret this."
The priest signaled.
A young soldier stepped forward, torch in hand.
Lyra didn't scream when the flames took her. She didn't cry when the fire licked her skin. She only stared.
Straight at Elric.
Right until her vision turned white and pain swallowed everything.
That was how Empress Lyra died.
---
But that was not where her story ended.
---
The air was too quiet.
Too cold.
Too alive.
Lyra gasped and bolted upright, lungs burning. Her fingers clutched at her throat as if the noose still lingered there. Her skin was untouched. Her dress was soft. The scent of roses and ink filled her lungs, not smoke and blood.
She was no longer on the execution platform.
She was in a bedroom.
Her bedroom.
But not the golden chambers of the palace. This was smaller. Familiar. With cracked windows and a chipped writing desk beside the bed. Her gaze flicked toward the corner of the room where an old porcelain doll sat untouched on a crooked shelf.
Her heart nearly stopped.
She hadn't seen that doll in over ten years.
A knock echoed at the door.
"You'd best be dressed, Lyra," a familiar voice called. It was sharp and arrogant and too high-pitched to ever belong to someone kind.
Maelia.
Lyra's half-sister.
No… not yet.
The pieces crashed into her chest like broken glass. The doll. The voice. The ache in her legs from dancing last night at—
Her sixteenth name-day.
Her rebirth was real.
"I'm alive," she whispered.
It didn't feel like relief. It felt like rage.
The door creaked open without waiting for her answer.
Maelia stepped in, chin raised, golden curls pinned just messily enough to seem effortless. She wore a gown too fine for a morning call. Lilac silk embroidered with white cranes—one of the gifts Lyra had received during her last life's engagement week.
She had taken it.
Of course she had.
Maelia's dark eyes flicked over Lyra with a smirk that didn't reach her lips.
"You're not even dressed? Honestly, sister, what would the prince think if he saw you like this?"
Prince Elric.
Her breath caught.
He was still alive. Still free. Still the man everyone adored.
Lyra looked down at her hands. They were pale and unmarked, fingers soft with youth. She remembered how they had bled when she tried to crawl from the flames. Now they trembled for a different reason.
This wasn't a second chance.
This was a test.
Maelia was still speaking, fluttering about the room as if she owned it.
"Father says Elric arrives by dusk. He's to dine with us privately before the palace announces your engagement officially. You're to be painted and pleasant and act like you're not a boring bookworm with opinions."
Lyra forced her mouth to smile. She had smiled like this before. Pretty and hollow. Like a doll made of glass.
"Of course," she said softly.
Maelia tilted her head, blinking. The smile faltered. Lyra could see her trying to read between the lines, but she would find nothing. Not yet.
"Oh, and I'll borrow that sapphire comb," Maelia added casually, reaching toward Lyra's vanity. "It matches my dress."
"Take it," Lyra said. "And keep it."
That paused her.
"You're in a generous mood," Maelia noted.
Lyra didn't answer. She watched the girl walk out with her stolen trinket, her painted smile, and the same deadly venom hiding behind her perfect posture.
In another life, she hadn't noticed.
In this one, she saw it all.
The moment the door clicked shut, Lyra locked it behind her.
She paced.
She cried.
But only for a minute.
Then she sat at her old desk and opened the secret drawer beneath the ink jar. Her fingers brushed against the worn leather of her diary.
It was blank.
Of course it was.
She hadn't written the warnings yet. Hadn't bled her thoughts into its pages the way she would later. But now… maybe now she should.
A faint sound broke the silence.
A chime. Faint. Echoing from inside her mind.
[Imperium Heart System Activated]
She froze.
Welcome, Lyra Virell.
Soul Synchronization: Complete
Timeline: Alternate Branch Created
Status: Empress-Class Regressor
Emotional Trial Tier: I
Current Power: Locked
Objective: Rewrite Fate and Survive
The words shimmered in her vision like light rippling across water, then faded.
She whispered, "System…"
In her last life, she had heard stories. Whispered myths about soul-bound magic that answered to no kingdom, no spell. Only the gods. Forbidden things. Punishable by death.
Now she was one of them.
