Elara's POV
I couldn't breathe.
Not because the Serpent's Kiss had pierced my lung—though it had. Not because blood was filling my throat—though it was.
I couldn't breathe because I was drowning in silence.
The darkness wasn't like sleep. Sleep had dreams, had rest, had the promise of waking. This darkness was aware. Conscious. Trapped.
I tried to scream. Nothing came out.
I tried to move. I had no body.
I tried to remember dying. The memory played on repeat—Marcus's empty eyes, Vivian's cruel smile, the blade sliding home. Over and over. An endless loop of betrayal.
How long have I been here?
Time felt broken. Maybe I'd been dead for seconds. Maybe hours. Maybe forever.
Then, slowly, sensation returned.
But it was all wrong.
I could feel—but not skin. Metal. Cold, smooth, impossibly sharp metal.
I could see—but not with eyes. I saw in all directions at once, a complete sphere of vision that made no sense.
I could sense—temperature, movement, even the magic humming through whatever surrounded me.
What's happening to me?
The answer came like a whisper in my mind, in a voice that wasn't quite mine and wasn't quite anyone else's.
You are Soulrend now.
"No," I tried to say, but I had no mouth. "I'm Elara. I'm—"
You were Elara. Now you are the sword.
The realization hit like a second death. I wasn't dead. I was worse than dead. I was the thing that killed me.
Panic flooded through me—if panic could exist without a racing heart, without hyperventilating lungs. I tried to thrash, to reject this impossible reality.
But I couldn't move. I was stuck.
Slowly, my strange new vision came into focus. Stone walls covered in glowing symbols. Magical runes that pulsed with ancient power. A cave, deep underground, lit by crystals that hummed with energy.
And me—I was mounted on a pedestal in the center, blade pointing upward. Watching. Always watching.
Unable to look away.
Unable to close eyes I didn't have.
Where am I? This isn't my gallery. This isn't even my world.
The runes flickered, and understanding flooded my consciousness. Not my understanding—the sword's. Memories that belonged to Soulrend, not Elara.
I was in the Forbidden Depths. A prison built by ancient magic to contain the most dangerous weapon ever forged. A blade created from a murdered empress's soul, designed to grant ultimate power to whoever could claim it.
But the magic required a test. Only someone worthy could lift me from this pedestal.
And no one had been worthy in three hundred years.
Three hundred years?
Horror crashed over me. I'd been here for three centuries already. Three hundred years of consciousness trapped in metal, aware but unable to speak, to move, to do anything but exist.
No no no no no—
I would have vomited if I had a stomach. Would have cried if I had tears. Would have done anything except keep existing in this silent, frozen hell.
But I had no choice.
The sword—me—just waited.
Warriors came sometimes. I could sense them approaching through the cave's magical barriers. They'd fight through the trials, desperate for my power. Most died. The lucky ones went mad and fled before the magic killed them.
I watched them all. Every single one. Trapped in my metal prison, unable to warn them, unable to help, unable to do anything but observe as the cave's enchantments tore them apart.
Years blurred together. Decades. Centuries.
I tried counting days at first, marking time by the crystals' pulse. But eventually, I lost track. Time became meaningless when every moment was exactly the same—frozen, aware, alone.
I thought about Marcus and Vivian constantly. Wondered if they'd gotten away with it. Wondered if anyone had even looked for me. Wondered if Vivian had been right—that no one would miss me.
The thought hurt worse than the blade through my heart.
I was so stupid. So blind. They used me for years, and I never saw it.
But trapped in endless silence, I had nothing to do except replay every moment. Every warning sign I'd missed. Every lie I'd believed.
Marcus touching Vivian's hand at my birthday dinner last year. "Just passing the salt," he'd said.
Vivian knowing my vault code without me telling her. "You must have mentioned it," she'd insisted.
The way they'd look at each other when they thought I wasn't watching.
I'd been so focused on my swords, on preservation and history, that I'd forgotten to protect myself.
Never again, I swore into the silence. If I ever get free—if I ever get another chance—I'll never be that blind again.
The crystals pulsed. Magic hummed. Years crawled past.
And I waited.
Conscious.
Aware.
Trapped.
Until finally—finally—after three hundred years of nothing, I felt something change.
Footsteps. Heavy, stumbling, desperate footsteps.
Someone was coming through the trials.
Someone was still alive.
My awareness focused on the cave's entrance. A man crashed through the magical barrier, bloodied and gasping. He collapsed to his knees, barely staying conscious.
But he was here. He'd survived.
Hope—the first emotion besides rage I'd felt in centuries—flickered through my blade.
Please. Please be worthy. Please free me from this.
The man dragged himself forward, leaving a trail of blood. His armor was torn, his face scarred, his eyes hollow with pain.
He looked broken. Betrayed. Desperate.
Just like me.
The cave's magic swirled around him, testing, judging. I felt it probe his memories, his heart, his worthiness.
Images flooded through our connection—a throne room, a beautiful woman declaring him unworthy, a brother's betrayal, torture, exile.
He'd lost everything too.
We're the same, I realized. He understands.
The man reached the pedestal. His hand—shaking, bloodied, determined—wrapped around my hilt.
And for the first time in three hundred years, I moved.
The cave exploded with light and fury. Ancient guardians awakened, stone warriors designed to test any bond between sword and wielder. They attacked with centuries of magical power behind every strike.
The man fought back, but he was too weak, too injured. He was going to die.
And I would go back to waiting. Forever.
No.
Something inside me—something desperate and furious and tired of being powerless—surged forward.
I had a voice. Somehow, impossibly, I could speak to him.
"DUCK!" I screamed into his mind.
He ducked. The stone guardian's blade whistled over his head.
"Roll left! Block high! Move NOW!"
Together—finally, finally together with someone—we fought.
And when we burst out of the cave into sunlight I hadn't seen in three centuries, when the man collapsed on grass that felt foreign and wrong, I realized something.
I'd been given a second chance.
Not as Elara Thornwood.
As something sharper.
Something deadly.
Something that would never be used again.
The man gasped, staring at me. "What... are you?"
I smiled, though I had no mouth.
Because I'd just remembered something from the sword's ancient memories. Something the Empress's soul had whispered through the blade.
The people who'd created this curse—who'd forged the murdered empress into a weapon—their descendants still lived.
And one of them had just betrayed this man.
The same way Marcus and Vivian had betrayed me.
My enemies had reincarnated into this world.
And they had no idea I was coming.
"I'm your revenge," I told him.
"And you're mine."