The execution grounds were quiet.
Thick clouds hung low over the city, muffling the sound of weeping and protest from the gathering crowd. In the center of the square, a platform stood tall—and on it, the last of the Vale family knelt.
Seraphina Vale.
Her wrists were bound, and her once elegant robes were tattered and stained with soot. Her long, pinkish-purple hair fell over her face as she looked at the ground. She wasn't crying. She had cried all night in her cell until no tears were left. Now, all she had was a bone-deep silence and a strange calm that came with knowing the end.
They had called her father a monster. A poisoner. A traitor.
The poison he created had killed the Crown Prince.
And for that, the entire Vale family had been sentenced to death—guilty by association, by silence, by blood.
She had begged, screamed, and fought. But it hadn't mattered. No one believed a girl trained in poisons could be innocent.
She lifted her eyes to the sky.
If only I had known... she thought. If only I could go back...
The headsman raised his sword.
The last thing she saw was the steel reflecting the gray sky.
Seraphina woke with a gasp.
The scent of herbs, old parchment, and sunlight hit her nose all at once. Her heart pounded as she sat up, eyes wide, hands trembling.
She was in a bed. A soft one. Not stone. Not a prison.
There was no pain in her neck. No burning rope around her wrists. Her body was... younger.
She scrambled out of bed and ran to the mirror.Her face was clean as it was used to be,she was wearing cloths whom she wore two days before the poision incident. Freckles untouched by sorrow. Eyes still full of life.
"No way... this can't be real."
She turned toward the window. Outside, the sun poured over the familiar courtyard of the Vale estate—the home that had burned to ash in her memories.
She was back.
Somehow... impossibly... she had returned to the past.
A laugh escaped her lips, then turned into a choked sob.
"This time... I'll do things differently."
This time, she would uncover the truth.
This time, she wouldn't let her family die.
And this time, the one who ruined them all would pay.
Seraphina Vale had returned—and this time, the poison would be hers to wield.