She didn't speak to me until dusk.
Not in the hall. Not during greetings. Not while the nobles circled like wine-stained moths, drunk on titles and tales.
But later—when the air had turned cool and the manor wore twilight like a veil—she found me.
Alone, as if she'd known I would be.
I stood by the terrace, fingers brushing the ivy-laced stone, watching the lanterns flicker below like fallen stars.
And then—
"Beautiful, isn't it?" came a voice, low and crisp.
I turned.
Elaris stood just inside the archway. No entourage. No mother in tow. Just her and her storm-colored braid, her eyes gleaming in twin truths.
"One might think the stars fell here on purpose," she added, stepping closer.
I didn't answer right away. I studied her. That strange calm. That unnerving stillness—like someone who had already read the book's last page and didn't mind the wait.
"I thought your duchy preferred northern snows to southern weddings," I said, lightly.
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"We come when we're needed," she replied.
I raised an eyebrow. "Are you needed?"
Her gaze sharpened.
"Aren't you?" she asked.
The question hit me like a dropped curtain.
I didn't know why it made the air thinner. Why her words landed not like curiosity—but confirmation.
I looked away, toward the sky. "You speak in riddles, Lady Elaris."
"I speak in echoes," she said. "It's not my fault if you've heard them before."
I turned to her fully then.
"What do you know?"
She stepped closer.
"Only what was whispered between lives. What was written in places ink cannot touch."
She tilted her head, one eye catching the lantern light like gold, the other shadowed in dusk.
"You're not the only one who remembers, Liora."
My name—spoken without title, without pretense.
Just truth.
I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
"You should rest," she said after a beat, her voice softening. "Tomorrow comes quickly. And the veil between past and present is thinner when you sleep."
And then she was gone.
No farewell. No bow.
Just a rustle of skirts and silence curling in her wake.
I stood there long after she left.
The stars blinked overhead like watchers. The ivy trembled in the breeze. And beneath my sleeve, the hidden shard pulsed faintly—like it, too, had heard her.
Tomorrow would come.
But tonight, I remembered.
I was not alone in the remembering.
I never feared the wedding.
Perhaps it should have overwhelmed me — the weight of golden vows, the sea of noble eyes watching, the orchestration of roses and rituals and rehearsed affections. But it didn't. Not this time.
I had lived this day before.
The music played in the same key. The veil sat on my hair with the same ivory weight. The priest, old and weathered, still mumbled his incantations with the same breathless reverence. It was a painting, perfectly preserved — down to the faint trembling of my hands as Lucian slipped the ring onto my finger.
But unlike before, I wasn't trembling from uncertainty.
This time, it was anticipation.
Lucian looked at me with his usual unreadable calm. Our hands brushed. His skin was cold. Was he nervous? Or simply bored? His lips moved with practiced grace, murmuring the vows, but I wasn't looking at him. Not really. I was watching the corners of the hall. I was counting the guards. I was making note of who smiled too tightly and who watched Mara too long.
The wedding passed without blood.
Which meant the storm hadn't arrived—yet.
The celebration continued well past dusk. Dancers twirled beneath amber chandeliers, their gowns sparkling like stars caught in motion. Goblets clinked, and laughter soared. Even Mara was laughing, standing at my side like the moon at midnight—quietly radiant.
She didn't know.
Not yet.
In my past life, the day after this celebration, she was bedridden for months.
She did not die.
But hurt enough to not go to Noctare with me.
Anissa had arranged it to look like an accident. Poisoned tea. A fall from the stairs. I don't even remember the version they chose. Only that Mara never made it to Noctare. Only that I arrived there alone, like a lamb offered to wolves, without a single soul to remind me of who I had once been.
Not again.
I smiled, gracious and glasslike, when Anissa approached with her usual sugary malice. Her dress was a little too daring for a wedding, her smile a little too polished. She leaned in to whisper congratulations, her lips brushing the air near my cheek.
"I wish you all the happiness, Your Grace," she purred.
And death to all who stand beside you, I almost replied.
Instead, I took her hand gently. "Do enjoy the desserts, Lady Anissa. They're to die for."
Her smile faltered. For just a moment. It was enough.
Later that night, when the celebration dwindled into drunken nobility and idle gossip, I made my move.
Lucian and I hadn't retired to the wedding chamber yet. That, too, was part of my plan.
Instead, I asked for Mara to bring my bridal cloak from the garden storage — a request that would, in the old timeline, become her death sentence. This time, I followed her.
Unseen.
With a dagger.
