In my previous life, they called it a necessary sacrifice.
Three nobles dead. One missing artifact. And a kingdom that needed someone to blame.
The Heart of Flame—a relic sealed in the royal vault for generations—vanished the night before Prince Caelum's coming-of-age ceremony.
Lord Halreth, Duke of Vassel, was found murdered in his estate. So were two of his allies: the Minister of Coin and the Captain of the Inner Guard.
I was there that night. I had been sent to the Vassel estate for court etiquette training. Wrong place. Wrong bloodline. Convenient scapegoat.
The evidence? Magic residue on the vault sigils. Traces that resembled my affinity. No one asked why I, a seventeen-year-old girl, would want to steal a volatile relic or kill three men twice my age.
They just needed an answer.
They said: "Make it Elira."
The investigation was swift. Neat. Silent.
I was summoned, questioned, paraded. Then forgotten.
They told the public justice had been served. Behind closed doors, no one looked at the facts.
Caelum didn't speak for me. Maybe he thought silence would save me. Maybe he thought I wasn't worth the noise.
In this life, I remember every step of that corridor. The chains. The sentence. The burn of betrayal worse than the flames.
I don't hate him for killing me. I hate him because in one life, he watched me burn—and in this one, he still did nothing.