The first thing I did was look in the mirror.
If I was going to die again in this body, I deserved to know what face the world saw as "evil."
The girl in the mirror wasn't evil. She was ethereal.
Pale violet eyes, too large for her porcelain face. Silver hair that cascaded down her back like moonlight spun into silk. A beauty too cold to approach, the kind that made people whisper "witch" when her back was turned.
No wonder they feared her, I thought. No wonder they hated her.
But behind that beauty, I saw something else. The eyes weren't cruel. They were tired. Hollow. And now they were mine.
"Lady Seraphina?" a voice called outside my chamber.
I didn't recognize it, but the body did.
It was Elric, her assigned knight. Loyal. Silent. Killed in the original story trying to defend her in the trial she was never meant to survive.
I stepped back from the mirror and straightened my spine.
Seraphina was supposed to beg. Cry. Swoon.
But I wasn't her.
Not really.
I walked to the door, pulled it open, and looked Elric dead in the eye.
"I'm not dying this time," I said.
He blinked. "My lady?"
I smiled, slow and sharp. "Tell the Duke I want an audience. Today. No more hiding."