Pain was the very first thing that welcomed me into the dark reality of the Blood Court.
It was not the quick, sharp kind of pain that makes you scream once before your mind shuts down to protect you from the hurt. This pain was slow and deeply cruel. It crawled carefully through my veins like a creeping fire and settled deep inside my bones, acting as if my own blood had suddenly turned against me and become my worst enemy.
I found myself forced down onto my bare knees against the freezing stone floor of the grand hall.
Heavy metal chains wrapped tightly around my wrists and my ankles, digging painfully into my skin. These were not ordinary iron links used for common criminals. Deep red magic symbols were carved directly into the dark metal, specifically designed to weaken blood mages.
I could feel the cold chains drinking my energy, draining my magic away drop by drop until my body felt as empty as a completely dry river.
A dark pool of warm liquid spread slowly across the stone floor beneath me. My mind was so cloudy and tired that I could not even tell if the blood belonged to me anymore.
My breathing came in uneven, rough gasps. My throat felt like dry sand, and my vision swam with dark, blurry shapes.
Still, I forced my heavy head up to look at the people who had brought me here.
The massive hall of the Blood Court was completely packed with people.
Rich nobles in their fine silk clothes, old and respected elders in their long dark robes, and young students from the academy all stood shoulder to shoulder. Even completely unfamiliar strangers who had never spoken a single word to me in my entire life were leaning forward in their tall seats.
They stared down at me with wide, unblinking eyes, looking exactly as if they had gathered together to watch a dangerous monster finally meet its end.
But my eyes did not stay on the noisy, moving crowd.
My gaze locked onto the bright front of the room, where the two people who mattered the most to my beating heart stood closely side by side.
They were the only two people in the entire world I had deeply trusted with my life.
My closest friend, Selene Frost, stood right next to my lover, Lucien Valemont.
Selene wore a pure white dress that made her look like a perfectly innocent angel. Her beautiful face was twisted into an expression of deep, tragic sadness. Real, shiny tears pooled brightly in her big eyes, making it seem as if watching my deep suffering was actively breaking her gentle heart.
But I had spent many long years walking beside her, and I knew her far too well.
I could clearly see the slight stiffness in her shoulders and the careful, practiced way she held her hands together. That deep sadness was not a real feeling. It was a perfectly practiced performance meant only for the watching crowd.
Lucien, on the other hand, did not wear a fake mask of sadness.
He stood tall and perfectly straight, dressed sharply in his dark academy uniform. When his dark, familiar eyes finally met mine, he did not look at me with hot anger or burning hate.
Instead, he looked at me with cold, heavy disappointment.
He stared down at me as if I had completely failed some important test that I never even knew I was taking.
The warm smiles, the soft promises, and the gentle touches we had shared just a few days ago felt like they belonged to a completely different lifetime.
Now, there was absolutely nothing but a thick wall of freezing ice between us.
"Elara Nightborne," the High Elder shouted suddenly, his loud, rough voice bouncing off the high stone walls and echoing heavily through the massive hall. "You are brought before this high court today accused of terrible, unforgivable crimes. You stand officially charged with practicing forbidden blood magic, committing treason against the ruling crown of the Blood Kingdom, and the brutal murder of Selene Frost."
A loud, sudden gasp rushed through the packed crowd like a quick wave of winter wind.
I simply stared up at the High Elder, my mind completely frozen with deep confusion for a few long seconds before a hot, burning anger quickly rushed into my chest.
Murder.
The heavy word bounced around inside my empty, spinning head.
A strange laugh suddenly bubbled up in my tight throat and escaped my dry, cracked lips. The sound came out weak, broken, and wet with the strong taste of old copper in my mouth.
"Murder," I whispered out into the quiet room, my voice sounding exactly like stepping on dry autumn leaves. "Selene is standing safely right there beside you."
My rough, honest words caused a fresh wave of quick, angry whispers to spread through the listening crowd. People leaned into each other, pointing their fingers at the young girl standing in the beautiful white dress.
