The copper taste of blood was the only thing I had left.
The town square was a sea of faces, none of them kind. High above on the royal balcony, Prince Bastian stood next to the Saintess, his arm draped possessively over her waist. He didn't look like the man I had loved for a decade; he looked like a stranger watching a nuisance finally being cleared away.
"Seraphina von Astrea," the judge's voice boomed, drowning out the rain. "For the attempted poisoning of the Saintess and treason against the crown... the sentence is death."
I wanted to scream that it was a setup. I wanted to tell them that the "pure" Saintess had poisoned herself just to see me crawl. But my tongue had been cut out three days ago in the dungeons.
The executioner's blade was heavy. It caught the light of a grey sky for a split second and then, there was only cold.
My eyes snapped open.
I lunged upward, gasping for air, my hands flying to my throat. I expected to feel wet warmth and jagged bone. Instead, my fingers met soft, unblemished skin and the cool silk of a high-collared nightgown.
I wasn't on the wooden planks of the gallows. I was in my bed.
The scent of lavender and expensive beeswax filled the room. Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows of my bedroom in the Astrea estate a room that had been burned to the ground six months before my execution.
"My Lady? Are you alright? You're sweating through your sheets."
A maid Elara stood by the door, holding a tray of morning tea. Elara, who had died trying to smuggle a letter out of the dungeons for me.
I stared at her, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "What... what day is it?"
My voice was hoarse, but it was there. I had a tongue. I had a life.
"It's the fourteenth of the Harvest Moon, My Lady," she said with a confused tilt of her head. "The day of the Grand Auction? You've been talking about it for weeks. You said you needed to find a new carriage escort before the Prince's birthday gala."
The fourteenth.
I was eighteen again. The "Saintess" wouldn't appear for another year. Bastian hadn't proposed to me yet, though the whole capital expected it.
I looked at my vanity mirror. The girl staring back was beautiful, untainted by the hollow eyes and scarred skin of the dungeons. But the girl in the mirror was also a fool. She was wearing a locket with Bastian's crest a piece of jewelry that cost enough to feed a village for a year.
I reached up, unclipped the gold chain, and tossed it into the trash bin beside my bed.
The "clink" of the gold hitting the bottom was the most satisfying sound I'd ever heard.
"My Lady!" Elara gasped. "That was a gift from the Palace!"
"It's trash, Elara. Just like the man who sent it." I swung my legs out of bed, feeling the solid floor beneath my feet. "Cancel the fitting for the gala dress. I'm not going."
"But... the auction? What about your escort?"
I caught my reflection again. This time, I didn't see a victim. I saw a survivor with a one-year head start.
"Oh, we're still going to the auction," I said, a cold smile spreading across my face. "But I'm not looking for a carriage escort. I'm looking for an investment."
In my previous life, a nameless slave had been sold at that auction for a handful of copper. Two years later, that slave had emerged as Kael, the Holy Hero who slaughtered the Demon King and became the most powerful man in the world.
In my first life, I had ignored him.
In this one, I was going to own him.