The rush of memories continued to settle within Lyanna's mind, each one more infuriating than the last.
She saw the previous Lyanna—a girl who had finally, desperately, tried to grow a spine.
After a lifetime of being stepped on, that girl had made a secret vow to herself.
She had promised that she would no longer be a puppet for Avelina Woodcrest.
She had actually been successful for a while, dodging Avelina's traps and ignoring her subtle barbs at least three times in a row.
But that small spark of rebellion had been her death warrant.
Avelina, seeing that her plaything was no longer falling for her games, decided to escalate from psychological torment to cold-blooded murder.
The method was as cruel as it was simple. Avelina had ordered the two maids to steal the only things Lyanna truly valued.
They weren't expensive jewels or gold coins. They were simple, weathered properties and trinkets that her father had given to her mother back when they were poor, long before the Blackwood name was synonymous with wealth.
After her mother died and her father remarried and even her father died not too long after, after her father's death, her stepmother had stripped her of everything valuable, leaving only these sentimental scraps because she deemed them worthless trash.
To Lyanna, however, they were her only link to a time when she was loved.
The maids had taunted her, telling her they had taken the small wooden box to the edge of the sacred forest, perched on the highest mountain cliff. They knew she couldn't resist.
When the original Lyanna reached the summit, she saw her mother's mementos hanging precariously from a twisted tree limb over the abyss.
She had reached for them, her heart pounding, but the sudden, deliberate appearance of the guards had startled her.
She had lost her footing and tumbled into the gray mist below, clutching that box to her chest until the very end.
Lyanna snickered as she processed this. Back in 2026, even though she had been confined to a hospital bed, she had watched enough television and read enough news to recognize a "two-faced bitch" when she saw one.
She had seen how families were torn apart by women who played the victim while wielding a knife behind their backs.
But if there was one thing Lyanna hated more than a manipulator, it was cowardice.
She felt a flicker of disdain for the previous owner of this body. How could someone be so foolish? How could she let people who were beneath her treat her like a servant in her own home?
Yet, that disdain was quickly tempered by a deep, aching pity.
She realized that the previous Lyanna never stood a chance. She had been raised in a household of abuse, serving her stepmother's children like a common maid since she was ten years old.
Her environment had been a cage, and her self-worth had been systematically dismantled until there was nothing left.
Even her wolf, the very essence of her soul, was said to be the smallest and most pathetic in the entire pack.
"Don't worry," Lyanna whispered to the empty air, her voice firm. "I promised I'd help you, and I will. Not just because I said I would, but because I can't stand the thought of that woman winning."
She pushed herself up from the floor, smoothing her hair. Just as she found her footing, a voice echoed through the room.
"I thought you would keep sitting on the floor forever."
Lyanna jumped, her heart leaping into her throat.
She spun around, her eyes darting to every corner of the stone chamber. The windows were high and narrow; the door was closed. There was absolutely no one there.
"Who's there?" she demanded, her voice shaking slightly. "Where are you hiding?"
She waited, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, but the room remained still.
She began to wonder if the trauma to her head had finally caused her to lose her mind.
Maybe the reincarnation hadn't been clean. Maybe she was hallucinating.
"Why are you looking around the room like an idiot?" the voice asked again. It was sharp, mocking, and possessed a strange, melodic resonance.