The morning light crept through the shutters, and Violet opened her eyes with purpose.
Day twelve since the loop began. Calla visited three days ago. The poison hasn't accumulated yet.
She sat up slowly, deliberately making her movements look frail. The performance had to be perfect.
"Mama?" she called out, her voice thin and trembling. "I... I don't feel well."
Maria rushed in immediately, her face creased with worry. "What's wrong, Littlebird? Your chest again?"
Violet pressed a hand to her ribs and nodded weakly. "It hurts... but only a little."
Liar. I feel better than I ever have. The curse that rotted my mana circuits—it's dormant. The poison hasn't had time to work yet.
Maria helped her sit up, fetching water and fussing over her temperature. Garrett appeared in the doorway, his massive frame filling it like a concerned bear.
"She alright?" His gruff voice carried genuine worry.
"Just the usual," Maria sighed, stroking Violet's dyed-black hair. "Rest today, sweetheart. No playing outside."
"Yes, Mama," Violet whispered, making her lip quiver just slightly.
"Perfect!"
As soon as they left for their morning chores—Maria to prepare breakfast, Garrett to check his traps—Violet counted to one hundred, then slipped out of bed with the energy of someone who'd forgotten what it felt like to "not" be dying.
She pulled on her coat and the too-large boots Garrett had made her, then crept to the door. The cold morning air bit at her face, sharp and clean.
The forest had become her secret training ground.
She'd found a clearing deep enough that the sound of explosions wouldn't carry—or at least, she hoped. After the first fireball incident where she'd blown apart a dead tree, she'd learned to be more strategic about what she obliterated.
Violet stood in the center, her small hands raised, breath misting in the cold air.
She'd been cycling through every spell Mr. Raven had taught her in the Realm of Night. The White Raven had been patient, teaching her mana control while Luciel trained alone in the deeper caves.
"Luciel."
Her chest tightened at the memory—his cold red eyes, the way he'd let her go to save her life, the strand of her hair he'd kept.
"I'll find a way back to you. Once I'm strong enough. Once I've burned everything that needs burning, I'll come to help you too...
She shook her head, focusing.
(FLAME BREATH)
Fire erupted from her mouth in a controlled stream, melting a patch of snow into hissing steam. She held it for three seconds before cutting it off, panting slightly.
"Better. Last time I could only manage one second before coughing blood."
In her first life, the curse—the taint in her mana—had made every spell agony. Ice magic especially had caused internal bleeding, the cold conflicting with something in her blood.
But now...
She raised her hand, drawing the cold into her palm instead of heat.
( FLAME BLAST! )
A huge explosion of flame shook the ground below.
No blood. No pain. Just the pleasant tingle of mana flowing cleanly through her circuits.
Violet stared at her hand, flexing her fingers.
"I'm not sick," she whispered. "The medicine—Calla's poison—it hasn't had time to accumulate yet. And whatever curse I carry... it's dormant."
She looked at the frozen bush, then at her reflection in the ice.
Silver-white roots were showing beneath the black dye. Her eyes—violet, like amethysts—stared back at her.
"Nysera. That's my real name. The cursed blood. The name that will doom me."
But not yet.
Not if she could help it.
"Violet! Breakfast!"
She scrambled back through the forest, deliberately mussing her hair and smudging dirt on her cheeks. By the time she stumbled through the door, she'd perfected her weak, trembling entrance.
Maria took one look at her and frowned. "Did you get out of bed?"
"Only... only to use the outhouse, Mama," Violet said, making her voice breathy. "I got dizzy on the way back."
"You should have called me!" Maria scooped her up—Violet was still small enough to carry easily—and deposited her back in bed with the severity of a general deploying troops.
Garrett watched from where he was sharpening his knife, arms crossed. His eyes narrowed slightly.
"He's suspicious."
Violet gave him her most innocent, sickly smile.
He grunted and turned away, but she caught the faintest quirk of his mouth.
"He knows something's different. He just doesn't know what yet."
A week passed like this—mornings spent "resting," afternoons secretly training, evenings performing exhaustion.
Violet learned quickly which spells she could control and which still overwhelmed her small body. Fire came naturally. Ice was manageable in small bursts. Anything requiring sustained mana drain left her genuinely tired.
But she was getting stronger. Every day, a little more control. A little more power.
Then came the day she decided to test herself in public.
She wrapped herself in her oversized cloak and shuffled out to the village square, moving like someone half-dead. Several villagers glanced her way with that familiar mixture of pity and unease.
"They think I'm cursed. They think my white hair—even dyed—marks me as something wrong."
In her first life, that fear had kept her isolated. Alone.
Not this time.
She heard them before she saw them—children's laughter, high and bright.
Her heart clenched.
A snowball fight was in full swing near the well. She recognized them immediately: Hannes, the boy who would peer through her window; Tani, the little girl she'd saved from slave traders; Sam, the eldest who would die with her mother that night.
