Prologue: A Heart Meant to Bleed Twice

They say the dead rest easy.

But they never knew what it meant to love someone so deeply… you cursed them just by breathing.

The mansion wasn't haunted. No—it was alive.

It throbbed with memories sealed behind brick and bone. It reeked of betrayal, of promises broken in the name of blood.

It remembered her.

Elara stepped through the gates with no idea why her heart dropped like a stone, why her chest ached like it had been split open in another life.

She didn't know the name Lazareth yet.

Didn't know the way his touch once made her forget the world,

or how her blade once trembled above his heart.

But the house knew.

The walls shivered when she passed.

The wind chanted her name like a prayer too old to die.

And something… someone… watched from the shadows, waiting. Not for revenge.

For redemption.

This wasn't the start of a love story.

It was the continuation of a tragedy that had already happened once.

And this time—

It would hurt worse.

Because this time, she'd remember everything.

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