Darkness.
It was all there was—thick, endless, swallowing everything whole. I couldn't feel the ground beneath me. I couldn't even tell if I was breathing. The last thing I remembered was the sharp sting of metal tearing through my ribs, the wet warmth of blood soaking my clothes, and a stranger's shadow fading into the night.
Was I… dead?
No sound, no pain, no light—just the slow drift of nothing. Until a sound broke through.
Laetitia… witch… traitor… poison…
Whispers. Not from around me, but inside me, like echoes clawing at the edge of my skull. The darkness trembled, cracked, and then—
A sharp, icy breath tore through my lungs. My chest jerked. My eyes flew open.
Cold stone pressed into my knees. A strange weight forced my body to bow, though my pride screamed against it.
For a moment, I couldn't move. My head felt heavy, my body stiff, like I'd been locked inside someone else's skin. I blinked, trying to focus.
Tall, vaulted ceilings rose above me, gilded with intricate gold patterns that caught the light of flickering torches. Columns lined the grand hall. Shadows danced over richly dressed people seated on both sides, their eyes sharp and judging.
Before me stretched a dais, and on it sat a man cloaked in black robes, his expression carved from ice.
"What… where am I?" I whispered, but my voice came out too soft, melodious and too unfamiliar.
Whispers rippled through the court like the hiss of snakes.
"Lady Laetitia D'Aubigny," a herald's voice boomed, echoing through the chamber, "you stand accused of murdering Count Maugrot, by poison slipped into his wine!"
My mind blanked.
Poison? Murder?
I shook my head, but even that felt… off. The motion was lighter, weaker, as if my muscles no longer obeyed me the way they should. My vision caught on a stray lock of hair falling into my face—soft, black, and far longer than I remembered.
My heart lurched. Slowly, I raised a hand to brush it aside. The fingers that met my cheek were slender, elegant and pale, the skin impossibly smooth opposite on my a bit calloused hands from working when I was young. Jeweled rings I had never worn, delicate and ornate, circling each knuckle.
This wasn't right. This wasn't me.
My pulse quickened. My heart wasn't racing in my own chest—it was someone else's.
"What… what is this?" I whispered again, voice trembling as I stared on my hands and felt 'my body'.
The nobles murmured louder, some sneering, some covering their mouths in scandalized delight.
The man on the throne leaned forward, his cold gaze fixed on me. "You deny it still, Lady D'Aubigny?"
My eyes widen at his words. My heart race once more and my palm sweat. That name.
Laetitia D'Aubigny.
It slammed through my skull like a thunderclap. I knew that name. I'd read it—on the page of a novel I'd thrown across my living room not even an hour ago.
I could see—no, feel—the story etched into this body's very skin.
Laetitia D'Aubigny… youngest daughter of the House D'Aubigny, celebrated for her beauty and cunning. She was to be the crown's brightest jewel but became its most despised serpent. Framed for the king's slow poisoning and the reason citizens in the empire slowly dying in some unknown disease, she was dragged into court, her pleas drowned beneath whispers of betrayal. No one would believe her. No one would save her. And in the end… she would die, publicly, by fire.
The words weren't spoken aloud, but they rang inside my head, as if they had been written on a page I'd once read. And then more came—scenes forming as if painted in shifting light.
A girl with long, black hair cascading like a river at night, her eyes the color of dark wine, kneeling. Chains biting into her wrists. The jeering crowd. The pyre waiting under a grey sky. "She burned until her screams stopped," the line etched itself into my memory. "They called it justice."
My breath caught, my stomach twisting. This was not some stranger's life. This was the body I was in. This was her fate. My fate now.
I blinked hard, vision blurring as I looked down at my hands again—the hands that trembled under jeweled rings. The skin was smooth and cold, but I could feel her pulse in my veins, fast and terrified.
My stomach twisted. "This isn't real," I whispered, more to myself than anyone. Fuck. "It can't be real."
The guards beside me shifted, their armor clinking. I could feel their eyes on me—cold, waiting.
I glanced down. The gown I wore was deep crimson velvet embroidered with gold, heavy enough to drag me down. My hair—dark and soft, unfamiliar—fell over my shoulders. The air was thick with perfume and the faint smell of smoke. Everything felt too vivid, too real to be a dream.
The herald stepped forward again, unrolling a scroll. "By order of His Majesty's court, Lady Laetitia D'Aubigny is to stand trial for the crime of murdering Count Maugrot—her most trusted ally—through malicious deceit and witchcraft."
