Chapter 1

The diagnosis felt like a final, quiet period at the end of a long, exhausting sentence. Terminal illness. The doctors used softer words, of course, talking about clinical trials and palliative care, but I heard the truth in the silence between their carefully chosen phrases. I, Ava, the world' s only true prodigy in data analytics, was dying. My mind, a machine that could map the future in lines of code and probability, couldn't find a single path that didn't end in a hospital bed.

The irony was thick enough to choke on. My body was failing, a slow and steady system crash, because my mind had been running at an impossible overload for centuries. Not just this lifetime, but seven of them. A secret I carried alone, a burden etched not just in my soul, but physically on my chest.

The doorbell rang, a sharp, intrusive sound that my small, sterile apartment wasn't used to. I didn't need to check the security feed. I felt him. A cold drain, a familiar pull on my energy, even through the walls. Liam was here.

I opened the door, my hand trembling slightly on the knob.

There he stood, my ex-fiancé, Liam. He looked exactly as I knew he would, radiating success. His suit was tailored perfectly, his hair was styled just so, and his smile was the same one that graced the covers of tech magazines. He was a rising titan, the celebrated genius founder of our company, Innovatech.

But he wasn't alone.

Clinging to his arm was my stepsister, Chloe. Her hand rested possessively on his bicep, and her other hand was placed delicately on her slightly rounded stomach. She was pregnant. She looked up at Liam with pure adoration, then glanced at me, her eyes holding a flicker of triumphant pity.

"Ava," Liam said, his voice smooth and devoid of any real warmth. He didn't ask to come in. He never did.

"We came to tell you in person," he continued, his tone making it sound like a grand favor. "Chloe and I are getting married. Next month."

Chloe tightened her grip on his arm, a picture of happy domesticity. "We wanted you to be the first to know, sis. After all you and Liam have been through."

Her words were sweet, but the meaning was sour. It was a performance for Liam, a show of her supposed kindness. I knew her better.

Liam' s gaze swept over my frail form, my pale face, my too-large clothes hanging off my thin frame. There was no concern in his eyes, only a cold assessment. He was calculating, just as I had taught him.

"And another thing," he said, getting to the real point of his visit. "About Innovatech. I' m buying out your shares. It' s time we made a clean break. The board agrees. It' s what' s best for the company' s future."

He was cutting me out. Not just from his life, but from the company I had built from the ground up with my own intellect. He was erasing me.

What he didn' t know, what no one knew, was that he and I were bound. Not by love or loyalty, but by a seven-lifetime tech partnership. A master-servant contract forged six hundred years ago. For six centuries, I had been the silent, unseen engine behind his every success. In our first life, I helped him invent a new type of sail that made him a wealthy merchant. In the third, my understanding of crop rotation saved his feudal lands from famine. In this life, my data algorithms took his struggling startup and turned it into a global empire.

Each lifetime, the contract ensured his ventures thrived. Each lifetime, it drained me, leading to burnout, illness, and an early death. And each time, he rose higher on the ashes of my life.

This seventh life was the final cycle. The contract was clear. He could not terminate our partnership. Only I could. And if he tried to force me out, to sever the connection that fueled him, the entire contract would shatter.

Liam saw my illness as his final liberation. He believed my death would untether him, allowing his own supposed genius to soar to unimaginable heights and build a legacy that would last forever. He was a parasite, convinced he was the host. He thought my death was the last step to his ultimate victory. He was a fool.

For six hundred years, I had suffered. I had endured his ambition, his betrayals, his endless hunger for more. I had watched him take credit for my work, my genius, my very life force. I had been submissive, weakened by the contract' s drain, too tired to fight.

But not anymore. The doctor's diagnosis wasn't a death sentence. It was a deadline.

He wanted to cut me out. He wanted to marry my backstabbing stepsister. He wanted to take everything.

I looked at his arrogant face, at Chloe' s smug smile, and for the first time in centuries, I didn't feel the crushing weight of despair. A different energy surged through me, cold and sharp and clear.

Six hundred years was long enough. He thought he was closing the book on me. In reality, he had just given me the permission I needed to write the final chapter.

This time, I was ready to reclaim what was mine.