Sunlight did not feel like salvation.
Selene opened her eyes to the velvet canopy above her bed, her fingers curled in the silken sheets. A faint trace of lavender hung in the warm air, familiar, comforting, and untouched by blood or ash.
She was back a few hours ago.
The clock on her vanity chimed. She counted.
Ten.
Ten in the morning.
Exactly three hours before the Crown Prince's birthday banquet, the day her life would begin to unravel… again.
Talia, her ever-faithful maid, bustled in moments later, full of nervous chatter. Selene let the girl fuss over her: silver-gray silk gown, gold hairpins, the faintest rouge on her lips.
But her mind was elsewhere. Her eyes tracked everything.
The servants. Their glances. Even the subtle absence of her mother from the morning routine.
It used to be her mother who stood behind her during events like this, offering veiled advice while tightening a necklace or straightening her sleeves. Lady Verlane had been formidable once—elegant, distant, and sharp as a polished blade. In this timeline, her absence was no longer a wound, but a quiet ache Selene had long since folded into herself.
Lady Verlane had died nearly six years ago—peacefully, in her sleep, surrounded by the scent of gardenias and the soft rustle of prayer silks. It was before the whispers started, before the betrayal curdled the court. Her death had left a quiet void in the family: a space that no scandal could truly fill because it had already been hollowed by grief.
And yet, that morning, Selene felt her presence. In the way the sunlight filtered through the drapes her mother had chosen. In the orderliness of the room, the discipline of the staff, the gracefulness her mother had once demanded from every corner of their life.
She stood in the eastern wing of the palace, her family's ancestral quarters nestled within the royal grounds but distant enough to remind them of their place. The Verlane name had once carried weight in these hallsو, advisors to kings, patrons of the artsو but by the time of her trial, no one dared to speak it aloud. Living within the palace had been both a privilege and a prison. Now, it was a chessboard.
When she descended the marble staircase, she caught the tail end of a hushed conversation between three courtiers. Fans half-lifted, voices low.
"Arrived early. No announcement"
"Not even on the guest list"
"The Duke? Here?"
Selene's steps slowed.
Cassian Viremont. The Black Duke.
In her first life, he hadn't appeared in the capital until midsummer, always distant from the prince's private affairs. If he was here now… someone had moved the pieces early.
She kept walking, smooth and measured, while her thoughts turned sharp.
The ballroom gleamed with light and music. Nobles laughed, smiled, and calculated behind jeweled masks of politeness.
Selene entered like a blade hidden in silk.
Heads turned. Some widened in surprise. Others narrowed with judgment.
She smiled. Let them look.
She drifted along the edges of the hall, greeting no one. Watching everyone.
Who laughed too loudly. Who drank too little. Who avoided whose gaze.
Near the eastern archway, two stewards whispered over a silver tray.
"Lord Sarrin requested the map set again."
"Which one?"
"The coastal trade lines. South ports only."
"With the new treaty markings?"
"Yes… but he wants it to match last month's version."
Selene's foot paused mid-step.
The coastal trade lines.
A jolt of memory surged like ice down her spine.
In her last life, the first blow to House Verlane had come from those very maps: a quiet shift of borders, just a few strokes of ink, that stripped her family of their claim to the southern docks. By the time they realized it, the vote had already passed. And the gallows had already been built.
But now,
She was early. And she knew.
Her father, Lord Alain Verlane, was no doubt already at the royal council chamber. He lived for court politics—the endless maneuvering, the masked diplomacy. In her last life, his confidence in the system had blinded them both. He had believed too long that loyalty would protect them.
Selene had learned otherwise.
If she was going to save him this time, she'd have to act before he even saw the blade coming.
Last time, she had been polished and feared… but naïve. This time, she would notice everything.
Selene kept moving, her face smooth as glass while her heart pounded.
There would be a meeting. Secret. Unofficial. A signature before the feast.
Sarrin would never risk unveiling the scheme in public unless it was already sealed in private.
She turned left, away from the ballroom, into the eastern corridor.
The servant passage still smelled faintly of ink and oil.
She did not hesitate.
This time, she would arrive first.
End of Chapter 3.