The carriage jolts violently, and I nearly bite my tongue as the wheel hits a rut. Across from me, Lady Sorelda clicks her tongue in disgust—not at the road, but at me.
"Keep your knees closed," she snaps. "You look like a stray pulled from a gutter."
I sit opposite her and her daughter, Clarisse, dressed in borrowed gray. The fabric is so thin the night wind stings through it. They wear silk and velvet, warm and painted. I wear shame.
This is their punishment.
I'm being paraded to the Queen's Memorial Ball, a gathering to weep for the woman they murdered—me—while using my new face as a public mockery.
How poetic.
How Solvanian.
Bellhurst Manor gleams like a temple built to lies. Lanterns bob through the mist. Music swells from within. A towering portrait of Queen Delmira—my old self—hangs over the arched entrance. I feel her painted eyes watching me as we pass.
Inside, I am shoved through golden halls filled with powdered nobles and familiar vipers.
Clarisse twirls, beaming. "I'll dance with Lord Arven before midnight, you'll see."
Sorelda only sneers. "Don't embarrass us, Elira. Stand by the wall. Keep your mouth shut. If you faint, faint quietly."
I nod once.
Not because I obey.
Because I remember.
The ballroom blooms with glass chandeliers, laughter, and false grief.
I stand near the marble pillar, unnoticed—until I'm not.
Lady Marienne D'Authier approaches, flanked by wives who once kissed my cheeks and whispered secrets into my hair. Now they tilt their heads toward my new form and giggle behind pearl-studded fans.
"Isn't it just... sad?" Marienne sighs dramatically. "They say the queen burned with rage in her last breath. So theatrical. One might think she believed she still mattered."
Laughter.
"Honestly," Lady Lysandra murmurs, "she was always too soft. Letting commoners speak. Walking among soldiers. She got what she invited."
I lower my gaze and say nothing.
But I hear everything.
I remember everything.
Not just the betrayal.
The way I once defended them in court. Fought for their husbands. Fed their children.
Now I listen to the scraps they toss in memory of the woman they called sister. They mourn me like they mourn an inconvenience.
Pain Conversion: 6%
Emotional stress processed. System remains dormant.
The number pulses behind my eyes, a cold counter of how much more I must endure before I gain anything at all.
A trumpet blares.
The crowd parts.
He enters.
King Kaelen of Solvane.
My husband. My executioner.
Draped in mourning black, crown like a blade, his every step a war drum in my ears.
He walks toward the portrait of his late wife. My portrait.
The silence is thunderous.
He does not look at me.
At first.
Then, as though pulled by a thread, his gaze flicks sideways. Rests on me.
The breath lodges in my throat.
It lasts two heartbeats.
Three.
Then he moves on.
Just like he did that day, when he signed the writ of execution and ordered the flames lit beneath my feet.
Pain Conversion: 12%
Emotional trauma confirmed. System dormant.
I could scream. Tear his eyes out. Expose everything.
But my body is weak. My power is sealed. My time is not yet.
Later, when the toasts begin, they speak of me in golden words lacquered with lies.
"She was noble to the end," says the Duke of Corven.
"A tragic necessity," murmurs a priest. "The flames cleansed her. Her soul rests now."
Every word peels something off my soul. I'm raw. Open. And yet I must stay silent. Their truth has weight. Mine would only sound mad.
And he—Kaelen—sits beneath my painted face like he owns its memory.
I cannot kill him.
Not today.
But someday, I'll see the recognition in his eyes, and it will gut him.
After the final dance, Sorelda corners me in the moonlit corridor.
"You stared at the King," she hisses. "You're lucky no one noticed."
She slaps me. Hard. My head rings. The pain is sharp, but familiar. Expected.
It's the emptiness that follows that bleeds deepest.
"I'll not have you ruin us," she says, "even if you came from this family's cursed womb."
I watch her storm away.
And I don't cry.
Not anymore.
I sink to the edge of the stone fountain in the courtyard, arms wrapped around myself. The sky above me is a cold wound.
Pain Conversion: 16%
No skill unlocked. No blessing. No strength. Just suffering.
Good.
Let it build. Let it stack like bone on bone.
Because when I reach 100%...
The first thing I'll burn is that damned portrait.
And the second...
Will be him.