THE FIRST LIFE – WHERE EVERYTHING WENT TO HELL
In the Solarian Empire, there were four siblings who had everything and deserved none of it.
Eliana "Lia" Javier, youngest and only daughter, was a masterpiece of imperial spoilage. At eighteen, she had never known a "no" that lasted more than five minutes—not from her doting uncle the Emperor, and certainly not from her three brilliant, exasperated brothers. Marcus, the eldest at 29, could strategize an empire's economy but couldn't make his sister stop throwing tantrums. Kaelen, 25, commanded the Imperial Knights but couldn't command her to behave. Rhys, 23, managed the treasury but couldn't manage her spending.
They were orphans, all of them. Their parents—the beloved Duke and Duchess of the Northern Fortress—had died to monsters when Lia was two. The Emperor, their father's cousin, brought them to the capital and spoiled them rotten. Especially Lia. Especially the girl who reminded him of the daughter he never had.
THE BAD DECISIONS
Lia saw Duke Alistair of Wykenight at a ball when she was eighteen. He was 21, handsome, and looked at her with the same expression one might give a particularly noisy insect. She decided she was in love.
The Emperor, seeing a chance to tie the powerful western fortress dukedom to his crumbling northern one—and maybe, just maybe, make Lia grow up—arranged the marriage. Nobody asked Alistair. Nobody cared that Wykenight hated the Javier siblings on principle—they were everything wrong with nobility: born to duty, fleeing to comfort, abandoning their people to suffer in a frozen hell while they played courtier.
The wedding was magnificent. The marriage was a tomb.
Alistair consummated it for legitimacy, then he went back to West. Lia, rejected, became worse. More spiteful. More vicious. The brothers, already cold, became glaciers.
THE EXILE
A year later…
When the North's acting commander finally begged the throne—"Send one of the blood heirs or we all die"—the brothers saw their chance. In a private council, they voted. Three hands raised to send Lia.
The Emperor objected. Marcus said, "You left this to us, Uncle. Honor the decision."
They sent their spoiled sister to rule a fortress on the brink of collapse. Alistair didn't even come to see her off. Why would he? She was just the spoiled brat shackled to him by imperial decree.
THE THREE-YEAR NIGHTMARE
The North wasn't a dukedom. It was a corpse.
The lands were cursed—seasons didn't turn right, crops withered with "Void Rot," and monsters bred in the corrupted magic. Lia cried for the first month. Then she stopped. There was no one to hear her.
In year two, she started trying. Really trying. She learned to hold a sword. She learned which villages could be saved and which couldn't. She stopped being "Lia the Spoiled" and became... something else. Something harder.
In year three, the golem horde came.
She wrote one letter. A tactical report. Not a plea. She listed their defenses (minimal), their supplies (none), their chances (zero). She sent it to the capital. To her brothers. To her husband.
No one replied.
THE FIRST DEATHS
Lia died on the wall at dawn, her sword broken, her soldiers dead around her. Her last thought: "I hope I was a better leader. Sister. Daughter. Perhaps... a wife."
The news killed the Emperor. Grief is a poison, and he drank it deep.
The brothers—Marcus, Kaelen, Rhys—resigned. They went north to reclaim what they had thrown away. They were brilliant men in a place that valued only survival. Marcus died in an ambush he should have foreseen. Kaelen died holding a line with perfect, useless formations. Rhys ran out of clever plans and then ran out of time.
Their last thoughts were variations of: "I should have been a better brother."
Alistair of Wykenight received the news with silence. No one knew what he felt. No one cared to ask.
THE SECOND LIFE – WHERE THEY SCREWED IT UP AGAIN
They were born screaming into a modern world, memories intact.
Same faces. Same trauma. New names, new parents—high-ranking officials in the Global Security Directorate (GSD). At age four, the nightmares came and never left.
Eliana would wake tasting frozen blood.
Marcus would calculate fortification weaknesses in his sleep.
Kaelen would practice sword forms no one had used in eight centuries.
Rhys would design trebuchets in his math notebook.
