When the door shut, I allowed myself to exhale.
The seeds were planted.Doubt in her heart.Questions in her mind.
The first step in breaking the chains fate had forged for us.
But this was only the beginning.
Tomorrow, I would start gathering pieces.The discarded servants.The overlooked soldiers.The ones like me — broken, bitter, forgotten.
Every pawn the world ignored would become my sword.Every shadow they refused to see would become my shield.
I would build an empire from ashes.I would carve a throne from the bones of heroes.
And when the world looked upon me again, they would not see a villain to be slain—They would see the king of monsters they had created.
Their tragedy.Their requiem.
And I would make them sing it.
Elsewhere, across the sprawling estate, behind her gilded chamber doors, Evelyne Astera stood unmoving.Her hand rested lightly against her chest, where her heart pounded — not from exertion, but from the old, bitter ache that had returned.
She had hidden it well when Leonhart spoke. The confused stare. The trembling lips. The way her hands had curled into fists behind her back.
Because she remembered.She remembered everything.
The jeers from the crowds as they dragged Leonhart to the scaffold.The cold, mocking smiles of the so-called heroes who had promised her peace but delivered ruin.The way her once-pristine Astera bloodline had been snuffed out, branded conspirators to villainy.And worst of all—the endless, suffocating loneliness that followed, until death finally took her too.
Her fingers tightened around the delicate lace of her gown until the threads snapped.So fragile. Everything around her was so fragile.
In the past, she had clung to the hope that Leonhart would protect her.And he did… until the world shattered them both.
Now, in this second life granted to her by fate or perhaps cursed irony, she would not wait for salvation.
Her eyes flickered to the far corner of the room, where a small, ornate box lay hidden beneath false floorboards.Within it were letters, sealed crests, and the faint whispers of a plan already unfolding — messages to old retainers who had survived, discreet promises to those who lived in the cracks between noble lines and imperial law.
"Leonhart…" she whispered, voice trembling."…You speak of breaking fate. Of forging your own destiny."
Her lips twisted into something halfway between a smirk and a grimace.
"So do I."
The next morning dawned gray and heavy, as if the skies themselves grieved the wheels set into motion.
I awoke before the first bell of the estate chimed. My body, still weak and worn, protested every movement, but my mind burned with sharp clarity.
Every villain needs an army.And mine would be forged today.
First target: the discarded.The servants the main house had cast aside. The stable boys blamed for stolen coins, the maids accused of impropriety with guests.
People like me. Branded early and left to rot in corners.
I moved through the back corridors of the estate, steps light but heart pounding. The nobles would still be slumbering, fat and content, believing their world immutable.
But I would be the rot beneath their golden floors.The decay they could not see — until it devoured them whole.
Meanwhile, Evelyne sat primly in the main hall, a picture of noble grace.But behind her serene gaze, her mind raced.
She had received a reply this morning. A coded letter delivered through an old laundry maid, slipped beneath the silver tray of morning tea.A name.A date.A location in the lower quarters of the capital.
The Phoenix Society — a secretive group of noble daughters disillusioned with their puppet strings. In the past life, they had been crushed swiftly by the crown.But now?Now, Evelyne intended to use them.
If I gather enough noble dissenters… if I consolidate power quietly, they'll never see me until it's too late.
Her gaze flickered toward the courtyard, where Leonhart had once again slipped away unnoticed.
A cold shiver ran down her spine.
He's moving too. Faster than I expected.Does he…? No. He can't know I remember. Not yet.
Her hand tightened around the letter until the paper crinkled.
"Stay out of my way, Leonhart.""This time, I will not be a pawn — not to you, not to anyone."
I found my first recruit where I expected: in the crumbling servant quarters, nursing a swollen eye and muttering curses to no one in particular.
Gregor.Once a soldier. Demoted after a fabricated scandal involving theft, left to rot as a stable hand.
When he saw me, he scowled."What do you want, brat? Come to spit on me like the others?"
I smiled. A cold, hollow thing."No, Gregor. I've come to offer you a job."
He snorted. "Job? You? A noble's mutt?"
I leaned in close, my voice low and sharp as a blade."How would you like to put a sword through the man who ruined you?"
That got his attention.
His bloodied eye narrowed. "…Go on."
Across the estate, Evelyne slipped a gold ring onto her finger — an ancient signet that once belonged to her grandmother.A symbol of old bloodlines, of power before the empire's chains tightened.
She hid it beneath her sleeve as she rose.
Tonight, she would attend her first meeting with the Phoenix Society.Tonight, her revolution would begin.
By midday, I had gathered four.Four discarded souls. Thieves. Fallen knights. A kitchen maid who once poisoned a lecherous noble and lived.
Each of them desperate. Bitter. Perfect.
"I'm not promising salvation," I told them as we huddled in the abandoned storage room. "I'm offering revenge. And in that revenge, freedom."
Their eyes burned.They were mine now.
But fate, cruel and twisted thing, watched us both.
As the sun dipped low, casting blood-red light across the halls of the estate, Evelyne and I crossed paths in the corridor.A fleeting glance.A smile too sweet, too sharp.A heartbeat where time seemed to stop.
I bowed, the perfect image of a loyal, scheming villain.She curtsied, the radiant heroine cloaked in innocence.
But behind those masks — two storms gathered, each unaware that the other was readying to strike.