Chapter 2 Blood in the Snow

The snow was no longer white.

When Seraphyne Vellaren opened her eyes, the scent of ash and iron clawed its way into her lungs.

Smoke drifted over the stillness, curling in gentle whorls above the stone pines. Beneath her snow, disturbed and rusted red. Her head throbbed like a drum beaten by ghosts.

She lay curled where the gods had abandoned her, the frigid hush pierced only by the breathless whisper of wind. The sky, once cobalt, now bled a bruised hue. For a long moment, Seraphyne did not remember who she was.

Then came the blood.

Not just what coated her hands, smeared along her silk wedding cloak, or dried into the roots of her hair. But the memory of it, of screams that splintered the moonlight, of steel driven through flesh, of betrayal spoken in whispers and sealed with a kiss.

Her wedding. Her death. A blade in her back. Her mother's scream. Her father's blood. The cold.

She gasped, and the air tasted different. The pain, the numbness, the stinging cold, none of it was as it had been. She blinked. The glade was quiet. The snow still. There were no bodies. No fire. No scent of burning silk or charred flesh.

Confusion gripped her. Her heart thundered. Where...?

She shot upright, her hands trembling. Her ribs ached, but her body obeyed. Her breath misted in the air. Her gown intact. Her hair pinned up as it had been days before her wedding. She spun in place, panic rising like bile.

"No..." she whispered.

She was in the garden behind the Vellaren manor. The same one she used to escape into when lessons became unbearable. The hawthorn tree had yet to bloom.

She sprinted inside.

"Lady Seraphyne!" a maid gasped as she rushed past.

She ignored them. Her feet flew across the polished stone, faster than thought. She needed to see them. All of them. Prove to herself that they were here. That the massacre had not happened. That she wasn't insane.

"Mother? she called, skidding to a halt before her mother's receiving room.

The door creaked open.

Lady Alarisse turned. Regal, serene, alive. "Sera? What is it, darling?"

Seraphyne's vision swam. She ran to her, arms tightening around her mother's waist. Lady

Alarisse stiffened, startled.

"My heavens. What's happened?"

"I....I thought....." Seraphyne couldn't speak. Tears slid down her cheeks.

Her mother's hand cupped her face. "You're trembling. Did you dream again?"

Seraphyne laughed, a sound cracked and wet. A dream. That's what they would all think. But she knew better.

Next: her father.

She found Lord Aldric in the practice yard, barking orders to the younger guards. His sword arm was strong, his voice filled with authority.

He was whole. Intact. Not torn apart by blades.

She stood frozen at the threshold.

He noticed her. "Sera? Come. I want to see if you've improved."

She ran to him and flung her arms around his middle.

He chuckled, confused but affectionate. "What's gotten into you, girl?"

She buried her face into his chest. "You're alive."

He stilled. "Of course I am."

She found Aerlyn next, in the sunroom, practicing calligraphy. The girl looked up, blinking in surprise.

"Sera, you're flushed. Did you run a mile?"

Seraphyne dropped to her knees and hugged her younger sister.

"You're crushing the paper," Aerlyn muttered, but she didn't pull away.

Last, Caleon.

He was in the war room with General Rhaes, studying maps. He raised a brow as she burst in.

"Sera.......what the hell?"

She launched herself into his arms.

"Oof. What's gotten into you?"

"You're all alive," she whispered, clinging to him.

He stiffened, then pushed her back gently, brow furrowed. "You're acting strange."

"I thought I lost you."

"You didn't."

No, not this time.

That evening, she sat in her chambers staring into the mirror. Her face stared back-unscarred, young. Seventeen.

Her engagement to Prince Rael Valen Solmyn was to be announced next year. The massacre would occur five years later.

Unless she stopped it.

She gripped the edge of her vanity.

She'd died. And come back. The gods had given her another chance.

This time, she would not be caught unprepared. No more naiveté. No more trust in smiles laced with poison.

She would rewrite the ending.

And burn every traitor along the way.

That night, she sat by candlelight in the study attached to her quarters. A blank journal lay open before her. Her hand hesitated, then began to write.

