15 July, 2025
Duskbane Estate,
Lumira's POV
A month had passed since I awoke inside Lumira's body, and what had once felt like wearing another's skin had become second nature. The weight of unfamiliar bones, the echo of another heartbeat had faded. Now, I moved with a borrowed grace that felt eerily my own.
The Council had called my return from death a miracle. The people whispered of fate, but beneath their reverent silence, I carried a truth only I could feel - the soul inside this body was a tapestry woven from two lives. And every morning, when I caught my reflection, I wondered which of them was winning.
The first weeks had been chaos. Magic pulsed in my veins, wild and untamed, humming beneath my skin like a living storm. At times, it surged without warning, spilling from my palms in torrents I could barely restrain.
Other days, it hid from me altogether, as though testing my resolve. It was not wholly mine, nor entirely Lumira's. It was something born of both - a fragile, volatile balance between two souls learning to share one breath.
But what unsettled me most wasn't the magic, it was the instinct.
Spells I'd never studied came to me as if remembered from another lifetime. Words slipped from my lips in moments of focus, and my body responded as though guided by invisible strings. Sigils formed under my fingertips with elegant precision. It was as if Lumira's essence had sunk deep into my marrow, whispering to me—teaching me, urging me, and reminding me that this borrowed life carried expectations I could not afford to betray.
I had expected surveillance, suspicion, and the cold eyes of those who doubted my resurrection. Yet the Council held true to their word, and silence reigned. No one who had watched the burial dared to speak of my return. No gossip found its way to my grandmother's ears.
My only constant visitor was Sera. The bright, sharp-tongued angel, whose laughter filled Duskbane's hollow halls like morning sunlight through stained glass. She brought whispers from the market, letters from classmates, and wild plans for the new term at Aetherion Academy. Together, we imagined the future - two girls standing tall among noble heirs, carrying secrets the world could not yet name.
But patience had never been my virtue. August felt too far away. My destiny, I decided, would not start with the opening of Aetherion's gates. It would start now.
In the evening, after Sera went home, I approached the hidden vault concealed behind the far wall of my chamber. As I placed my palm on the wall, a sigil-carved key pulsed warmly on the back of my palm, recognizing me as its rightful bearer.
With a low hum, the door dissolved its wards and swung open, exhaling a breath of air thick with ancient dust and enchantment.
Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, lined with relics, sealed scrolls, and treasures that glowed faintly under the magic-lamps' flicker.
The air shimmered with power. Jewels sparkled from open caskets, blades hummed softly in their scabbards, and manuscripts whispered in languages the world had long forgotten, causing my pulse to quicken. The real Lumira had hidden her legacy well. Decoy collections were displayed in the estate's open archives to mislead intruders, but this vault was where her true inheritance was banked.
I smiled faintly, admiration softening my features.
"Clever woman," I murmured. "You trusted no one - not even yourself."
At the center of the vault rested ten heirlooms on dark velvet pedestals. Each one pulsed faintly, alive with restrained energy, the distilled essence of the Duskbane bloodline. My hand hovered above them, drawn by a quiet, magnetic pull.
I chose first a necklace: a silver chain with a moonstone pendant, its glow cool and serene. As I clasped it around my neck, the stone warmed, sinking into my skin until it felt like part of me. The storm inside me stilled. My magic, once wild and unanchored, aligned at last. The pendant had bound my spirit to the Duskbane bloodline.
Next, I reached for a wand carved from winter-white wood. Its surface shimmered faintly with frostlight, and veins of soft color danced beneath it like northern auroras. Legend said it was carved from the winter branch of the World Tree, whose boughs bore all four seasons. The wand's power was ancient, patient, and proud. It did not bend - it waited to be earned.
When my fingers closed around it, the vault seemed to exhale, acknowledging its mistress. I placed the wand reverently into my subspace ring and resealed the vault. The wards reignited, humming with contented finality.
By the time I returned to my balcony, the sun had begun to dip beyond the hills. The gardens below shimmered gold and green. Cicadas sang in the hedges, and the air was thick with the fragrance of roses.
Then I saw it, a single purple Midnight Rose rested upon the stone railing.
My breath caught, as I approached it slowly, fingertips trembling. The bloom was flawless, freshly cut, its petals still cool with dew. The shade was deep - richer than amethyst, darker than wine, glowing faintly in the dying light.
It wasn't the first.
Every evening since my rebirth in this new world, a purple rose would appear there. There were no footsteps, no creak of door or window, nor traces of intrusion in the estate. Only the flower, always left in silence - as though the night itself were my secret courier.
I should have been cautious, a witch of my bloodline had no business entertaining such mysteries. Yet each time, I found myself taking the flower inside, placing it in a vase upon my vanity. And each time I did, a strange warmth stirred in my chest - a longing I didn't recognize, something both familiar and forbidden.
That night, fatigue crept into my limbs. The moon hung high, the pendant's faint glow rising and falling with my steady breath. The roses watched from the vanity as I drifted into sleep.
-----
Hours later,
Stranger's POV
The chamber was mine, swallowed by a profound silence as the shadows deepened, absorbing all light and sound.
And from the farthest corner of the balcony, where the protective moonlight could not reach, I stepped forward.
I moved like mist, a practiced art of silence and deliberation, my long cloak trailing through the silver gloom. My hood was drawn low, concealing most of my face, but I knew my eyes - eyes like molten garnet - burned beneath the fabric, restless and full of forbidden intensity.
I paused at the threshold. The air shifted around me, responding to my very presence. My gaze fell upon the vase on her vanity.
It had a vase of purple roses... my roses.
Each bloom carefully arranged in a vase of pure crystal, none discarded, none withered. A dizzying mixture of surprise, relief, and searing pain flashed through me.
"She kept them."
For a man who had long expected, and enforced, indifference in his own life, the sight struck me like a sharp blade. She had not thrown them away. She had treasured them.
My breath hitched as my gaze drifted to the bed.
She lay there, soft in the moonlight, her silver hair spilling across the pillow like spilled starlight. The light kissed her face, tracing the delicate curve of her lips. Her beauty struck me anew - gentle yet devastating, a memory I had failed to unlearn for decades.
I took a step closer, my gloved hand hovering above her cheek. I shouldn't. I knew the risks. One touch, one moment of weakness, could undo the fragile peace I had built - the secrecy, the distance, and the iron-willed restraint. But restraint was agony. My hand trembled, betraying the immense effort it took to hold back.
Then, inevitably, it fell, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. The softness beneath my fingertips seared through the leather, burning itself, like a fresh brand, into my memory.
Her lashes fluttered, but she did not wake. I stood there, drinking her in, memorizing every line of her face, every soft shadow. My chest ached, filled with something I refused to name, refusing to give it the power of a word.
Desire, longing, or perhaps something far crueler - the kind of consuming love that had ruined men greater than me.
Outside, the quick, unsuspecting footsteps of a maid sounded in the corridor.
I froze, as the fragile spell shattered.
With one lingering and desperate last look - one that promised a reckoning - I turned and vanished into the night. The balcony door closed softly behind me, the heavy scent of the Midnight Roses lingering in the air like a silent accusation.
Moments later, I felt the slight shift in pressure as the maid entered to attend to the fireplace. Lumira stirred in her sleep, sighing faintly as the wind stirred the curtains.
On the vanity, the Midnight Roses glowed faintly under the moonlight, a silent confession; a promise written in petals and shadow that my return was not yet complete.