She clung to the front of his navy breast coat, hands trembling, knees buckling beneath her as she sunk down to the cracked cobblestone. A black envelope with a red seal was crumbled in his gloved hand. Her extravagant red silk dress billowed out around her like the blood of a slaughtered lamb, rain pouring down in merciless sheets. Her head bowed low, short auburn tresses tangling and plastering themselves around her face, as he stood above her. The vice commander to the man she had once vowed eternity to, now covered in soot like a burnt offering.
A mirthless laugh ripped itself from her throat, "I loved him! I would have done anything for him!" He scoffed, scorn painting his face, rain pooling in puddles across the desolate courtyard. "Traitor. You never loved him," he said, voice low, almost tender in its cruelty. "You loved power. You loved nothing — not even yourself." His chest heaved, the faintest twist of his lips relaying disgust and pity, his visage obstructed from her. And then, with a push that was more symbolic than forceful, he shoved her away. She fell backward, palms scraping against the slick cobblestone as the courtyard drowned in rain.
Behind them both, their shadows swallowed by the pitch black of the night, the gilded estate she once shared with her husband burned in the middle of the night — a cage of glass and gold folding in on itself like a void. Steam arose once the rain met the embers as servants ran with buckets of water and partygoers fled the scene, the mud slicking the cobblestone like freshly spilled blood. It was too late for them to clench the fires thirst.
For a moment, she could only stare at him through the haze; as he held his fists by his side with the posture of a soldier. A scowl twisted his lips, concealing his red rimmed eyes as he snarled, "Marquess Celosia is dead. So is your marriage. So is this place, now being conquered". He turned to look behind himself briefly, the bloodcurdling sound of screams covered by the collapsing of stone. As her palms burned from the scrapes, her stomach curdled, and she vomited until her throat felt like it would cramp. The fire raged, the noise of swords nearing them, and the hooves of stallions slamming into the cobble like the closing of a book
Then came the ash. It fell like snow, gray and soft, catching in her lashes as the world tilted. Her chest ached; the air trembled. "Why come here, then?" she challenged, her voice cracking despite the tempest swirling inside her, a flash of silver catching her vision behind him. "If this is all you wanted now — to control me with a name, a contract, a vow — then you've already lost. My heart has been torn in two by this country and now that man!" He straightened, the harsh lines of his face softening for a fraction of a second before a shadow flitted across his face, his mouth opening. She struggled to her feet and just as he began to speak once more, a horrifying sound emerged, a sword scraping against stone. She froze, a hulking figure covered in layers of steel approaching the two too close for comfort and nearly soundless. The vice commander turned, the figure upon them as she struggled to her feet, and as he moved to unsheathe his blade the figure raised his own and moved to behead the vice commander. In moments, the vice commander pushed her away once more as metal met metal, a flash of red spraying out across the mud. She reached out toward him — and the sky cracked open.
A flash of white swallowed everything and the pain tore her body apart.
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She awoke to birdsong.
For a long time, she did not move. Her body ached as though she'd been dragged through fire yet the air was cool and crisp. The scent wasn't smoke but roses.
Roses.
Sunlight filtered through the embroidered lace curtains. A faint breeze stirred the gauzy blue canopy of her bed — her bed, she realized with dawning confusion. The carved mahogany posts, the ivory sheets, the crack on the corner she'd always meant to have replaced after her brother's failed attempt at sword practice.
This was her room.
But it couldn't be.
She sat up abruptly, a hand rising to her cheek, a scream of agony tearing itself from her lips. She was alive. She was here. And yet, she had already died once.
She trembled swinging her legs off the bed and staring at her hands. They were clean. No soot, no blood, no tremor. The red silk gown was gone; in its place, she wore a pale nightdress — one she'd torn at the hem years ago when she accidentally embroidered a handkerchief to her knee.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Miss Seraphina?" A familiar voice, tentative. "Are you alright? I've brought you tea."
Her throat closed. They hadn't called her Lady. "Elara?" she whispered, reaching a hand towards the door and leaning forward unbeknownst to the edge of the bed. Her body fell and she slammed into the ground, a heavy thud echoing in the silence of the room.
The door was thrown open, and there stood her maid — cheeks flushed, barely twenty, a tea tray laying in pieces on the ground. The same as she'd been fiive years ago, before the rebellion, before the letter, before she died.
Elara's eyes widened nervously as she rushed over. "Are you unwell, milady? You look as though you've seen a ghost." Elara fretted and with a trembling hand, helped to drag the Miss to her feet.
Seraphina nearly laughed, her body withering from the sudden sharp pain of the cherry wood floor. She was the ghost and yet the pain told her this was not a delusion as she grasped the nearby white ledge of her makeup vanity. Behind her, Elara wrung her hands. "I apologize Miss for not asking for permission to touch you but upon seeing you on the ground I feared for your health."
Half listening, her head spinning from shock and the pain of a recent loss, her gaze darted to the top of the vanities mirror face. A gilded invitation bejeweled in tiny pink diamond flowers was stuck into a crack on the side, the date etched nearly in the corner: Summer Gala, Month of the Dawn, Year 517.
Her breath caught. That was the night—the night the clock had begun to turn without her notice.
Five years before the estate burned.
She straightened her back slowly, Elara cleaning up the mess of teacups shattered in her hurry near the door, gripping the edge of the vanity to steady herself as the world tilted under the weight of realization.
Somehow, impossibly, she was back.
The past stared back at her through the mirror with a slightly younger face, smooth and untouched by struggles and yet inside, she burned with a grief that remained in her bones.
Outside, the bells of the capital began to ring, bright and oblivious to the storm brewing in her heart. Every chime felt like a countdown, a challenge to undo, change, or reclaim the time she had lost. The city beyond the windows shimmered in golden afternoon light, unaware that one of its daughters carried the memory of fire, betrayal, and love that had already cost her everything.
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