The last memory was suffocation—cold, merciless suffocation. The coarse rope biting deep into her throat, crushing her windpipe with brutal force. Every desperate struggle only hastened the loss of oxygen. Beneath her feet was nothing but suspended despair, while the roar of the crowd blurred into a buzzing tide of curses and mockery. And at the crest of that tide, a pair of green eyes—unnatural, venomous, glittering with madness and triumph. Lydia.
Then everything collapsed into silence, into nothingness.
And then came the heat. A searing, unbearable blaze, as if her soul had been dragged back from the end of destruction and forced into a body too narrow, too foreign. Every inch of skin screamed in protest against this untimely return.
Eleanor Fleming's eyes flew open.
There was no hellfire. No promised holy light. Instead, she saw a canopy of worn but clean linen, sunlight filtering through latticed windows to scatter mottled shadows across the wooden floor. The air smelled faintly of herbs and beeswax, nothing like the perfumes and fresh flowers that had once filled the chambers of the Fleming family's pampered daughter.
She gasped violently, her fingers flying instinctively to her neck.
Smooth.
No rope burns. No bruises. No agony carved into flesh.
She sat up, her gaze darting around the small, modest room. Exposed stone walls and plaster. Sparse furniture: a table, a chair, a rough wardrobe. This was not her chamber. Not even a servant's room in the Fleming estate.
Fragments of memory stormed her mind—suffocation at the gallows, Lydia's twisted grin, Seraphina's terrified eyes as life slipped from her, the cold decree of the Inquisition's judges. And earlier still, stolen moments with Seraphina in hidden corners, brief and forbidden sweetness like honey tasted in secret.
Seraphina.
Her chest wrenched with pain.
She stumbled out of bed and lurched toward the silvered mirror in the corner. A pale, youthful face stared back. Long waves of golden-blonde hair spilled in disarray. Eyes of cold gray, wide with horror, confusion, and a depth of suffering no young girl should ever carry. Familiar, yet not the same. A trace of Eleanor Fleming lingered in the features, but sharper, thinner, marked with a resilience and chill that her former self had never worn.
This was not her sixteen-year-old face. At least, not entirely.
Footsteps outside. The door creaked open, and a middle-aged woman in a plain dress and apron entered, carrying a basin of water. She startled at the sight of Eleanor standing before the mirror. "Holy Mother! Miss Eleanor, you're awake at last! You've slept for a full day and night—you frightened me half to death."
Eleanor whirled, her voice rasping with the strain of rebirth. "Who are you? Where am I?"
The woman set down the basin, frowning with concern. "Miss, have you taken ill again? I'm Martha, your maid. This is the Warren estate… though, well, now it's only this old house and a patch of land."
Warren? Eleanor Warren?
The name stirred half-remembered knowledge. A fallen line of minor nobility, distant kin of the Flemings, so distant as to be almost meaningless. In her past life, she had heard it only once at some grand banquet, where people whispered that the family was all but extinct.
She had been reborn. But not in her former body, not at the height of her power. Instead, her soul now occupied the shell of another girl—Eleanor Warren—who had just succumbed to sudden illness.
Her voice trembled with urgency. "What year is it? Who is king? Who is pope?"
Martha blinked in confusion but answered simply.
As Eleanor listened, her heart sank. Then hardened.
Time had passed. Months since the trial branded her a witch. Months since she and Seraphina swung from the gallows. Long enough for the world to forget. Long enough for her enemies to secure their triumph.
Months. Heaven had not given her a second life so she could mourn. It had given her this chance so she could take her revenge. Lydia. The executioners of the Inquisition. The jeering crowd who cheered for her death. None of them would escape.
Months may have passed, but vengeance was never too late.
Grief and hatred surged together, threatening to tear her apart. She clenched her fists so tightly her nails cut into her palms. The pain kept her anchored. She could not fall into madness. She could not collapse. Seraphina's death still cried out for justice.
In the days that followed, Eleanor Warren feigned illness to buy herself time to learn. The body she now inhabited offered scraps of memory, and with the knowledge of her past life, she pieced together the truth. The Warren family was destitute, reduced to an empty name and a few loyal but equally impoverished servants. She had no one.