Witchcraft. Of course. Because apparently, I'd won the reincarnation lottery and the medieval justice system.
My lips parted before I could think. "I… I didn't do it," I stammered. "I swear I didn't—"
A sharp, mocking laugh sliced through my words.
"How convenient," a woman's voice drawled from the benches. "The snake denies the venom in her fangs."
My stomach turned. My heart hammered so hard it hurt.
Count Maugrot… I remembered that name from the book. He was one of the few nobles who'd supported Laetitia's rise but with hidden and sickening intentions—and his sudden death was the turning point. After that, she was branded a murderer, a witch, and within hours, burned at dawn.
Which meant… if I really was her now—then I was already living her final chapter.
Panic clawed at my chest, but I forced myself to breathe. One shaky inhale, one trembling exhale.
"Your Majesty," I said, my voice fragile but steady, "I didn't kill Count Maugrot. I don't even—" I hesitated. "I don't even remember being there when it happened."
The nobles whispered again.
The king's expression didn't shift. "You were seen sharing wine with him the night before his death. His servants testified. And a vial of nightshade was found among your belongings."
My throat tightened. This was exactly how it went in the book. The setup. The lies. The inevitable end.
Still, some small part of me—maybe the lawyer in me—refused to stay silent.
"If I truly killed him," I said slowly, choosing my words carefully, "why would I keep the vial? No killer keeps the weapon in their own room unless they're asking to be caught."
A few murmurs rose. One of the nobles tilted his head, intrigued despite himself.
The king's eyes narrowed. "You suggest you were framed?"
"Yes," I said, lifting my chin. My heart was beating so hard I could barely hear my own voice, but I forced it out. "Someone wanted him dead. Someone powerful enough to make sure I took the fall."
"Enough!" The noblewoman in red who had mocked me earlier stood, her fan snapping shut. "You expect us to believe you were framed? After all the whispers of your dealings with alchemists? You corrupted this court with your witchcraft!"
"If I had magic powerful enough to kill someone," I muttered, "I'd use it to vanish from here, not sit in chains."
A few gasps and muffled snorts rippled through the room. Even one of the guards near me coughed, trying to hide a laugh.
The King, however, remained silent—studying me like a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. His stare was heavy, sharp, but not entirely cruel.
The silence stretched. I could almost hear my own heartbeat.
Then, finally, he said, "You speak with reason, but no proof."
"I don't have proof," I admitted, my voice trembling now, "but I have the truth."
He leaned back, unimpressed. "The truth dies with the condemned."
Something inside me snapped. Maybe it was Laetitia's pride, or maybe it was my own frustration—the exhaustion of a woman who'd spent her whole life arguing against impossible odds.
"Then let me fight for it," I said. "Give me until dawn to find who really killed Count Maugrot. If I can't, then you can burn me yourself."
Gasps erupted from every corner of the court.
The king's brows furrowed. "You bargain for your life?"
I met his gaze. "I'm already about to die. I'd rather die trying to prove my innocence than let someone else's lie bury me."
He studied me for a long moment—his gray eyes unreadable, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Finally, he nodded once. "When the dawn bell tolls, if you have no evidence, you will meet your sentence at the pyre."
The hall buzzed with disbelief as the guards moved to drag me away.
As they pulled me down the corridor, my mind spun in chaos. My heart still raced with fear, but somewhere inside it—buried under the panic—was a flicker of determination.
I was scared, confused, and trapped in a story I'd only ever read. But if Laetitia had been wrongfully killed once, I wasn't going to let history repeat itself.
Not again.
The cold cell door slammed behind me, the echo rattling through the stone hall. I slumped against the wall, breath ragged, mind spinning.
"Okay…" I whispered to no one, voice cracking but steadying with every word. "Count Maugrot's murder. Framed noblewoman. Witch accusations. Execution at dawn."
I laughed weakly, the sound half hysteria, half disbelief. "Guess reincarnation doesn't come with a tutorial."
The torch outside flickered, throwing light across the name carved into the wooden beam above my cell: Laetitia D'Aubigny.
I stared at it for a long moment, my fists curling tight.
"You were innocent," I murmured, "I'll prove it. For both of us."
The bells tolled somewhere far above, faint but steady.
Dawn was coming.
And this time, Lady Laetitia D'Aubigny wouldn't die quietly.