I raised my hand up—still in disbelief that I had really gone back in time again—and noticed that the palm of my hand was covered in smudged ink. My gaze moved to the bed, next to me, where there was an open leather journal. Like every night since I’d gotten it, I’d fallen asleep writing in my diary.

I picked it up and flipped to the last page that had writing in it.

The last words I wrote:

I walked in on Faustina and Valen! Naked and halfway into doing gods know what. I thought I had done everything to stop this affair from happening. I need to be careful. If this life follows the last…

Soon, I’ll be dead.

I read over the words again.

Wait a minute, this is from…

I flipped through the diary, feeling a wave of relief as I read over each page. Even though it defied all logic, everything I had written down during my first and second life was still there. It was the only proof I had that told me I wasn’t insane.

I had really lived two lives. And now, I was on my third.

In my second life, I used everything written in my diary to write a guide to surviving my own doomed fate. Rules to keep myself safe. I flipped to the page where I had started a list.

At the top of the page, in beautiful handwriting, were the words:

Never trust Faustina Siderias.

I furiously crossed it out. Underneath it, I quickly wrote out a new rule.

Never trust Faustina Siderias.

Never trust Prince Valen.

Moments later, there was a knock at my bedroom door. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The ghost of Valen’s blade still stung on my neck, the feeling of my throat being sliced in half still lingering.

I cleared my throat and tried again.

Years of habit triumphed, and I let out a strong “Come in.”

The door opened. In popped a familiar face I hadn’t seen in years.

"Ksana,” I greeted.

"Lady Navina," my maid replied. "It’s time to get dressed."

Ksana had shiny copper-red hair and pale green eyes. Though she had features I could call cute—a round button nose, freckles across her cheeks—her face was stony and cold, and her personality was just as frosty. In House Dekarias, everyone was like this, even the maids. Any sign of warmth would be taken as weakness.

Rule 1: To survive House Dekarias, you have to be as cold as ice.

Seeing her face reminded me of my life as the only daughter of House Dekarias, raised to be the perfect wife for the heir to the empire. Trained to one day become the perfect empress. If I made a mistake, no matter how small, I would be punished severely: beatings, starvation, locked in my room for days. Ksana would watch, stone-faced, not offering a single word of sympathy or support.

In a way, I understood. There was nothing she could have done, and kindness was not a currency anyone could give in Rasiva.

Still, I neither liked nor disliked her.

Like me, she was disposable. Just a tool to be used.

Well, not anymore. I was fed up with that.

"Tell me my schedule," I said, rising from my bed. Even if it was my birthday, I could expect my schedule to be packed. And I can assure you, none of the activities included actually celebrating my birthday.

“Breakfast with your family, and then you’ll meet with your tutor,” Ksana said, and a team of maids filtered into the room behind her. “Today’s topics are history and geography. And then you’ll briefly meet with the weaponsmaster.”

“Then piano?”

My favorite part of the day had always been my piano lessons. My second favorite was training with the weaponsmaster. Though it was unthinkable for a woman in Rasiva to know how to wield a weapon, my father insisted that I train with daggers and always keep a blade hidden on me. That was House Dekarias for you.

Ksana shook her head.

“Your piano lessons have been cancelled to accommodate your tea party.”

That’s right.

I had forgotten about the tea party. In my first life, I had arranged it to prepare for my coming-of-age banquet and official debut into High Society. Though on the surface it was a tea party between other young noble ladies, for me, it had been a sort of reconnaissance mission, to scope out the competition. Valen had slept with nearly half the women in High Society by this point, and I needed to know who was preying on the downfall of my impending marriage. At least, that was how I viewed it in my past lives. In my second life, I used it as my first chance to sabotage Faustina, planting the seeds of a rumor that would ultimately spell her downfall.

But now… Well, I had to change the rules a little bit.

“Remember, you have a dress fitting in Camlan tomorrow for your banquet,” Ksana said, crossing the room to my wardrobe and picking out a gown made of blue and gold fabric, a single sparkling ruby to accentuate the low dip of the neckline. My eyes fell onto the ruby and I stared at it, distracted. The room began to tilt. The red reminded me of…

Valen. Blood—

"My lady?" asked Ksana. I blinked, and the memory faded away.

The maids hurriedly helped me get dressed, then Ksana sat me down in front of the vanity.

Goose bumps cascaded down my arms. I…

I didn’t recognize myself. The outline of my face was still the same, the features more or less recognizable. But at the time of my death, I was nearly thirty years old. As I had gotten older, my features had become sharper. Colder.

But now, I still looked youthful. Hopeful.

The light in my golden eyes still glimmered, my porcelain skin was still smooth, free of wrinkles from perpetually frowning and grimacing, and my teal hair was long, unruly, and wild.

