A figure stood in the dark. Silver robes. A glow soft as moonlight spilling off her like paint from some divine brush. She didn't look real—more like something you'd see on a cathedral ceiling. Pretty sure a passing cleric somewhere just dropped his holy book.
If this was a hallucination, my brain had a strange taste in comfort.
"So this is the afterlife?" My voice cracked like an old radio.
"You weren't meant to suffer," she said. No hesitation. No pity. Just a quiet, steady apology she must've rehearsed a thousand times.
I squinted. "Well… mission failed."
She didn't argue.
"Sora did," I muttered. "She was only eight. Still thought the world was kind. Thought I could fix everything. She died coughing into my shirt while Mom chased another high."
The goddess didn't look away. Didn't say It's not your fault. Just… listened. Which, somehow, stung worse.
"Where is this?" I asked. "It's not hell."
"You're in the Between," she said. "Between what was… and what could be."
So… limbo. Great. With better lighting.
"I'm Mi'dara," she added. "Goddess of Life."
Of course you are.
She stepped closer, her glow brushing over me like a sunrise I couldn't feel. "If given a new life… would you curse the world, or save it?"
I tilted my head. "Is that the first question people get when they die?"
She didn't smile. Just nodded. Guess it was on the death questionnaire.
"I'm not offering justice," she said. "Not revenge. Just a second breath. You might find her again. Or something else. But you'll have a chance."
I looked down. My hands weren't there. Maybe they never were. Just guilt pretending to be skin.
"I just want to try again," I said. "Even if it burns me."
She placed her hand on my chest. Warmth… then fire. A pulse tore through me, deep and familiar, like something waking inside my bones.
"Then wake," she whispered. "And see what blooms from ruin."
[Reborn]
Crying. Mine.
Sharp, wet, and high-pitched. The kind of sound you want to punch—except, you know… you can't punch a baby. Especially if you are the baby.
I tried to breathe, speak, move—nothing. My limbs were too light. Too small. My body wasn't mine.
Light stabbed my eyes when I opened them. Blinding. Voices hummed nearby. Gentle, flowing… but warped.
The words didn't sound like English. They didn't sound like anything I knew."Vera'sel tohren… sedra vahl," a soft female voice murmured, her tone warm despite the strange syllables.Another voice answered, low and sharp, "Drav'san… kel moris."
Hands lifted me. Soft, careful. A chest pressed close, words rumbling against my ear like an unfamiliar lullaby. The voice belonged to a woman—pale skin, chestnut hair tucked under a cap, eyes like grey glass. She looked… tired. But when she brushed her cheek against mine, the sound in her throat made me want to stop fighting. Her warmth felt like safety.
Then—another voice. Deeper. Colder.
A man stepped into view. Broad shoulders under dark armor. Salt-and-iron hair. Steel eyes that didn't blink. His voice was clipped, edged with frost."Korven drah," he said, the strange words cutting like they belonged to a verdict.
The woman flinched. I didn't know the meaning, but I knew the feeling: disappointment.
Cold slid through me—not from him. From memory. A dim room. My mother's wasted face. Sora's small body curled into her side. The sound of coughing. Then nothing.
I twisted weakly and saw it—my reflection in a brass basin across the room. A pink, wrinkled thing swaddled in cloth, flailing uselessly.
It was a baby.It was me.
Great. Reincarnated. And this time, no refunds.
[The Elf]
The door creaked. A new voice entered—higher, lighter, the syllables sharper but flowing like water over stone."Shal'ven rui sa'thel," she said.
The woman holding me turned toward her, replying in the same language, though hers was heavier, less musical. The tension eased slightly. She shifted me in her arms and passed me over.
The elf's skin was pale as ivory. Hair like spun moonlight. Ears—long, pointed, unmistakable. She studied me with eyes the color of a winter sky. Something flickered there.
She whispered to me, almost like a secret: "Vel'sari." The way she said it, slow and deliberate, made the hairs on my nonexistent baby neck want to stand up.
Then she pressed something smooth and glassy to my chest. It pulsed once. Then dulled.
Her expression changed. I knew that look. It was the look people wore when the doctor told them, There's nothing we can do.
More whispers. More strange music I couldn't understand. Then they left me with the ceiling.
[One Month Later]
Thirty days. That's how long I've been stuck in this glorified flesh prison. Thirty days of crying on instinct, sleeping because my brain runs out of battery, and spying on adults who think babies can't understand them.
Spoiler: we can. We're just too drooly to do anything about it.
The words around me are starting to make sense. Not all of them—but enough. I've caught whispers they don't want me to hear. Words like mana. spirit core. voidborn.
My name here is Lucian Valenhart. Once, that name meant something. A noble house—wealthy, powerful, blessed by some ancient flame spirit. Now? Just another dusty crest on a wall no one visits.
I'm the third-born. And in this family… third-borns die. Every single one, for four generations. Sick. Magicless. Cursed. The staff doesn't bother hiding it—they expect me to follow the pattern.
Father—Lord Edric Valenhart—makes sure I feel it. A man carved out of winter. Cold steel eyes. A voice like a slammed door. He doesn't yell. Doesn't scold. Just looks at me like I'm a tax he's legally required to pay.
Mother—Lady Seraphine—is different. Beautiful, in the way statues are beautiful. Silver-blonde hair, eyes that used to shine but now carry too much weight. She tries to hold me sometimes, like she wants to remember how. Once, I even caught her smiling—before she looked away.
They both loved once. I can see it in the cracks. But House Valenhart has been bleeding for years, and there's not much left to give a child they think won't survive.
Marius, my brother—dead at seven.Anneliese, my sister—married off at ten to a noble who collects rings like trophies.Roderic, the golden heir—off at the Arcanum Academy, far away from the "curse."
That's my inheritance. A dying house. A father who looks at me like I'm already gone. A mother who doesn't know whether to grieve now or later.
But I've been dead before. I know how that story ends.
If there's magic here, if there's even a spark of power I can steal, earn, or fake, I'll take it.
Because this time? I'm not going quietly.