Selene immediately stepped forward and wrapped her small, trembling hands around Lucien's strong arm. She shook gently against his side, looking exactly like a small, frightened bird trying to find safe shelter from a terrible storm.
"She is so terribly confused," Selene whispered out to the watching court, her voice shaking with the perfect amount of fake fear and sweet pity. "Ever since she tried to steal my family bloodline in the dark, she simply has not been the same person in her broken mind."
Loud gasps of shock and anger exploded from the wooden seats above me.
I shook my head slowly from side to side, completely unable to believe the clear, terrible lies hitting my ears.
My breaking heart hammered loudly against my ribs as I turned my desperate, searching eyes to Lucien.
I fully expected him to step forward right then.
I expected him to raise his strong voice and defend me against these absolutely crazy claims.
I waited for the brave man who had promised to love me forever to tell them the real truth.
But Lucien remained completely still and totally silent.
His handsome face was a perfectly blank mask of cold stone.
Then, he finally opened his mouth to speak to the waiting room.
"Elara," he said in a slow, completely calm voice that held absolutely no warmth or love. "Admit your dark crime openly in front of everyone here. If you truly say you are sorry for what you did today, I will personally ask the high court to make sure your death is quick and painless."
My beating heart completely shattered inside my chest.
It felt exactly like a heavy glass cup falling hard onto solid stone floors.
I stared closely at his familiar face as if he were a complete stranger who had simply stolen Lucien's body.
The horrible truth hit me much harder than any physical blow from a sword ever could.
"You knew about this," I whispered out, the painful realization quickly draining the very last bit of warm color from my skin. "You planned this whole terrible thing together with her."
For just one tiny, flashing second, the hard lines around his mouth moved. A quick flash of something real and guilty passed deeply through his dark eyes.
Then, just as fast as it appeared, his expression turned right back into solid, uncaring ice.
He looked away from me and gave a short nod to the High Elder.
The old man heavily raised his wooden staff high into the air, signaling to everyone that the final moment had come.
"The high court has heard the words and reached its final decision," the Elder announced loudly over the quiet crowd. "Elara Nightborne is found completely guilty of all charges. The official sentence is death by the ancient ritual of blood burning."
Pure terror rushed through my veins like freezing water from a deep winter lake.
Death by blood burning was never just a simple, quick execution. It was a highly famous and terrible method of deep, lasting torture.
It was a dark, evil punishment carefully designed by the very first kings to awaken every single drop of pain a magic user could possibly feel, keeping them entirely awake and perfectly aware before slowly turning their living body into gray ash.
The large circle of magic drawn directly into the stone floor right beneath my bleeding knees suddenly began to glow with a bright, angry red light.
Crimson flames slowly grew from the carved stone lines, rising up around my bare legs.
At the very first touch, the magic fire only brought a strange feeling of gentle, comforting warmth.
But less than one second later, that soft warmth turned into complete and total agony.
The magical fire did not burn my clothes or my outside skin first.
Instead, it reached straight inside my body.
It felt exactly as if invisible, sharp hooks were pulling my veins completely open from the inside out.
My own blood quickly began to boil with extreme, impossible heat.
My heavy bones shook and vibrated painfully inside my flesh, and my entire body jerked wildly against the heavy metal chains.
Deep, ancient magic symbols began to painfully carve themselves directly into my skin, burning straight through my flesh with the terrible smell of sweet smoke and turning meat.
I opened my mouth wide and let out a terrible, tearing scream that hurt my own ears.
I pulled against my chains like a wild, desperate animal caught in a hunter's trap.
But absolutely nobody in the crowded room moved a single inch to help me.
Nobody cared about the screaming, dying girl burning on the floor.
I tried with all my failing strength to pull my body away from the rising fire, but the red magic symbols on the heavy metal chains flashed brightly and tightened harder around my burned wrists, holding me firmly in place.