They acted like typical, chaotic siblings. Cursed at each other. Troublemaker teenagers. Splendid adults.
But they never spoke of it. Never of the North. Never of the wall. Never of their deaths.
They became what they knew: warriors.
Marcus joined intelligence—cold, observant, a ghost in the machine.
Kaelen joined the army—a brilliant, terrifying commander who enjoyed combat too much.
Rhys joined special forces R&D—a mad scientist with a security clearance.
Eliana joined black ops—a sniper who never missed, emotionally or physically.
They were exceptional. They were broken. The gap between them was a canyon filled with everything unsaid.
At their parents' funeral (plane crash—how original), they stood like strangers.
"Take care," Marcus said.
"You too," Eliana replied, not meeting his eyes.
Kaelen nodded. Rhys studied his shoes.
THE SECOND DEATHS (SERIOUSLY?)
They died a week later in separate, statistically impossible plane crashes. The universe had a cheap sense of symmetry.
As the cabins tore apart, they each thought the same thing: "We should have talked. We could have fixed this."
Too late. Again.
THE COSMIC WAITING ROOM – WHERE THEY MET THE SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS.
Two shimmering entities floated before them. They looked like annoyed IT administrators.
The siblings were confused, standing in the white room facing these unfamiliar beings.
"Pathetic," said Entity A.
"Spectacularly incompetent," agreed Entity B. "Two lives. Two chances. You failed the family dynamic so hard it's creating metaphysical lag."
"I have a question," Marcus interrupted, his analytical mind cutting through the shock. "Does this mean we all had recollection of our past lives?"
"That's right, you idiots," said B, the light pulsing with irritation. "All four of you. The whole time. And none of you said a damned word."
"Your regret is clogging the system," said A. "We're sending you back. With tools. Because you clearly need them."
"A System," said B. "HUD. Party chat. Inventory. The works. Think of it as training wheels for basic human connection."
"You're going back to the time Eliana's on her way to the North," said A. "Maybe this time use your brains, you smart idiots."
"One rule," B's light flickered dangerously. "USE THE DAMN CHAT FUNCTION. Or we're deleting your save files. Permanently."
THE THIRD AND LAST CHANCE
Eliana woke to the smell of her own expensive perfume and the sway of a prison carriage.
Silk gown. Cold seeping through the windows. The certain knowledge she was being shipped to her death.
Memories crashed in—the wall, the snow, the silence, the planes, the glowing assholes.
[SYSTEM: ONLINE]
[USER: ELIANA JAVIER – CONFIRMED]
[PARTY LINK: ESTABLISHING...]
[LOCATION: IMPERIAL ROAD, EN ROUTE TO TELEPORT TEMPLE]
[ADMINS NOTE: DON'T FUCK THIS UP.]
The psychic channel exploded.
MARCUS: Lia?!
KAELEN: I'm coming to get you—
RHYS: If we commandeer gryphons from the royal mews we could—
Eliana leaned back. She could feel their panic, their guilt, their stupid, desperate love vibrating through the link. Centuries of silence, broken by cosmic IT guys who were sick of their drama.
She opened the line.
"Can you all shut the fuck up?"
Silence.
"I'm in the carriage. On schedule. Don't intercept. It's a waste of resources."
She felt their protest like a physical pressure.
"Follow me after you patch up your work there."
A pause. A lifetime of unsaid words hung in the psychic static.
"And boys?" Her mental voice was as dry as a desert and as sharp as broken glass. "This time? Try not to be such cowardly bastards."
Outside, the snow began to fall.
Inside her mind, three men who had died twice for their failures began to move.
For the first time in three lifetimes, they had a party chat. And a chance.
[PRIMARY QUEST ACCEPTED: SAVE THE NORTH. SAVE EACH OTHER.]
[BONUS OBJECTIVE: MAYBE DON'T BE TERRIBLE PEOPLE THIS TIME.]
[FAILURE CONDITION: COSMIC DELETION.]
The carriage rattled on toward the teleport temple. Toward the North. Toward the beginning of the end.
Or maybe, just maybe, toward a different ending this time.