Moments later,
Behind the garden of the Duskbane Estate,
Rina's POV
The blackness shattered like a violent wrenching tear.
My mind surfaced into crushing suffocating pressure. The air was thin. It smelled of cloying sweet lilies. It smelled of sharp, wet, decaying soil.
A desolate high-pitched wail scraped against the inside of my skull. It came from just inches outside, filled of raw grief, which fully snapped me awake.
'Oh no, I am trapped...'
Panic flared - It was a cold, brutal instinct - as I thrashed. My hands struck a smooth cold surface above my head. The horrifying truth then slammed into me: I was sealed inside a narrow velvet-lined box.
A coffin.
I screamed, but the sound died. The pressure choked me. I brought my shoulder up, with a desperate surge of adrenaline. I hit the lid.
The old wood groaned, as a sliver of gray light appeared. It was a lifeline. With one final agonizing heave, I burst free. The lid ripped away. White lilies and wood splinters cascaded down onto my face.
I scrambled out. I half-climbed and half-falling from the polished satin-lined hell.
The world was a blinding chaos of white marble and solemn black silk. I was in a cemetery garden. A silent expensive grief surrounded me. A small group of figures, dressed in formal black, stood frozen around an empty hole in the ground - the hole meant for the box I had just vacated.
The wailing stopped instantly, as a deathly, absolute hush fell. Every head turned slowly, uniformly, to face the filthy figure emerging from the grave.
I stood amidst the lilies. My white burial gown was smeared with dark, wet soil. I was panting, fighting for breath. My heart hammered against my ribs.
A tall man in the distance whispered one chilling word:
"Ghost."
Before the fear could fully register, a blur of rustling black silk surged toward me. It was the elderly woman whose despair had woken me. She crashed into me, holding me in a fierce, desperate, and bone-crushing embrace.
"My Lumira," she sobbed. She buried her face in my tangled, fine hair. "You're alive, you're truly alive!"
Lumira? The name felt wrong, I am Rina Vale.
But as the woman held me, a confusing flood of fragmented memories washed over my mind.
Memories of unstable power... memories of noble contempt... memories of a self-inflicted death. They weren't mine, but they were here, anchoring me to this impossible lie.
"A mirror," I rasped.
The voice that emerged was reedy. It was unfamiliar. It trembled with someone else's fragility.
"Now! I need a mirror!"
The old woman - whom my incoming memories identified her as Lumira's Grandmother - pulled back instantly. Before she could speak, a man in a crisp butler's uniform, Mr. Finch, appeared. He held a small, silver-backed hand mirror.
I snatched it. My hands shook so violently I could barely focus the reflection. But when I did, the breath locked in my chest.
It was not my face.
It was impossibly beautiful. It was pale and heart-shaped. Wide, bright eyes possessed a striking crystalline purple ring. The hair - a shocking, chaotic mess of white-blonde - framed the face of the tragic villainess.
Lumira Duskbane... the witch who was supposed to be dead.
I didn't scream this time. My soul did, and the mirror clattered to the dirt.
"No," I whispered. The devastation was absolute. "This can't be real. I'm Rina. I am not her."
My grandmother pulled me into a secure, comforting hug.
"My dear, it's the trauma. You are safe now, and you are home."
But I knew the truth, I was inside the story. I was inhabiting the body of the girl the author had failed to save. The clock hadn't been reset. The tragedy had just found its new, but almost willing, protagonist.
The funeral was a pathetic sham with a handful of relatives from the collateral family branch, a few freeloaders and a reporter. Aside from the staff and Grandmother, only two faces from the novel mattered: Beta Mason Hale and Seraphina Angelis.
Mason, the broad-shouldered Beta, stood tall, genuine relief battling deep-seated shame in his eyes. Seraphina, the soft, "chubby angel," was weeping honest messy tears beside him.
Mr. Finch approached them after escorting the other guests out. His face was a granite mask.
"Master Hale, Miss Seraphina. Thank you for attending. You must take your leave... unless you wish to accompany our mistress."
Mason stepped forward. His gaze locked on me, relief making him hesitant.
"Lumira, I am truly sorry for all that happened on the roof."
"I-it's okay," I stammered, hating the weakness in Lumira's voice.
"No, it's not okay," Mason insisted. His eyes were dark with rage.
"Most of our class isn't here because they're at Alpha Jaxon's wedding party. It's starting now. They are truly terrible people." He spoke through clenched teeth.
"If I wasn't the best man and absolutely required to deliver the ring, I would have been here earlier, honoring your sacrifice." He glanced at his wrist. "The wedding party starts precisely at 3. PM."
The wedding... that bastard is celebrating while the one who saved him climbs out of her grave.
The thought caused a sharp, aggressive, spike of pure rage within me. It was Lumira's betrayal, now mine.
Suddenly, there was a massive distant eruption. A thick ominous plume of black smoke curled violently into the sky. It rose above the historic spires of the city center. Moments later, the faint chilling sound of mass screams reached us, causing Mason's head snapped up.
"Emergency," he stated. All warmth instantly stripped away, replaced with uncompromising steel - The Beta's Duty.
"I have to go immediately. I'll return as soon as I can. Seraphina, stay with her."
He pivoted sharply, gone in two rapid strides.
My grandmother, seeing the daze still on my face, took my arm with quiet authority.
"Come, child. We must get you inside."
I didn't resist. My heart was no longer sinking with grief, it was hardening with a cold terrifying purpose.
The explosion in the city - that was the new plot starting. I was no longer a bystander to this tale. I was the protagonist of the rewritten tragedy.
I am now... Lumira Duskbane.
And deep in my soul, I embraced the certainty left by the strange little girl's smile: my death was not the end. It was the prelude.
Now, against all logic, I had the chance to change the story.
I would not let the villainess be forsaken again... I wouldn't let myself be forsaken.