The bright red flames climbed higher, wrapping tightly around my waist and my chest.
Through my blurry, tear filled vision, I clearly saw a small movement near the very edge of the fire.
Selene stepped closer to the burning circle.
She leaned down very carefully, making sure that her body fully blocked the view of the tall elders so nobody else could see her face.
When she was close enough that I could smell her sweet flower perfume mixing with the terrible smell of my own burning flesh, she smiled at me.
It was a sharp, winning smile that showed all her perfectly white teeth.
Then, she leaned her head in and whispered softly right into my ear.
"Thank you so much for carefully nurturing the special bloodline for me all these long years," she said in a sweet, happy voice. "It was always meant to belong to me."
My painful breathing completely stopped in my chest.
The deep shock of her cruel words somehow cut straight through the burning pain covering my body.
"What did you exactly say?" I tried to ask her, but my voice was just a dry, broken sound that barely left my lips.
Her bright, evil smile grew even wider, finally reaching her cold eyes.
"The hidden power resting deeply inside you," she whispered back, her voice full of dark, greedy joy. "You were simply too weak to ever wake it up yourself. So, I will take it from your remaining ashes and I will use it."
The red flames suddenly rushed upward like a hungry, angry beast, completely covering my face.
The absolute pain swallowed every single thought in my mind and totally erased my voice.
My final scream became a silent, open mouth as my dry throat burned to ash from the inside.
I fell hard forward onto the hot stone floor, my ruined body shaking badly as my wide eyes stared into the bright fire in pure disbelief.
This was the exact reality of how my life would end.
I was not dying because I was guilty of terrible crimes.
I was not dying because my magic was too weak.
I was dying purely because I had loved and trusted the absolutely wrong people.
The very last thing my failing eyes saw through the thick, dark smoke was Lucien standing safely away from the heat.
His lips moved slightly, perhaps saying my name, but my burned ears could no longer hear any sounds at all.
Then, a heavy, quiet darkness fell quickly over my mind and swallowed the entire world away.
I truly thought that the long sleep of death would be perfectly quiet and peaceful forever.
I was completely wrong.
Because the very next thing I felt was a sudden, massive rush of sweet air filling empty lungs.
It was wonderfully cold, fresh morning air.
I let out a massive gasp and threw my upper body forward, sitting up so violently that it felt exactly like I had just been pulled up from the deep, dark bottom of a freezing ocean.
My chest moved up and down rapidly as I greedily drank in the cool air.
My shaking hands immediately flew over my entire body, fully expecting to feel ruined skin and melted bone.
But my rushing fingers found soft, completely smooth skin.
There were absolutely no terrible burns on my arms or legs.
There were no heavy metal chains locking my wrists together.
There was no hot, sticky blood soaking through my clothes.
I slowly opened my eyes and looked around the room, my heart still hammering a wild, crazy rhythm inside my chest.
This was my small, quiet sleeping room.
My old student room inside the Blood Academy.
I easily recognized the familiar wooden desk sitting quietly in the corner.
The old, cheap magic lamp was resting on the table, glowing softly with a gentle blue light.
I saw the exact same thin window curtains that I used to hate so much because they always let the cold morning wind blow right into the room.
My heart began to beat even harder, pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird desperately trying to escape a cage.
This was completely impossible.
I had just felt my own living body slowly turn into ash.
I pushed my weak legs over the edge of the bed and stumbled weakly across the cold wooden floor.
I rushed straight to the tall glass mirror standing near the heavy wooden door and stared hard at my own reflection.
The young girl staring back at me with wide, frightened eyes was much younger than the tired woman who had just died on the court floor.
She was exactly seventeen years old.
The skin on her face was perfectly smooth and completely free of the dark stress lines I clearly remembered having.
Her brown eyes were much brighter and full of clear, untouched life.
Her body was completely unbroken and completely free from all the terrible magic scars of the past five years.
A thick lump quickly formed in my tight throat, making it very difficult to swallow.
