Bedroom
The gasp still rattled in her chest.
Selene sat on the edge of the bed, silk sheets puddled at her waist, as if movement alone might shatter the illusion. The morning sun pooled across her marble floor, picking out flecks of gold in the veins of the stone.
Everything was… familiar. Painfully, perfectly familiar.
The vanity against the far wall. The silver hairpins were shaped like serpents. The wardrobe with the gown she had meant to wear tonight.
She had not seen this room in a year. She had left it in chains.
Her legs shook as she reached for the calendar. The numbers blurred for a moment, then came into focus.
Exactly one year before her death.
She remembered it all with surgical clarity now. The laughter in the ballroom. The first whispered insult behind a fan. The slow drip of venom into her family's name.
One year. That was all she had before the rope found her throat.
An hour ago, Talia came into her room, when the shock of returning to life still hadn't worn off. She remembers it vividly.
A knock broke the silence.
"Milady? "Talia's voice, young, warm, and so heartbreakingly ordinary, drifted through the door. "If you don't wake soon, you'll miss the prince's birthday banquet!"
Selene's breath caught.
The banquet. The first domino in the chain of her ruin.
"I… I'm awake," she called, voice rough.
The door cracked open. Talia peeked in, cheeks flushed, brown hair escaping her braid.
She froze when she saw Selene sitting there, pale and wide-eyed."Milady? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Selene stared at her for a beat too long. The girl had died a few months after the first banquet, disappeared, really, when the poison scandal tore through the palace.
And now she was here, breathing, fidgeting with the edge of her apron.
Selene forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Just… a strange dream."
"Ah, the bad ones again?" Talia stepped inside, relieved. "I'll bring warm tea. And I'll have the silver gown pressed, tonight is ."
"The prince's birthday," Selene finished for her, her voice flat.
Talia blinked. "Yes, milady. Are you sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine," Selene said, rising to her feet with a steadiness that surprised even herself. "Have the dress ready. And… bring the tea."
The maid curtsied and disappeared, leaving Selene in the quiet again.
She walked to the mirror.
Her reflection met her with silver-gray eyes, sharp and alive. The same eyes that had glared at a jeering crowd one year from now.
Real.Or real enough.
She stood in this very room the night the guards came. The banging on the door had shattered her sleep. Her mother's screams echoed in the hallway. Selene had rushed to the mirror, just as she did now, but that night… her reflection had looked different.
Broken.
That night, she'd worn a crimson gown, still glittering with jewels. Her hands had smelled of roses and ink; she had been writing letters, love letters, foolish and trusting.
The captain of the guard hadn't met her eyes when he cuffed her.
She never saw this room again. Until now.
She crossed to the vanity, flipped the little red card.
June 13th.
Exactly a year before the day she died.
Nausea churned through her.
Death couldn't turn back time.Fairy tales and cursed grimoires, yes, but not her life.Not the gallows.Not the blood.
But the bruises were gone.Her maid was alive.Her enemies weren't enemies yet.
And Cassian Viremont…
She hadn't even met him in this life.Not yet.
If this was real, she had one chance.One.
To survive.To kill first.Or to run.
Run. The thought whispered to her like a lover in the dark. Leave everything. Disappear. Change her name, dye her hair, fade into the countryside like a ghost.
But ghosts didn't get revenge.
And Selene had no intention of vanishing quietly. She didn't survive a hanging, didn't claw her way back from death, just to let history write her out again.
This time, she would write the ending herself.
She pressed both hands against the mirror.Her reflection stared back, hollow-eyed, storm building behind her gaze.
"No one hangs me again," she whispered.
Her voice was steady.Her heart wasn't.
One year.
This time, she would not wait for the whispers to turn to nooses. She would not sit idle while daggers gathered in the dark.
The serpent was awake. And she would strike first.
She stepped away from the mirror, spine straightening inch by inch. Her breath slowed, her thoughts sharpening. She wasn't the girl who had once wept behind closed doors or begged for allies at court. Not anymore.
She'd learned how quickly loyalty crumbled. How easily a kiss turned to betrayal. How silence, when wielded well, could be sharper than a sword.
She remembered the names of every person who had cheered for her death. Every noble who turned away. Every hand that did nothing while the rope burned.
She would not forget.
And when the time came, she would make sure they didn't either.
End of Chapter 2