Flames roared around her, devouring the world in gold and crimson.
Smoke clawed at her lungs as the heat kissed her skin, blistering, burning — yet she didn't scream. She had screamed too many times before.
The crowd below shouted her name, voices dripping with hatred.
"Witch!"
"Monster!"
"Burn her before she curses us again!"
Bound to the stake, Seraphina raised her head. Her vision blurred through the waves of heat — but she saw him.
He stood apart from the mob. Tall. Cold. Beautiful in a way that hurt. His eyes, silver like moonlight, glowed with something far crueler than anger — sorrow.
Lucian Draven.
Her lover.
Her executioner.
The ropes tightened as the flames licked higher. She tried to reach him one last time — but her voice was lost in the fire's roar. He didn't move. Not even when she whispered his name through the smoke.
When her body turned to ash, his expression never changed. Only the faintest flicker crossed his gaze — the shadow of regret.
And then… nothing.
---
Seraphina gasped awake.
The room was cold. The scent of smoke still lingered in her lungs as if she'd carried it from the dream itself. Sweat drenched her skin, sticking to the thin linen sheets.
Her trembling hand pressed to her throat — the skin there felt unburned, smooth, alive.
Alive.
Her heart thudded painfully. She was alive again.
"Fifth time," she whispered. Her voice cracked. "This is the fifth life."
The same nightmare — no, the same death — had followed her through every reincarnation. Every lifetime ended the same way: burned alive by the man she once loved.
Lucian.
The name itself was poison.
She rose from the bed and crossed to the mirror. Pale skin, gray eyes, hair black as ink — a face reborn into a world she had tried so hard to escape. Outside, dawn crept through the windows, painting light across the walls of her chamber.
The world hadn't changed. The same castle towers in the distance, the same silver banners of the Draven Empire. The curse hadn't broken.
Her breath trembled. "Why do you still find me?"
Her reflection didn't answer — but behind her, the mirror rippled faintly, like a ripple in water. A whisper slid through the air, soft as silk.
> "Because your souls are bound by sin."
Seraphina froze. The voice was ancient — one she remembered from the night of her first death. The gods had called it a punishment of eternal love.
Love?
No.
It was torment.
She turned, but the room was empty again. The whisper was gone. Only her heartbeat filled the silence.
She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, feeling it thump wildly beneath her ribs.
"Not this time," she said softly. "Not again."
Her fear hardened into steel.
If the curse had followed her through death and rebirth, then so be it. She would find Lucian again — and end it. One way or another.
This time, she wouldn't be the one who burned.
> This time, I'll kill you first, Lucian Draven.