The rain fell like quiet mourning on the ruins of House Velmira.
Once, its banners had flown high—blue silk embroidered with a silver phoenix, the mark of rebirth and pride. Now, they lay soaked in mud and ash, trampled under the boots of soldiers who carried the royal seal. The proud halls were reduced to rubble, and the stone estate that had stood for centuries crumbled beneath the weight of betrayal.
Milena watched it all burn.
Her eyes—violet like the twilight sky—held no tears, only confusion. She was ten. Too young to understand treason, too old to pretend the screams weren't real. Her mother's lullabies still echoed faintly in her memory, but the melody was silenced by the clash of swords and the roar of fire.
They said House Velmira had plotted against the crown.
They said her father was a traitor.
They said she—Milena Velmira—should never have been born.
But the truth was never spoken.
As she was dragged through the ruins by a cloaked figure—her nanny, whispering prayers beneath her breath—Milena saw the golden crest of the royal family gleam in the torchlight. Not the symbol of justice, but the mark of the ones who destroyed her family, erased their name from history, and made her a ghost before her life had truly begun.
That night, the executioner's blade didn't find her. Fate did.
Hidden in a village far from the capital, she lived nameless and silent for three more years—until sickness took her body and darkness took her mind.
But death wasn't the end.
She woke again to the sound of crying.
A baby's wail filled the stone chamber, followed by hushed voices and the warm scent of blood and lavender. Her limbs were weak, her thoughts a blur, but something inside her pulsed with sharp clarity.
She remembered. Everything.
The fire. The lies. The betrayal.
The fall of House Velmira.
And now—rebirth.
"She's just a girl," a midwife whispered. "Poor thing. Born into that forgotten family… cursed with nothing but dust."
Milena opened her eyes.
She was no longer Milena Velmira, the orphan girl who watched her world burn.
She was Milena… born again into the same bloodline the world had tried to erase.
The noble family erased from the books still lived, in whispers, in bones, in her.
And this time, she would not be forgotten.