Would you like to initiate Emotional Trial: Grief?
She pressed a palm to her chest. She was still grieving. Still haunted by smoke and chains and screams. The memory of her death pulsed inside her like a second heartbeat.
"Yes," she whispered.
Suddenly, she was no longer in her room.
She stood at the edge of a grave.
The wind was sharp. The sky was a blank slate of gray.
Before her, a small marker sat crooked in the soil.
There was no name on it. Just a single line carved in uneven letters.
She was foolish enough to love.
Lyra stepped forward. Her boots sank into mud. The air tasted like iron.
"Is this how they remember me?" she asked the silence.
A voice answered behind her.
"No. This is how you remember yourself."
She turned.
A figure stood in the mist. Cloaked. Hooded. She couldn't see a face. But the voice was hers. Older. Broken.
The version of herself who had died.
"You let love destroy you," the hooded Lyra said. "You let them convince you that being soft meant being small."
"I wanted to believe," Lyra whispered.
"And you did. That was your sin."
The wind howled louder. The grave cracked. The earth split, and fire rose up again.
Lyra's feet were burning. Her dress was catching.
She screamed.
"Fight it," the voice called. "Or die again."
Lyra threw herself forward, toward the flames, toward the pain, toward the grave that had once been hers.
And then—
She woke up.
Back in her bed.
Sweat drenched her nightgown. Her breath came in sharp bursts.
[Trial Complete]
Reward: Skill Unlocked – [Charmfire]
Description: Convert your emotions into influence. Can compel, confuse, or control based on proximity and eye contact. Strongest when fueled by grief or suppressed love.
She touched her chest.
She was shaking.
But she was no longer afraid.
That evening, the entire west wing of the manor was lit with golden sconces and polished to perfection. Servants moved like shadows, their steps hushed, their eyes low.
Lyra stood in front of the mirror in her powder-blue gown, the same one she wore the first time she met Prince Elric in her past life. Back then, she had been a portrait of nerves, cheeks pink, hands cold.
Now, she applied her own lipstick.
Subtle, but not invisible.
Beautiful, but no longer fragile.
"You're early," Maelia said from behind her.
Lyra met her sister's gaze in the mirror.
"I like watching the stars appear. They remind me that even in the dark, something burns."
Maelia blinked. "Poetic."
Lyra didn't respond. She adjusted her collar slightly and walked past her sister with a calm that unnerved her.
They descended the staircase together, as they once had. But tonight, Lyra walked half a step ahead.
The main parlor was warm and glowing with the golden hour. The heavy double doors opened with ceremony as Prince Elric stepped inside.
Lyra's breath caught—not because he was beautiful, which he was, but because he was alive. Untouched by betrayal. Unaware of the part he would one day play in her ruin.
In this life, he was still just a crown prince with clear intentions.
He turned, his gaze landing on her like sunlight through a window.
"Lady Lyra," he greeted, bowing slightly.
His voice hadn't changed. Smooth, controlled. But when he looked at her, something flickered in his eyes.
Recognition?
No. It couldn't be.
"You've grown more radiant than I remembered," he said.
She curtsied with grace.
"And you more confident than I'd expected, Your Highness."
His smile deepened.
The room shifted.
For a moment, Lyra felt the world bend toward something—an invisible axis pivoting between them.
The meal was served shortly after.
They ate by candlelight, with Maelia filling the silence with laughter and thinly veiled flirtation. But Elric's eyes always came back to Lyra.
"I heard you enjoy poetry," he said midway through dessert.
She tilted her head. "Some poems are swords in disguise. Others, mirrors. It depends what you need more."
He looked almost startled by her answer.
And curious.
"Then I'd like to hear which kind you write."
Maelia's fork paused midair.
"She doesn't write," Maelia said quickly. "She dabbles."
Lyra's smile didn't waver.
"Perhaps I did. But I find my ink runs deeper these days."
That night, she sat by her window, her diary open for the first time.
She began to write.
Entry One:
The dead don't whisper. They scream in silence. But I am no longer among them.
They killed me once. I loved them still. I trusted. I was ruined.
Now I live again. And this time, I will not be the lamb.
