The lights of the grand ballroom shimmered like a thousand diamonds. Aurelia Voss stood beneath the chandelier's glow, cloaked in crimson satin and crowned in success. The applause washed over her like champagne—warm, intoxicating, deceptive.
"CEO of the Year," they called her. Queen of the Boardroom.
She should have felt triumphant.
Instead, she felt cold.
Lucien Hart stood in the shadows near the exit, his expression unreadable, a glass of scotch untouched in his hand. Her husband—on paper, at least. To the world, they were a power couple sculpted from ambition and allure. But in private, their marriage was as frigid as his eyes, colder than the metal of the contract she once signed in desperation.
Aurelia smiled at the cameras, let them capture her glory. Inside, something gnawed at her ribs—a quiet sense of unease, the way prey senses a predator nearby.
She stepped off the stage and was immediately enveloped by praise. Hands reached out to shake hers. Flashbulbs exploded like fireworks. Her assistant whispered something about a last-minute interview, but Aurelia barely heard her.
Because Delilah Monroe was approaching.
Long-limbed, stunning in silver silk, Delilah smiled like they were still best friends. Like she hadn't stolen investors. Like she hadn't fed rumors to tabloids that Aurelia slept her way to the top.
"Congratulations, darling," Delilah purred, air-kissing her cheeks. "You deserve all this… truly."
Aurelia's smile was lined with razors. "Thank you, Lila. You always did know how to recognize power."
Delilah's gaze flickered. A crack.
But it was too late.
Aurelia had already begun to fall.
It started with the wine. A bitter aftertaste. Then the spinning. The heat in her veins. The sharp pain in her abdomen like a blade buried beneath her ribs.
Her knees buckled.
Gasps echoed.
She collapsed in a tangle of silk and disbelief. Her crown, symbolic and literal, rolled across the ballroom floor.
Lucien didn't move.
He just stared.
And in those final moments, as her vision dimmed and her pulse flickered like a dying candle, Aurelia realized the truth:
She had been played.
By the man she once married.
By the woman she once loved.
Her empire was built on glass, and tonight, they'd shattered it.
Is this how a queen dies? On her knees, betrayed and alone?
But fate, it seemed, had other plans.
Because the darkness did not hold. It cracked.
And from within that abyss, something ancient stirred.
Memory surged. Time bent.
And Aurelia Voss opened her eyes… five years in the past.