Secret Warrior

Aurora POV:

A sharp, insolent knock slammed against the wooden door, harsh and unyielding, slicing through the quiet dawn of the manor.

"Aurora! Out of bed this instant! The Matron’s been waiting ages. Do you truly think you’re privileged enough to make your mistress wait on a worthless stray like you?"

Louisa’s high, grating voice cut straight through the door. Louisa’s high, grating voice cut straight through the door. Every syllable dripped with smug, petty arrogance. She reveled in lording power over me, a lowly servant clinging to her mistress’s favor to bully someone far weaker.

For twenty years, I’d endured this hateful tone in my gilded prison. She never bothered to hide her scorn. To her, I was nothing more than a useless charity case, a shameful extra mouth the Carlisles were forced to feed.

I jolted upright in bed, cold sweat soaking my worn nightgown, my heart slamming violently against my ribs.

I had died once already. That was why the pain in my body, the voice at the door, and even the dust in the air felt terrifyingly familiar. This was not a dream. This was the morning I had returned to—the morning before everything collapsed.

In my past life, I had been the foolish girl who longed for family approval more than for her own life. When the my mother Genevieve ordered me to surrender the military Title of Honor I had earned through blood and battle to Miss Corinne, I obeyed. That cowardly surrender was the first step toward ruin: Sterling was falsely executed, Adeline was slowly poisoned to death, and I myself was burned alive in the end, buried beneath the lies and ambition of Genevieve.

Seeing that I didn't respond for a long time, she directly pushed open the door and walked in. Louisa bustled in, her face twisted into a pinched, disapproving scowl, her eyes sweeping over my disheveled form with a disgusted sniff.She tossed a faded gray dress hard onto my quilt, the fabric flopping limply like a tattered shroud.

"Put this on immediately," she snapped, hands planted rigidly on her hips. “Today you’re going to beg the Matron for mercy and hand over your military Title of Honor to Miss Corinne. Dress humble, keep your head down, and speak only when spoken to. Don’t embarrass the family with your insolence.”

Her words crashed into my mind like a thunderclap, jolting loose the flood of buried memories. This day. The fateful day that had unraveled my entire life.

It is today, Genevieve ordered me to use my military merit to petition the Crown for Corinne’s elevation. She was old enough to marry now, she said, and with a noble title she could secure a far grander match. In my previous life, I had carried out that order exactly as written. I had personally handed Corinne the honor that should have belonged to me, and she had used it to cast off her ruined betrothed and marry into the House of the Grand Duke.

A cold, bone-deep rage ignited in my chest, burning away every trace of the old me’s timidity. I was no longer the foolish, craving girl who begged for a family’s love.I had died in the flames, witnessed my loved ones’ lifeless eyes, and tasted the bitterest despair humanity could bear.And now—I was back.

I stared straight at Louisa, my gaze steady, icy, and unflinching, no longer clouded by flustered obedience. A grim, mocking smile tugged at my lips.