The first thing she felt was the cold. Not the kind that bites your skin in winter, but the kind that seeps into your bones, drowning every ounce of warmth she had left. Her chest tightened as she tried to inhale, but the air refused her. The palace halls blurred around her, gilded walls and flickering candlelight melting into a nightmare she could not wake from.
"Elara…" The voice was soft, familiar, but tainted. Sweet words she had once trusted now twisted into daggers.
She turned, searching for the source. Her heart, heavy with hope, recognized the prince she had loved. The man who had made her laugh, made her believe in forever. The same man who now held the knife.
"You should have stayed out of this," he whispered, almost tenderly.
Her stomach dropped. Betrayal—poisonous and absolute—slammed into her. She had trusted him. She had bared herself to him in ways no one else ever saw. And he… he had planned her end from the start.
Her mind screamed for escape, for a miracle, but the dagger pressed against her chest said otherwise. She gasped, every ounce of life refusing to leave her body quietly. The golden hair she had spent so long perfecting brushed her shoulder as she fell back, the world spinning like a cruel carousel.
"Why…?" Her lips barely moved. A whisper, a question hanging in the cold air, unanswered.
The laughter came next. Not his. Her so-called best friend, the one she had shared secrets with, the one she had called sister, watched from the shadows. A smile that should have been warm was instead sharp, cutting through her like glass.
"It's funny, isn't it?" the friend said. "How naive you were, thinking anyone cared about you."
Pain. Pure, burning pain shot through Elara's chest—not from the knife, but from the truth she had ignored. All those moments of smiles, of trust, of love… every one of them a lie. She had been a pawn in a game she hadn't even known existed.
The world tilted again. Her vision darkened, but she clung to a single thought: I won't end like this. Not forever.
Even as the dagger sank, even as her life slipped away, a tiny spark of something unbroken ignited within her. A vow. A promise.
"I will return," she breathed, voice faint, fading. "And everything… everyone… will pay."
Her eyes closed. Darkness swallowed her. Pain became weightless, fear became nothing.
But somewhere, deep beneath the layers of despair, a seed of revenge was planted.
And with it, the last moment of Elara's first life ended.