The world was cold.
Not the biting chill of winter or the familiar sting of ice magic.
No — this cold was different. Heavier. It pressed in from all sides, like walls closing in. A dull, suffocating stillness that seeped into her skin and settled in her bones like rot.
A bed. A window.
The quiet drip of a distant icicle melting somewhere beyond the glass.
Elodie Cecilia opened her eyes.
And screamed.
But no sound came out.
Her mouth was open, her chest heaving, but only silence answered her. A scream lodged in her throat — stuck somewhere between disbelief and terror. Her body shot upright in bed, every muscle locking into place like they remembered pain before her mind could catch up. Her heart pounded like a war drum against her ribs, wild and frantic.
Her fingers seized the silk blanket over her legs, bunching it in her fists like a lifeline. Her breath came in desperate gasps, sharp and ragged, like she had clawed her way up from drowning.
No — not like she had. She had drowned. Slowly. Quietly. Inside her own body.
Poisoned. Paralyzed. Forgotten.
Her last memory surfaced, ugly and bitter — the other Elodie standing beside her, a vision of perfection, while the second prince held her hand. Gently. Lovingly.
Elle's hand.
It should've been hers.
It was hers.
Once.
Now it belonged to a stranger with her name, her face, her stolen life.
And yet…
Her gaze jerked around the room, disoriented and frantic. The ivory canopy above. The pale blue curtains, caught in a gentle morning breeze. The scent — lilac and snowmint — clinging to the air like memory. There, across the room, her battered old desk stood exactly where she remembered, still stacked with books she had poured over with trembling hope. Elemental Theory: The Five Affinities. Channeling Mana with Noble Precision. Magical Etiquette for Highborn Ladies.
Books she had studied in vain.
Once, they were her hope — each page a promise that maybe, maybe tomorrow her magic would awaken.
Then, they became reminders. Of what she lacked. Of what she would never be.
And now…
Elle pressed her hand against her chest. Her heart beat so loudly she thought it might shatter through her ribs.
"I'm alive," she whispered. Her voice cracked, dry and trembling. "This is… this is my room." Her eyes scanned every detail again, slower this time. "Before…"
Before the letters came.
Before her brothers marched to war.
Before her father was disgraced and imprisoned.
Before her mother collapsed in the garden and never rose again.
Before the prince gave his heart — her prince — to another.
Before her uncle smiled at her funeral and called it justice.
Elle stood, legs wobbling beneath her like half-set ice. She reached for the nearest bedpost, gripping it tight. Her balance was gone, her knees buckling. Everything about her body felt foreign — lighter, smaller, younger.
She stumbled toward the armoire, where a tall mirror waited.
And then she saw her.
That face — pale, almost translucent, with long, snow-white hair cascading past narrow shoulders. Storm-colored eyes stared back, wide with disbelief. Her cheeks were flushed from fear, her lips parted, her body trembling.
Elle stared at her reflection.
She looked… soft. Small. Fragile.
She hated it.
Because that was who she had been.
A porcelain doll in a glass castle. Unused. Powerless. Easy to replace.
Her chest tightened.
Her hands pressed against the mirror's frame, as if anchoring her to reality.
"No," she said, barely above a breath. "Not again."
The tears came hot and fast. Her shoulders trembled with the weight of memory. Of grief. Of rage.
"I won't let it happen again."
She let the tears fall. Not because she was weak. But because she remembered. Because even now, her body still bore echoes of death — the stillness, the helplessness, the silence.
Her voice… it was softer than she remembered. Higher. But her resolve was steel.
She had gone back.
She didn't know how — whether by miracle or curse, divine intervention or sheer hatred refusing to die — but she was here. Before the poison. Before the betrayal.
Before they took everything.
"Father. Mother. Elijah. Eleazar…"
Their names left her lips like a prayer. Like a promise.
She had no magic. Not yet. But she had something better.
Time.
And she would use every breath of it to change what was coming.
She looked again at the girl in the mirror — the one the world had dismissed. The magicless Cecilia. The embarrassment of the family. The fiancée who was only ever a placeholder.
She clenched her fists.
"I'll stop it," she swore, each word trembling with fury. "Even if I have to crawl through the underworld. Even if I have to carve magic from stone. I will wield it. I will protect this family. I will destroy Benjamin."
Her uncle. The man who had orchestrated their ruin with a smile on his face and poison in his words.
The man who brought a girl into their home — a perfect puppet with her name and her blood and none of her soul.
He had smiled as he lied. As he watched her mother fade. As he sent her brothers to their deaths. As he stole everything she was and gave it to the imposter.
And Elle had done nothing.
She'd trusted. Hoped. Waited.
Never again.
Elle wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, her movements steady now. Her expression hardened — the way ice forms over still water, beautiful and deadly.
Her storm-colored eyes held no pity now.
Only resolve.
"I'll become the monster they should have feared," she whispered.
Let them call her cold. Let them whisper that she had changed. Let them look into her eyes and shiver.
She would be the storm they never saw coming.
She exhaled slowly, steadying her breath.
"From now on…" Her voice didn't tremble. It rang quiet and clear, like steel unsheathing in a silent room. "I won't be their pity."
She touched her reflection once more — not with sorrow, but with determination.
"I'll be their reckoning."
And in that moment, something stirred in her veins — something faint, like the ghost of frost crawling over glass.
Not enough to be called magic. Not yet.
But it was coming.
It would come.
Because Elodie Cecilia had returned.
And this time, she wouldn't die quietly.
She would rise.
And the world would shatter beneath her feet.