REBORN AS THE VILLAINESS- THIS TIME, I WIN

The screams echoed down the marble halls, but no one came to save her.

Thalia knelt at the center of the grand throne room, her once-gleaming gown now tattered and soaked in blood-none of it hers. Her wrists were bound. Her pride had already been broken.

Above her, the queen sat unshaken, her hands resting delicately on the arms of the throne. Beside her, Prince Alaric stood motionless, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond Thalia's trembling figure. Cold. Empty. Gone.

"By decree of the Crown," the queen's voice rang out, smooth as glass and just as sharp, "Thalia Melbourne is hereby sentenced to death for high treason, conspiracy, and attempted regicide."

The crowd gasped, but no one spoke up. Not a single voice rose in her defense.

Not even his.

Thalia's heart fractured in silence. She searched Alaric's face one last time. The boy she had loved. The man she had protected. Her last, unbroken hope. But his eyes didn't meet hers. They never would again.

He believes them.

He thinks I betrayed him.

They had won.

The queen. Her uncle. The entire court that whispered poison into the prince's ear.

They had twisted her loyalty into treachery, her warnings into lies, her love into something shameful.

A blade was drawn.

She did not plead. She did not cry.

She lifted her chin.

"If there is a god who sees all," she whispered, "let them hear this: I did not betray him."

And then, softer:

"Give me time again... and I will burn every name behind this lie to ash."

The sword came down.

And everything went dark.

But death was not the end.

She awoke with a scream.

Silk sheets tangled around her limbs. The ceiling above was familiar-soft blue, cracked slightly in the corner. Her room. Her old room. The scent of lavender and parchment filled the air. Her heart pounded like thunder in her chest.

She was alive.

Not just alive-returned.

She scrambled to the mirror. A young face stared back. Unlined. Untouched. The face of a girl who had not yet been ruined.

This is before it happened... before the engagement... before the lies...

She gripped the edges of the vanity, eyes wide with disbelief and fire.

The gods had heard her. Or the universe had pitied her.

It doesn't matter.

Because now she had time. Now she had memory. And now she had purpose.

They had rewritten her into a villains once.

This time, she would write the ending herself.

And this time?

She would win.