I will be the fire.
A knock sounded.
She quickly tucked the journal beneath her pillows.
"Come in."
Her maid peeked in. "Forgive me, my lady. A package arrived. There's no name on it."
Lyra frowned.
She took the small black box in her hands and dismissed the servant.
It was unmarked.
Cold.
She opened it slowly.
Inside was a crimson ribbon—frayed at the edge. Bloodstained.
Her breath caught.
It was the ribbon she had worn the night she was executed.
She remembered it falling from her hair just before the blade came down.
Her fingers trembled.
There was something else inside.
A note. Scrawled in crude ink:
"You were supposed to stay dead."
The note fell from Lyra's fingers as if it burned.
She stared at the bloodstained ribbon.
She hadn't worn it since that night. Since the execution.
She had died wearing that ribbon.
And now it was in her hands again—soiled, real, impossible.
Her legs gave out beneath her as she slumped to the bed.
The past was bleeding into the present.
Her rebirth was no longer a secret.
Someone remembered.
Someone else had survived that night… or someone had watched.
She reached under her pillow and retrieved her journal, writing in a hurried scrawl.
They know.
This game is no longer mine alone.
If I'm being hunted already, then I need to hunt first.
This time, I will not run. I will destroy them before they destroy me again.
The next morning, a chill coated the palace halls.
A formal invitation had arrived for Lyra from the Imperial Palace.
A private tea with the Empress Dowager.
No one declined such invitations.
But Maelia was silent when she heard.
No congratulations.
No jealousy.
Only quiet.
And that made Lyra suspicious.
"She asked for you?" Maelia asked finally.
Lyra nodded, pretending to sound surprised. "Yes. Strange, isn't it?"
"Very."
Before leaving, Lyra slipped into her father's study.
He sat at the wide desk, eyes buried in paperwork, oblivious to the world. As always.
"You asked to see me?" he said without looking up.
"No," she answered.
He glanced up sharply.
Then realized.
He hadn't called for her. But she had come anyway.
Lyra stepped forward slowly, one gloved hand brushing over the edge of his desk.
"I just wanted to look at you," she said.
He blinked. "What?"
She tilted her head. "To see if you'd change. If you'd notice me now."
His face hardened. "What is the meaning of this—"
"I died once," she whispered.
He froze.
"What did you say?"
"I said," she said louder, firmer, "that I died once. And no one in this family mourned me."
His eyes narrowed. "Is this a joke?"
She turned and walked out, her voice trailing behind her like smoke.
"No. This time, I'm not the joke."
The palace gates opened before her like the mouth of a sleeping beast.
Lyra stepped out of the carriage, hands steady, chin lifted.
The Empress Dowager greeted her in the tea courtyard—a woman wrapped in silk and secrets.
"You are not the girl I remember," the Empress Dowager said after one long look.
"I remember myself better now," Lyra answered.
They sipped tea.
They danced in words.
"You're not afraid of me," the Empress said.
"I've already died, Your Grace."
And that earned her the faintest smile.
That night, back in her chambers, the system chimed again.
Imperium Heart System: Mission TriggeredMission Title: "First Thorn"Objective: Identify the traitor within your bloodline.Deadline: 14 daysReward: Partial unlocking of Memory VeilPenalty: Forced sleep cycle – 3 days
Lyra's breath caught.
A traitor… in her family?
Suddenly, the walls felt thinner. The doors, heavier. The servants, quieter.
She activated the system map for the first time, and something new appeared:
[Hidden Presence Detected]Location: Royal Garden – North WallStatus: Observing You
Her heart thundered.
She rose quietly, stepped to the curtains and peeked beyond them.
There was nothing in the darkness.
But her instincts screamed.
She was being watched.
Not by the Emperor. Not by the Prince.
Someone else.
Someone unseen.
In the shadows of the garden, a figure adjusted their hood.
A low voice echoed from a crystal mirror in their hand.
"She remembers everything. She shouldn't."
Another voice replied coldly.
"Then we'll have to remind her what fear tastes like."
The crystal cracked slightly.
"She dies again… or the prophecy unfolds."