Five years before the court summons…
The Orivielle Mountains. Hidden beneath snow and shadow.
Elara stood barefoot on stone, arms outstretched, blood dripping from a shallow cut across her palm. The chill of the wind bit through her bones, but she did not shiver.
Pain was part of the lesson.
"You are not royal here," Master Sylas said, his voice echoing across the amphitheater. "You are not a princess. You are not a victim. You are a blade."
He tossed her a dagger—silver, curved, engraved with ancient runes.
"Prove it."
She caught it with one hand, flipped it, and moved toward the training circle. The boy across from her was taller, older, with power humming in his veins. His magic shimmered red behind his eyes—Warring Flame.
She had none. At least, none that anyone could see.
He smirked. "You'll bleed before this is over."
Elara smiled coldly. "So will you."
The duel began.
He struck first, fire crackling along his arm as he lunged. She rolled beneath the arc of flame, slashing across his thigh. He roared in pain, swinging wildly, and she ducked again—this time planting her blade at his throat.
"Yield."
He froze.
The watching students murmured. Some looked impressed. Others horrified.
"Enough," Sylas said, stepping forward. "You learn quickly, Elara. That will be your greatest strength—and your greatest curse."
She turned to him, sweat on her brow, blood drying on her fingers. "Why am I really here, Master?"
Sylas studied her, eyes ancient behind their pale grey sheen. "Because you are not just a girl exiled from a throne. You are something… older. Something echoing."
"Elara Virelle died in the palace," she said softly. "So who am I?"
He smiled.
And the visions began.
It started in dreams.
A woman standing over burning maps, hands stained in ink and blood.
A name spoken in another tongue.
A battlefield made of stars.
And then—her own voice, not her own, whispering strategy after strategy into the ear of a dying king.
> "Collapse the western ridge, starve their grain lines. Sacrifice the outpost if it wins the war."
One morning she awoke with a war map sketched into her sheets in charcoal. She didn't remember drawing it.
Another day, she recited a forgotten spellword out loud in class—and the sky cracked with lightning.
Sylas warned her. "The soul remembers what the mind cannot. You carry the remnants of a tactician who burned empires. It's waking."
"But why now?"
"Because the world is shifting. The bloodlines are weakening. And the throne is breaking."
One night, deep beneath the academy's crypts, Sylas brought her to an ancient stone slab. Runes glowed faintly across it. A mark hovered in the air above—a spiral of flame and bone.
"The Oath of Memory," he said. "One soul. One vow. Carried beyond death."
Elara stepped forward.
The stone pulsed beneath her palm.
And she remembered.
Not just one life—but hundreds.
Wars won. Kings manipulated. Revolts planned. Betrayals she never saw coming. The name she whispered in her dreams had once belonged to her:
> "Serathe Dae—The Red Strategist."
She staggered back, trembling.
"It's not just me," she whispered. "I'm... her."
Sylas nodded. "You were forged to finish what she began. But power has a price. Reclaiming it will mark you."
"What kind of mark?"
He looked at her with quiet pity.
"One that can never be erased."
---
From that day forward, Elara trained harder. She didn't just study court diplomacy—she dissected it. She didn't just learn swordplay—she rewrote formations. And when the stars aligned, she began to test her magic.
Small at first. A binding oath to silence a traitor. A whispered vow to protect another exile from death.
Each spell carved more of Serathe's mind into her own.
Until they were no longer two.
They were one.
And now, ten years later, as she stood again in the palace her former life had helped destroy, Elara was ready.
She had a war to finish.