Goals Before the Wedding:

1. Break the engagement to Prince Rael Solmyn.

2. Protect Caleon.

3. Expose Uncle Varek's treason.

4. Identify secret allies and enemies.

5. Avoid the palace massacre.

6. Change the game.

She paused, staring at the ink-stained list.

Each name burned in her memory. Isandra, her cunning cousin. Uncle Varek. The merchant traitors.

The guards who had turned. And Rael Solmyn, the charming prince who had smiled as her blood spilled at his feet.

She'd loved him once.

Never again.

She turned to the next page.

The Timeline: What Happened Then

• Midwinter: Engagement finalized.

• Early Spring: Secret raids on the northern border begin.

• Late Spring: Uncle Varek secretly allies with Solmyn.

• Midsummer: Kaelith Virelius begins visiting the Vellaren estate.

• Autumn: The massacre.

Her hand slowed.

Kaelith.

The War Prince. Strategist. The cold-eyed shadow who'd watched from afar as empires played at peace.

He'd been a mystery in her past life, and yet he'd been the one to give her a soldier's burial.

He had knelt beside her body in the snow and whispered, "They will pay for this."

She had never understood why.

But now she would.

This time, she would get closer.

A week passed in careful quiet.

She began testing her knowledge-predicting the words of a visiting diplomat before they spoke them, "guessing" trade news before it arrived. She dropped subtle warnings to servants and watched how the future shifted in small, uncertain ways.

It was working.

The future was not fixed. Her presence here mattered.

Her mother noticed the change.

"You speak like a woman twice your age," she said, brushing a curl behind Seraphyne's ear one morning. "It's as if the snow has changed you."

"It has," Seraphyne replied softly. "I see things clearer now."

Her mother smiled, bemused. "Then keep your eyes open, my clever girl."

But not everyone was oblivious.

At a gathering of noble daughters, Isandra Vellaren arrived late, as usual, dressed in cream and gold with a coy smile.

"My dear cousin," she purred. "You've been quiet of late. I thought perhaps you'd fallen into a book and forgotten how to speak."

Seraphyne smiled. "Just planning."

"Planning?"

"For the future."

"Isandra tilted her head. "Do tell."

"I plan to win."

The laughter of the girls quieted.

Isandra's smile twitched. "At what, cousin?"

Seraphyne's gaze was cool. "Survival."

Isandra blinked. Then she laughed again. "What a strange answer."

But her eyes no longer gleamed with amusement.

The first major test came on the ninth day.

Uncle Varek arrived at court with gifts from a distant trade ally. In her past life, she had accepted the gesture blindly. This time, she examined the crate personally.

"Have this box opened in private," she whispered to her chamberlain.

Inside, concealed beneath layers of silk and spice, was a message inscribed in a cipher she recognized-a mark of Solmyn's kingdom.

Proof.

She didn't act yet. It was too soon. But she documented it, sealed it away, and began building the case.

She would bring down Uncle Varek not with rumors, but with undeniable truth.

On the twelfth day, a visitor arrived at the Vellaren estate.

Prince Kaelith Virelius.

Not yet crown prince, but already a force of nature. Dressed in battle-toned robes of black and silver, with short dark hair and unreadable silver eyes.

He offered a polite bow. "Lady Seraphyne."

"Your Highness," she greeted smoothly.

Their eyes met.

A chill raced down her spine.

This man...this man would change everything.

And perhaps... he already had.

He studied her a beat too long. "You seem different from the girl I met last spring."

"I've grown."

"Rapidly."

"Tragedy does that."

His brow lifted. "What tragedy?"

Seraphyne smiled. "The death of illusions."

His gaze sharpened.

They said no more.

But the air between them had shifted.

Later that night, she stood in the snow-laced courtyard once more.

She knelt by the fountain and whispered her vow again, this time aloud:

"Let them come. Let them try. I will not fall again."

The wind carried her words like a battle cry.

And far above, cloaked by frost and stars, the phoenix of her house flared anew.