After Valen and I had married, he made me keep it tied up at all times, saying it was unbecoming of a future empress to have hair “so unkempt.”

Of course, I had listened to him. After all, I was only following a rule in my guide.

Become Valen’s ideal woman.

For as long as I could remember, I swore by this rule. Even when I was a young girl and Valen and I were only playmates, I made sure to pay attention to all of his likes and dislikes, so that I could cater myself to his ideals. And what did Valen want? A woman who matched his cruelty. So, I played the role of villainess so perfectly, to the point where there was an unspoken rule among nobility: If you want to stay alive, stay out of Navina Dekarias’s way.

It was all an illusion. Underneath the cold, cruel exterior, I was drowning, barely keeping my head above water, all so that I could keep Prince Valen’s eyes on me.

Screw that.

Where did that get me? With my head chopped off by that cheating, lying bastard.

In this life, my cruelty would be reserved for one person, and one person only.

“Finished,” Ksana said, adding the last touch of lipstick.

I smiled, taking myself in. I was beautiful, young, and—with two lives behind me—extremely dangerous.

I stood, prepared to take on my next life.

Time to get to work.

~ ☩ ~

As I walked through Dekarias manor, I was taken aback by how beautiful it was. At the time of my death, I hadn’t been in my childhood home for nearly ten years. It was as extravagant and wealthy as the Imperial Palace itself. White walls with elaborate golden details surrounded me, various portraits of Dekarias’s past members lining the hallway I walked down. Each heir had our signature teal hair, not seen in any other family in Rasiva.

It was something I had loved and despised in my last life: that someone could take one look at me and know who I was. Navina Dekarias. The Ice Villainess of Rasiva.

As I rounded the bend in the curved staircase, I was immediately greeted by my mother.

“Navina,” she said, her voice like ice.

“Mother,” I greeted, bowing my head. She gave me a sneer, looking me up and down.

“You’re eating too much,” she said, and my stomach twisted. “Have a small breakfast today.”

Screw you, I thought, but my face remained cold. In my last life, I definitely would have let a comment like that pierce me. But now, after so many years, I had learned to love my body. I was curvy, and strong, and if I ate any less I would lose the lean figure I had gained working with the weaponsmaster.

I followed my mother into the dining hall. My brother and my father were already seated, my father drinking his usual black coffee as he read his advisor’s reports.

The dining room was just as beautiful as the rest of the manor: A glimmering crystal chandelier hung above us, large floor-to-ceiling windows on one wall. And on the table there was a full breakfast spread: crepes, fruits, jams, eggs, bacon, sausages.

I sat down and loaded up my plate with a pile of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, and a few buttered and sugared crepes. My mother’s horrified expression nearly made me laugh out loud, but she didn’t say anything.

My father’s advisor stood behind him. He was a sharp-featured man with gray hair he kept slicked back and eyes as gray as a stormy sky. Onisim Zakharov.

His first name meant “useful” in Rasivan, and he very much enjoyed living up to the name.

“My lord, the Avalonian Peak Mine has produced a significant amount of feyanite in the last quarter,” Onisim said, voice low as if we couldn’t overhear. “Imports of feyanite have decreased since trade talks with the Eastern Kingdom have stalled. I requested the Imperial Family pay double the usual amount for our production. Expect a large sum of gold soon.”

My father smiled a greedy type of smile. “Excellent work, Oni.”

Feyanite. It was a rare and beautiful crystal. I had only seen it up close in its raw form once before: It looked like the deepest purple amethyst, with bursts of metallic silver streaks within. It was the only crystal that naturally collected mana from the air, making the stones critical sources of magic energy. It was used in everything: from chandeliers, to plumbing, to medicine. Mages often wore feyanite pendants to keep their mana stores full.

Next to our steel, it was Rasiva’s most prized resource.

And its rarest.

It was said that the only place feyanite was naturally found in abundance was Avalon, an island far-off in the middle of the Avalonian Sea. Most weren’t entirely sure the island existed. For centuries, ships that tried to go there never came back.

Luckily, small sources of feyanite had been found in the islands off the northern coast in the Avalonian Sea. Most of the islands were under control by Baatar, the Eastern Kingdom, while Rasiva controlled the smallest remaining few.

Except, there was one mine in Rasiva that had an abundance of it.

The Avalonian Peak Mine.

And House Dekarias owned it.

Next to the Imperial Family, we were the most powerful house in all of Rasiva, all thanks to the mine.

“Darling,” my mother said, her voice dripping with sugar. “Why don’t you put down those reports and turn your attention to more… important matters?”

The way she said those words, and the way her eyes fell onto me, made the bile rise in my throat. I could guess the next words out of her mouth before she even said them:

“Our daughter’s engagement to Prince Valen.”