The courtyard behind the estate was quiet. The moon had thinned to a sliver, throwing the cobblestones into stark angles of light and shadow. Mara moved ahead of me, her steps sure, oblivious to the danger.
I saw them before she did.
Two cloaked figures crouched low in the archway by the hydrangeas — the same flowers she bled across in the last life. They moved too quickly, too quietly for any servant. I stepped forward.
"Drop the blade."
The voice wasn't mine.
Lucian.
He had followed me.
His presence was like a blade in still water — sharp, unsettling, silent. I saw his eyes catch the glint of steel, his hand already on the hilt of his own sword. He didn't ask why I was there. He didn't question why I had drawn him into this trap.
Because he saw it for what it was — an ambush.
For a moment, all time froze. Mara turned, startled. The assassins lunged.
And I moved.
My dagger struck the first man in the shoulder before he could reach her. Lucian took down the second with clean, brutal efficiency — his movements controlled, practiced. He hadn't expected this, but he reacted with the precision of a man who was used to blood.
I looked at the man clutching his shoulder.
"Who sent you?"
He spat. "Your whore maid—she was supposed to die. Orders from—"
He choked mid-sentence. The veins in his neck blackened, eyes wide with horror.
Poisoned. Tongue cut. Clean execution.
Anissa left no loose ends.
Lucian knelt beside the body, examining the foam at the corners of the man's lips.
"Too fast," he murmured. "He was silenced before he even arrived."
I said nothing.
The other man was still alive, groaning beneath a broken wrist and a sword wound.
This time, Lucian didn't hesitate.
"Talk," he said, pressing the blade lightly to the man's throat.
And talk, he did.
A bribe. A note. A carriage was waiting near the southern wall to smuggle them out after the deed. Paid in gold with a serpent seal. Seraphine House. Anissa's family crest.
Lucian stood slowly, expression unreadable.
I looked at him, letting the silence stretch long between us.
He didn't ask how I knew. He didn't ask why I had baited the trap so precisely.
He just said, quietly, "You expected this."
And I met his gaze, steady. "I had a... hunch."
Later, when Mara was safe in my chambers and the bodies were gone — one executed, one imprisoned — I sat before my vanity and stared into the mirror.
My reflection didn't look like a bride. It looked like a queen.
Not because of the gown. Or the jewels. But because, for once, I had chosen who would live and who would die.
Lucian hadn't said a word since we returned. But I felt his gaze lingering. I knew he was wondering.
How did she know?
Who is this woman I've married?
Let him wonder.
Let Anissa writhe.
Tomorrow, they'll call me a wife.
But tonight, I became something else.
A storm that does not beg the skies for permission to strike.
We did not share a bed that night.
The servants gossiped in hushed tones, their whispers fluttering behind silk curtains, assuming coldness between the newlyweds. But they didn't understand.
Lucian didn't ask me why. And I offered no excuse.
He stood in the doorway of my chambers for a moment, watching as I pressed a damp cloth to Mara's forehead. Her skin was pale, her breath shallow, and though she lived, the shock had taken its toll. She clutched my hand like a child, murmuring apologies she didn't owe.
I stayed by her side.
Because in this twisted chessboard I'd been born into twice, Mara was the only piece I would not sacrifice.
Lucian nodded once before he left. No protest. No pretense. Just that same blank quiet that always made me wonder if he was thinking or merely observing. He had seen the truth with his own eyes — the blood, the blade, the betrayal. And he hadn't once asked me how I had known.
Maybe now he understood.
This version of me… was not the one he married before.
The morning after came draped in gold.
The bells tolled for our departure, and the estate stirred to life with rehearsed goodbyes and practiced courtesies. Our carriage to Noctare stood ready — draped in the Noctare crest, glinting under the soft sunlight. But before I could step toward it, there came the two I had expected.
Auren. Anissa.
Two vultures in lace and velvet.
"Your Grace," Auren began, his voice too gentle, too rehearsed. "The journey to Noctare is long. Allow us to accompany you, at least until the borders—"
"I would prefer not," I said, without waiting for him to finish.
A moment of stunned silence.
Anissa tilted her head, expression sweetly pained. "Surely you wouldn't want to travel alone on your first journey as Duchess? We only mean to help—"
"I do not recall asking."
That wiped the softness from her smile.
But before either could protest again, my father intervened — his voice measured, political.
"They may visit you a month after the wedding," he said. "Let the couple have their time, uninterrupted. You understand."
Of course, they understood. The polite rejection of a noble house — denial wrapped in lace. Auren bowed, tight-lipped. Anissa curtsied, but her knuckles were white.
They would not forget this. But I didn't want them to.
