The sky was soft with ash the night they lit the queen on fire.
Smoke curled against the marble towers of the capital, staining gold with soot as nobles watched from their balconies—glasses raised, cloaks draped in imperial violet, eyes wide with curiosity but not horror. They'd always wanted her gone. Now they could watch it happen beautifully.
Lysara knelt in the center of the pyre, bound in ceremonial silks, hands blistering where the holy rope touched skin. Her crown had been stripped. Her name erased from the prayer rolls. Her magic locked behind cold-forged iron.
And yet—
She still looked like a queen.
Not even the fire, as it licked hungrily at the dry wood below, could unmake that.
"You are guilty," the High Priest intoned from the steps. "Of treason. Of blood magic. Of consorting with demons."
The crowd murmured approval. The priests raised their hands. The executioners readied their torches.
But she wasn't looking at them.
She was looking at him.
High above the courtyard, seated beneath a banner that still bore her crest, was the man who had once sworn to love her through death and darkness.
King Aeric.
Her husband.
Her executioner.
Their eyes met.
He didn't flinch.
Lysara had imagined this moment before—many times. But never like this. Never with such clarity.
She thought she'd scream. Curse him. Beg.
But instead, she laughed.
Soft. Bitter. Beautiful.
And the crowd, confused, leaned in to hear.
"You fool," she whispered, low enough that only the wind would carry it. "You think this is the end?"
The torch dropped.
The flames rose.
Pain ripped through her like lightning through bone. Her scream was raw—holy, even—as the fire kissed her lungs and licked the skin from her hands. There was no mercy in this death. No silence. No dignity.
And the last thing she saw before the fire swallowed her was Aeric's expression—unchanged, unmoved, unreadable.
And then—
Darkness.
It didn't last.
The dark shifted. Thickened. Turned from smoke to silence.
Something ancient stirred in the space between breaths. A voice without sound. A shape without form.
And she stood before it—not as queen or traitor, but as something small. Burned. Bare. Angry.
"You would change your fate?"
It was not a question. It was a bargain.
Lysara stood—whole again, no ropes, no fire, no blood—and faced the void. Her soul, or whatever was left of it, trembled.
"I would trade blood for power. Love for vengeance. I would trade my name, my body, my future."
"I would burn the world to do it," she said.
The voice smiled. She felt it like ice on her ribs.
"Then let it burn."
She woke choking on roses.
Not ash. Not fire.
Roses.
The scent clung to her skin, dizzying and sweet, and when she sat up, heart hammering in her chest, she realized she was no longer on the pyre.
No longer dying.
She was… young.
Her fingers were smooth. Her hair, longer. The mirror above the dressing table—yes, she knew this room—reflected a girl of twenty, not the queen who had ruled and bled and burned.
She staggered toward it, breath shallow.
The mirror did not lie.
White-blonde hair spilled in soft waves over bare shoulders, kissed by silver under the candlelight. Her skin was pale, flawless, flushed at the cheeks like morning frost catching pink dawn. Her eyes—Gods, her eyes—were the color of shattered emeralds, wild and impossibly bright.
The girl in the glass looked untouched.
Unbroken.
But Lysara knew better.
She raised her palm. Focused.
A single flame snapped to life on her fingertip—green, flickering, fierce.
"Good," she whispered. "You didn't take everything."
Her magic was still hers.
This was the palace of the southern court.
Her first journey to the capital.
The night of her introduction to the king.
A knock rattled the door.
"Lady Lysara?" came the soft voice of a servant. "The prince is waiting. He's requested your presence in the garden."
The prince. Not the king.
Aeric.
Not yet her husband. Not yet her traitor.
She stared at the door as a hundred emotions surged through her.
Fear. Fury. Confusion.
And beneath it all… something colder.
Opportunity.
This time, she thought, rising to her feet with iron in her spine, he will not burn me.
This time, I'll burn him first.