Chapter 1

The last thing I remembered from that life was the cold. It was a damp, seeping cold that clung to the stone walls of the dungeon, to my thin prison rags, and to the very marrow of my bones. General David, the man I had once loved, stood over me, his face a mask of fury. His boot connected with my ribs, and a sharp, cracking sound echoed in the small cell. Pain flared through me, white-hot and blinding, but I refused to scream.

"She killed herself because of you," he snarled, his voice a low growl of hatred. "Bethany is dead because you couldn't keep your jealousy in check. You drove her to it, you worthless woman."

Bethany. My personal maid. The one who had whispered sweet nothings to him in the dark, who had worn my clothes and sat in my chair. The one who, upon being discovered, had thrown herself from the highest tower, leaving me to face his wrath alone. Her suicide was her final, brilliant move, a masterstroke of manipulation that painted me as a monster and sealed my fate.

He kicked me again. I tasted blood, metallic and thick in my mouth. My body was a ruin, broken and discarded. He had stripped me of my title, my family' s honor, and my life. As my vision faded to black, his final words were a curse that followed me into the abyss. "You will rot in here, and no one will ever remember your name."

Then, I opened my eyes.

I was in a lavishly decorated dressing room, surrounded by white silk and fresh flowers. My reflection stared back from a gilded mirror-a young woman in a stunning wedding gown, her face glowing with happiness. My face. Amelia.

The memory of the cold stone and the crushing pain was so vivid, so real, that I instinctively touched my ribs, expecting to feel the broken bones. There was nothing. I was whole. I was alive. And today was my wedding day.

A wave of nausea washed over me as the pieces clicked into place. I had been reborn. I had come back to the beginning, to the very day the first thread of my destruction was woven.

My fiancé was David, no longer a brutal general but a charismatic tech CEO, the darling of the corporate world. And my maid of honor, the woman who was at this very moment supposed to be helping me with my veil, was Bethany.

The door to the dressing room creaked open, but it wasn' t Bethany. It was my loyal assistant, Clara, her face pale with worry.

"Amelia," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "I... I don't know how to tell you this."

I turned from the mirror, my expression calm. I already knew. The foreknowledge from my past life settled over me not as a burden, but as a shield.

"Tell me, Clara."

"I just saw Bethany... with David. In the garden conservatory. She was... she was holding onto him, crying. He was stroking her hair. It didn't look right."

Clara looked at me, expecting tears, or anger, or a desperate rush to confront them. She saw none of it. In my past life, I would have run, heart pounding, to demand an explanation. I would have created a scene, played right into their hands, giving Bethany the perfect stage to perform her victimhood.

Not this time.

"Is that so?" I said, my voice even.

Clara' s eyes widened in confusion. "Amelia? Did you hear me? Bethany is trying to seduce your fiancé. On your wedding night."

"I heard you," I replied, turning back to the mirror. I began to unfasten the tiny pearl buttons on the back of the magnificent gown. My movements were slow, deliberate. "Let them."

"What? What do you mean, 'let them'? You have to stop them! You have to go out there and expose her!" Clara was frantic, her loyalty and concern making her agitated. She couldn't understand my stillness. She couldn't see the ghosts I saw.

I paused, my hands resting on the silk. I looked at my reflection, but I saw the broken woman in the dungeon. I felt the phantom ache in my bones, heard the echo of David' s cruel accusations. I remembered the years of torment, the slow, agonizing death in the dark, all because Bethany had played the part of a fragile, wronged woman, and I had reacted with predictable, naive emotion.

Her suicide. His rage. My ruin. It all started with a scene just like this one. A bride betrayed, a "friend" in tears, a man caught in the middle. It was their opening act.

"Clara," I said, my voice low and firm, "in their story, I am the villain. The jealous, cruel woman who drives the sweet, innocent girl to despair. If I go out there now, I prove them right. I give them the power."

I looked at her reflection in the mirror, my eyes holding hers.

"This time, I will not play my part. I will walk off the stage."

The memory of the cold flooded me again, a chilling reminder of the price of failure. I felt David's boot against my side, I heard Bethany' s name invoked like a prayer as he destroyed me. The pain was a part of me, a fire that had been banked but never extinguished. It was the fuel for what I had to do next.

I would not fight them on their terms. I would not give them the satisfaction of a public confrontation. I would simply disappear, leaving them in the beautiful, empty stage they had set for my humiliation. Their victory would be hollow, and my real war would be fought on a battlefield of my own choosing.