But perhaps that was for the best. Those who have nothing are the ones who fear nothing.
She needed strength. She needed position. She needed a foothold that could lead her closer to power—and to the Inquisition itself. The name of Eleanor Warren would grant her nothing.
So she began to linger near the town's church, watching, waiting. She knew how many secrets hid beneath the suffocating weight of holy law. And secrets, in her hands, could become weapons sharper than steel.
That was when she saw him.
Father Lucien Croft.
Young, barely in his twenties. Dressed in a priest's black cassock that hung loose on his frame. Chestnut hair gleamed softly in the sunlight, and his green eyes shone with kindness, a scholar's calm, tinged with melancholy. He knelt among the children, distributing wafers with patient grace.
Eleanor's gaze sharpened. She remembered him from her past life—an unremarkable scribe within the Inquisition, known for his piety, his learning, his gentle reputation.
But she remembered more. Whispers. Faint rumors buried beneath the city's purge against "moral corruption." Rumors tied to this very priest. They had never been proven, yet she recalled how he never married, and how his closeness to a certain knight was remarked upon behind closed doors.
A daring, dangerous plan began to form in her mind.
She watched more carefully, more often. Noticed the pattern: certain evenings, under the pretense of solitary walks, Father Croft slipped behind the church, into the quiet grove near the old graveyard.
And tonight was one of those nights.
The sunset burned the sky red. Cloaked in dark gray, Eleanor melted into the deepening dusk. She hid among the thickets, breath steady, eyes gleaming like a hawk's from the shadows.
The wait was short.
Two figures approached.
Lucien Croft, dressed in simple clothes. His steps quick with nervous anticipation.
Beside him walked a tall, broad-shouldered man in a knight's plain attire. Golden hair caught the last glow of sunlight. Handsome, arrogant, his posture easy with the confidence of strength. Gabriel Thorne. Eleanor remembered him from her former life—a knight of decent skill but poor reputation, a fallen noble's son.
They spoke in low tones, too faint to catch.
Then Gabriel laughed, slinging an arm around Lucien's shoulders with a familiarity that was far from brotherly. Lucien stiffened, then softened, leaning back ever so slightly, a blush rising to his pale cheeks.
Gabriel bent close, whispering something against his ear. Lucien's eyes widened with shock. With fear.
"Gabriel, you can't… It's too dangerous!" His voice trembled.
"What's there to fear? No one comes here." Gabriel's voice was smooth, careless, his hand slipping lower along the priest's back. "Unless our holy Father is afraid that God Himself is watching?"
"No… I… but—" Lucien stammered, weakly pushing at him.
Gabriel lost patience. He shoved the priest against the rough bark of an oak tree, pressing close, forcing a kiss.
"Let me go! Gabriel, I said no!" Lucien's cry broke into a sob as he twisted his head away.
And in that moment, a voice cut through the dusk—cold, clear, precise, like a blade of ice.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
The two men froze as if struck by lightning.
Gabriel whirled, hand flying to his sword hilt. "Who's there?!"
Lucien turned as white as death, trembling like a leaf, his eyes wide with terror.
From the thicket, Eleanor Warren stepped into view. She pulled back her hood, revealing her pale face framed by hair braided into a flawless knot. Her gray eyes swept over them—calm, merciless, unblinking—as though she were examining objects, not men.
Her gaze fixed on Lucien Croft.
"Father Lucien Croft," she said, her voice quiet but carrying with unnatural weight, each word falling like a hammer onto the priest's fragile soul. "We need to talk. About the sin you nearly committed tonight. A sin that could strip you of your holy orders, even condemn you to the flames."
The shadows swallowed the last light of day. In the grove, the darkness grew heavy, alive with dread.
Lucien Croft stared at the girl who had stepped out of the shadows like a figure carved from ice, and the chill pierced him to his very core.
It was over.
The thought struck him like a bell.
And Eleanor Warren, watching the fear collapse in his green eyes, knew: her path of vengeance had begun.