Prologue – Leonel's POV
Blood has a scent. Metallic. Heavy. Impossible to forget.
I had tried, gods know I had tried. But every night I woke to the memory of it—warm blood soaking through my fingers as I held him.
Eryndor Vale.
The world called him a villain. A snake. A cursed shadow. But to me, he was my heart. He was the only man who had looked at me as Leonel, not as the Crown Prince.
And they killed him for it.
I remember his last breath, his lips moving in broken words I couldn't catch. I remember the heroes raising their swords like saviors while his body went limp in my arms. I remember the smell of smoke when they burned his family alive, the sound of nobles laughing at his ashes.
I had everything—armies, power, a throne waiting for me—and yet I was powerless to save him.
So I begged. On my knees, I begged the gods. One more chance. Just one. I'll do anything. Take my crown, my life, my soul, if you must. Just give him back to me.
And when I opened my eyes… the throne room was gone.
I stood in front of a mirror. My reflection was young again, seventeen years old, unmarked by grief. My hands weren't stained with blood. My crown hadn't yet touched my head.
Ten years. The world had given me ten years back.
When I saw him again—Eryndor, alive and breathing—the ground beneath me shook. But his eyes were wrong. No longer warm, no longer careless. They were sharp, cold, knowing.
That was when the truth struck me.
I wasn't the only one who had been reborn.
Chapter One – Eryndor's POV
The Villain Returns
The sound of fire chased me even in death.
I heard the crackle of flames, the screams of my family, the clash of steel. My lover's arms around me, his tears hot against my cheek. My own blood running cold as the world called me monster.
I gasped awake.
But there was no fire. No smoke. No throne room filled with corpses. Only sunlight spilling through ivory curtains, painting golden stripes across polished cedar floors.
My bed. My chamber.
My hands trembled as I raised them. Smaller. Smoother. No scars.
The mirror confirmed it—the face staring back was mine, but not the one that died. My jaw was still sharp, but my cheeks had the softness of youth. My hair was untouched by ash. My eyes… no, those had not changed. They were haunted, far too old for seventeen.
A laugh clawed out of me, bitter and cracked. "So this is fate's joke?"
I had been dragged back. Ten years earlier.
The memories hit like a storm. Betrayal. My so-called friends turning away. The nobles cheering as fire swallowed my home. The blade piercing my chest while Leonel—my Leonel—held me, powerless to stop it.
My chest tightened until I could hardly breathe. I pressed a hand against the mirror, my reflection glaring back.
"They called me villain…" I whispered, teeth gritted. "Then let me show them a villain worth fearing."
For the first time in my second life, I smiled. A cruel, steady smile.
The door creaked.
My heart stuttered. Too soon. Too early.
"Eryndor."
The voice froze me.
Leonel Aradale. The Crown Prince. The boy who would one day be king, the man who had once held my broken body as I bled out.
He stood in the doorway, dressed in simple training robes, sunlight catching in his golden hair. His blue eyes locked on mine—eyes that had once looked at me with love and sorrow, now too sharp for a seventeen-year-old prince.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
"Y-Your Highness," I managed, forcing my voice steady.
He stepped closer. "You look pale." His gaze swept over me, lingering too long, too careful. "Did you dream of something unpleasant?"
I stared at him. The way he looked at me… not like a childhood friend, not like a prince greeting a noble's son. No, it was deeper. Protective. Possessive.
My fists curled at my sides. Why does he look at me as if he knows?
"I've had nightmares before," I said lightly, hiding the storm in my chest.
But Leonel's eyes didn't waver. They burned into me, as if daring me to admit the truth.
A silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating.
And in that silence, one dangerous thought refused to leave my mind.
Had he been reborn too?