I took a slow, careful step back away from the smooth glass.
Outside the thin window, the heavy brass bell of the tall academy tower began to ring loudly through the quiet morning air.
It rang clearly once.
Then twice.
Then a third time, announcing the early start of the day.
It was the familiar morning call of the Blood Academy.
It was the exact morning of the great aptitude ceremony.
This was the very day when absolutely everything bad in my life had originally started.
My shaking knees finally lost all their holding strength.
I reached out quickly and tightly grabbed the hard edge of my wooden desk to stop myself from falling onto the floor.
I had somehow been completely reborn.
My soul had been powerfully pushed backward through the deep river of time and returned fully to the past.
I was back exactly five full years before the terrible day of my painful execution.
A shaky, unbelievable laugh escaped from my parted lips.
Then another laugh quickly followed.
And another.
Soon, I was laughing so hard that hot, happy tears fell quickly down my smooth face and dropped onto my simple sleep shirt.
Against all the known rules of magic and life, fate had somehow decided to reach down and give me a true second chance to live.
Then, without any warning at all, a very sharp pain suddenly struck the dead center of my chest.
I cried out loudly and dropped heavily onto my knees against the hard wooden floor.
A powerful, rushing wave of strong heat began to spread rapidly through my blood.
But this heat was absolutely nothing like the terrible, killing flames of the execution fire that had taken my life.
This heat felt like something completely natural and good.
It felt exactly like a sleeping, hidden part of my own soul was finally opening its eyes.
Something ancient and truly powerful was suddenly alive inside my body.
My clear vision blurred for a small moment.
Bright red magic symbols, much older and far more complex than any writing I had ever seen, flashed clearly before my open eyes.
A voice, deep and heavy like shifting mountain stones, echoed loudly inside my mind.
Blood of origin successfully detected.
Sealed bloodline awakening process initiated.
Perfect body compatibility confirmed.
My small body trembled from the pure, heavy weight of the sudden energy.
My breathing grew heavy and loud in the quiet room.
Massive amounts of raw power surged violently through my rushing blood, making me feel dizzy, strong, and completely drunk on new magic all at the exact same time.
And as I deeply felt the new power settle firmly into my bones, I suddenly realized a very clear truth that made my rushing heart freeze in my chest.
In my sad past life, my special bloodline had completely failed to ever wake up.
I had lived my entire adult life as a weak person with very quiet magic.
That simple weakness was exactly why the other rich noble students had constantly laughed at me.
That hidden power sleeping deeply inside me was exactly why the false friend Selene had seen me as a highly useful target to fully use and destroy.
That lack of strength was the very reason why Lucien had easily decided to throw my life away just to save his own perfect position in the world.
But things were very different now.
Now, the old magic was fully awake and loudly singing a song of pure power inside my veins.
I slowly closed my hands into tight fists, feeling the strong energy rush straight to my fingertips.
I pressed my forehead against the cool wooden floor and made a quiet, unbreakable promise to myself and the watching world.
This time around, I would absolutely not die crying and begging for help from terrible people who hated me.
In this completely new life, I was going to be the one who finally made all of them beg for mercy.
Three light, happy knocks suddenly sounded against my heavy wooden door.
"Elara, my dearest friend," Selene's sweet and totally cheerful voice called out brightly from the empty hallway. "Are you finally awake in there? You really need to hurry up, or you will be very late for the big ceremony today."
My dark eyes narrowed quickly and grew as cold as pure winter ice.
I pushed myself up from the floor and stood slowly on my own two feet, feeling much stronger than I had ever felt in my entire life.
I walked quietly to the door and carefully rested my hand flat against the hard wood.
"Yes, Selene," I said softly, my voice completely steady and totally calm. "I am finally awake."
And as I felt the warm, strong magic dancing happily inside my healing heart, I knew that for the very first time in my entire existence, I completely meant it.
Because I had returned from the deep darkness of death, and I was absolutely not the same weak, foolish Elara anymore.