The first breath always came with agony.
Selene awoke choking on air that tasted of ashes and iron. Her lungs convulsed, her body trembling as though the memories of a hundred deaths clung to her skin like frost. This time, there was no comfort in rebirth. Only a hollow numbness.
It had happened again.
She lay in the same gilded bedroom her aunt had offered her in every life. The walls were draped in velvet, and the scent of lavender clung to the corners like a lie. The morning sun streamed through silk curtains, yet it felt too bright for a soul so tired. So lost.
Her hands trembled as she touched her face, half-expecting scars, half-expecting fire. But there was nothing smooth, unbroken skin. As if Lucian had never left her bleeding in the snow. As if the cold betrayal of her mate had never existed.
But it had. And she remembered it all.
The masquerade was to be held again in a week. Her aunt was already bustling around the house with dressmakers and jewelers, speaking of suitors and alliances. Selene sat silently during breakfast, watching a glass of orange juice tremble in her hands. Her aunt talked endlessly, never once noticing the storm brewing behind her niece's pale eyes.
"You'll wear sapphire this time," her aunt said, sipping tea delicately. "It brings out the color of your eyes. And perhaps the prince will finally"
"No," Selene interrupted, voice low.
Her aunt blinked. "No?"
"I'm not going," she said. "Not this time."
There was a stunned silence before the older woman's mouth tightened. "Selene, you will attend. We all must serve our purpose in this world"
"I've served enough in every lifetime," Selene snapped, the final word like ice. "I won't go to that masquerade. I'd rather disappear."
She didn't wait to be punished. That night, under the cover of darkness, Selene packed what little she needed, stole her aunt's smallest horse, and rode until the moon was high and her legs trembled.
She didn't know where she was going only that it had to be far from the masquerade, far from Aria, far from the fate that always waited for her like a noose.
Days passed.
She slept under trees, drank from muddy streams, begged bread from passing caravans. Her boots wore through. Her hair tangled. Her body thinned. But she didn't stop. Not until her strength gave out and she collapsed on the forest path, too hungry to move.
She didn't hear the footsteps at first. But when she opened her eyes, a group of rough-looking men and women stood above her. Scarred, weathered, armed. Rebels.
One of them a man with a jagged scar across his nose knelt and yanked her up by the collar.
"Look at this," he sneered. "Isn't this Alaric's pup?"
Her heart froze. "No, I'm not"
"Liar!" he shouted, backhanding her across the face. Her head snapped sideways, blood filling her mouth. "I'd know that cursed blood anywhere."
The others began murmuring, recognizing her. Alaric's daughter. The girl who disappeared after the masquerade.
"Let's show her what her family did to ours," someone said.
They took her to a cave deep in the woods, hidden from the king's soldiers. There, Selene endured days of pain she didn't think possible. Whipped, burned, cut each scream swallowed by the silence of the wild.
She didn't beg.
She didn't cry.
She just kept asking the same question to herself: Why am I still alive?
But then, as with all things in her cursed life, everything changed in a blink. Soldiers descended. The rebels had been tracked, betrayed, or simply unlucky. Selene, half-conscious, barely noticed the sound of swords clashing, men screaming. Then quiet. Terrible, final quiet.
She was found in chains, barely alive.
They didn't care.
Not her family. Not the soldiers. No one asked what she was doing there, why she was tortured, what had happened. They looked at her and saw a traitor. A rebel. A stain on the Alaric name.
Aria wept as Selene was dragged back to the estate, but her tears were meaningless. Aria never fought for her. Not truly. Her parents didn't even ask for her side of the story.
"You've betrayed your blood," her father said with cold authority. "You've joined the enemies of the crown. We trusted you, and you broke that trust."
"I didn't," Selene whispered, her voice hoarse and cracked. "I never-"
Her mother didn't meet her eyes. Her brother stood behind her father, face hard. Even her sister said nothing.
The sentence was death.
In the courtyard where roses once bloomed, Selene was tied to the post like a criminal. The pack gathered in silence. She could barely stand, her legs weak and broken. Her head hung low, blood drying on her lips.
This time, there were no last words.
No internal monologue.
Just a silent acceptance.
The blade came down, and Selene died again.
Alone.
Betrayed.
Killed by the people who should have protected her.