"They're alive. All of them. Still whole."
Hannes was currently being pelted by two other kids, laughing as he tried to retaliate.
Violet stood at the edge, watching. In her first life, she'd been too sick, too scared, too broken to play.
She bent down, scooped up a handful of snow, and packed it with the efficiency of someone who'd learned trajectory from hunting lessons and refined aim through desperation.
Then she hurled it directly into the back of Hannes's head.
THWACK!
He yelped, spinning around. "Who—"
His eyes landed on her—tiny, cloaked, looking like a particularly determined ghost.
"...Violet?"
She packed another snowball with methodical precision. "Yes?"
"You're... outside?"
"Apparently."
"But you're always—"
She threw the second snowball. It hit him square in the face.
The other children froze, staring at her like she'd just declared war.
Then Tani—sweet Tani with the gap-toothed smile—started laughing. "She got you good!"
Hannes wiped snow from his face, grinning slowly. "Oh, it's on!."
What followed was the most chaotic snowball fight Greyhollow had seen in years.
Violet moved like a tiny, vengeful winter spirit. Every throw landed. She used the fence for cover, predicted movements, organized the younger kids into a defensive line while she flanked from the side.
"How is she so fast?!" one boy yelled, diving behind a barrel.
"She fights like a soldier!" another shrieked, half in terror, half in delight.
Sam—twelve years old and usually the leader—stared at Violet with wide eyes. "Where did you learn to do that?"
Violet allowed herself a small, genuine smile. "My Papa taught me."
"In another life. Through death and memory and the weight of regret."
By the time Maria came looking for her, Violet was surrounded by a small army of children, all of them red-faced and breathless from laughing.
Maria stood at the edge of the square, mouth open.
Garrett appeared beside her, equally baffled.
"Is that..." Maria started.
"Our daughter," Garrett finished, watching as Violet directed three kids in a coordinated strike. "Making friends. And... winning?"
"She looks... energetic."
"She's running military maneuvers."
They watched as Violet—who that morning had been too "weak" to dress herself—executed a flanking strategy that resulted in four kids getting simultaneously buried in snow.
Garrett's expression was caught between pride and profound confusion. "Where did she learn that?"
Maria shook her head slowly. "Maybe... maybe she's been watching you hunt? Learning from that?"
"Maria, I don't hunt in formations."
That evening, Violet sat at dinner surrounded by new energy she couldn't quite hide.
"I made friends!" she announced, her smile genuine for the first time in weeks.
Maria blinked. "I... saw. That's wonderful, sweetheart."
"Hannes said I throw better than his older brother! And Tani wants me to come play tomorrow! And Sam said I'm really smart!"
"You certainly are," Garrett said slowly, cutting his meat. His eyes stayed on her. "Where'd you learn to aim like that?"
Violet didn't miss a beat. "I practiced! While resting! I imagined throwing things, and then when I tried, it worked!"
Maria and Garrett exchanged glances over her head.
"In your head," Maria repeated carefully.
"Mm-hmm!" Violet nodded enthusiastically, shoveling stew into her mouth like someone who'd forgotten what food tasted like without despair seasoning it.
Garrett leaned toward Maria, voice low. "Yesterday she could barely walk ten steps. Today she's organizing tactical strikes."
"Maybe the medicine is finally working?" Maria whispered back, hopeful.
"Or she's possessed."
"Garrett!"
"I'm serious. That wasn't normal child behavior. That was..." He gestured vaguely. "...strategy."
Violet, pretending not to hear, continued eating with the enthusiasm of someone making up for lost time—which, in a way, she was.
Maria sighed, patting Garrett's hand. "She's been isolated so long. Maybe this is just... her finally getting to be a child?"
Garrett grunted, unconvinced, but he didn't argue. He just watched his daughter with the expression of a man trying to solve a puzzle where the pieces kept changing shape.
That night, after Maria tucked her in and Garrett checked the door, Violet lay in bed staring at the rough wooden ceiling.
I did it. I made friends. Real friends.
She could still feel the phantom weight of chains on her wrists, still heard Velanor's voice whispering Nysera before the blade fell.
But now, layered over that darkness, were new memories—Hannes's surprised laugh, Tani's gap-toothed grin, the satisfying thwack of snow hitting its target.
I can have this. Friends. Power. A future where I'm not dying in a cell.
I just have to survive long enough to claim it.
Outside her window, she heard the soft hoot of an owl. In another world, Mr. Raven would be settling on a branch, keeping watch while Luciel trained in darkness.
"I'll find you again", she promised silently. *Both of you. Once I'm strong enough. Once I've destroyed everyone who tried to destroy me.
She closed her eyes.
For once, the nightmares stayed quiet.
And deep in the forest, a half-melted patch of snow marked where a seven-year-old girl had learned she could burn the world if she chose to.
She just had to decide which parts deserved the flame.