Let them squirm in their pretty shoes.
"Yes father, however..."
"Only if I allow."
The duke understood the motives.
He stood beside me.
He saw what had happened last night.
He nodded in agreement.
Unexpectedly, here was my murderer agreeing with me.
And then came the final formality: naming my lady-in-waiting for the ducal court.
Tradition dictated a noblewoman of good standing. In my past life, I had chosen Anissa — a mistake that ended with poison, spies, and sleepless nights.
This time, I scanned the gathered ladies. And my eyes stopped on her.
Elaris Veilmeir.
The girl with mismatched eyes and a mouth too sharp for her age. Young, yes. But not naive. There was something ancient behind her gaze, like she had seen more than she should have. Like she knew more than she could say.
"Lady Elaris," I said. "Will you serve as my lady-in-waiting in the Noctare duchy?"
There was a pause.
Then she bowed, low and silent. No fake excitement. No gushing gratitude.
Just stillness.
"I would be honored, Your Grace," she said at last.
And in that quiet moment, I understood.
She had been allowed to serve me because someone else stood before her in her house's succession line — someone older, stronger, more valuable to them. That was the only way the Veilmeirs would allow her to go into uncertain territory under a newlywed duchess. She was disposable.
But from the gleam in her eye, I doubted she saw herself that way.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Mara did not ride with us.
She was placed in a separate carriage, flanked by healers and guards under my personal seal. She protested, of course, insisting she could manage by my side. But I wouldn't risk her safety — not again. Her recovery was more important than her pride, and this time, she would not be left to die.
Lucian and I shared the main carriage.
In my past life, I remembered a ride like this — stifled, tear-soaked, with silence so thick it choked. I had cried then, until my eyes dried and my chest ached from holding back screams. He never asked why. Never offered comfort. We simply sat side by side, alone in our grief.
But this time was different.
This time, I did not cry.
And this time, we spoke.
"I didn't expect you to act," Lucian said, voice low, as the trees blurred past outside. "Not like that."
I kept my gaze on the road ahead. "You didn't ask how I knew."
"No," he said. "I didn't."
There was a pause. Long, but not cold.
Then I turned toward him and said, softly, "I want to make a request."
He raised an eyebrow. "Already? You do know you're supposed to wait at least a week into marriage before asking for favors."
I gave him a look. "It's not a favor."
That earned the faintest smirk. "Go on."
"I want to oversee the military operations in Noctare," I said. "And I want to train. To wield a sword."
That made him pause.
"My body isn't strong enough now," I continued, "but I trained in secret before… I know the basics. I can learn the rest if I'm given the chance. I want to be strong enough to defend myself. And to understand the people who protect this house."
Lucian leaned back, eyes still on me. His expression was unreadable, though his silence wasn't the same as before. It was thoughtful now.
"You want to be a soldier?"
"I want to be capable," I said. "The knights of Noctare are exceptional — they always were. But I remember… moments. When that wasn't enough. The capital has its own loyalties. The Empress has her claws."
Lucian didn't flinch at the mention of her.
He knew her motives but was corrupted.
Noctare died because he forcefully became a puppet.
In my past life.
"She wanted Noctare crushed because it had the power to eclipse the palace," I said. "It still does."
A chuckle, low and surprised, left him then.
"Of all things I imagined you would ask for," he said, "training with blades was not on the list."
"I'm not like I was before," I said.
"No," he said. "You're not."
His gaze lingered a little longer now. Less suspicion. More… something else.
Curiosity. Respect. Maybe even something close to pride.
"I'll train you," he said finally. "And I'll guide you around the barracks. You'll need someone to translate the chain of command."
"I was hoping you'd say that."
He gave a small nod, his tone teasing as he added, "Just don't challenge me to a duel. It would be embarrassing to lose."
I smiled — just a flicker. "I'll wait until I'm sure I can win."
The laughter that followed was soft, real. And fleeting.
I never saw him laugh so carelessly.
But it was a beginning.
Outside the window, the roads curled toward Noctare — the duchy of storms and stone, of warriors and wolves. In my past life, it had been a distant, cold fortress. A cage with guards too loyal to question. A place I had never thought to control.
But this time, I would know every sword.
Every soldier.
Every secret tunnel is in its foundation.
Every mine that errupts wealth.
Every far-away land that was bought solely for cultivating.
If the Empress ever tried to strike again, she would not find a frightened duchess waiting in a dress. She would find me — and behind me, an army.
Let her try.
Let them all try.
This time, I wouldn't run from the war.
I would command it.
TO BE CONTINUED!