She was reborn. Not in a poetic, metaphorical way. Not in the way influencers reinvent themselves after a scandal.
No.
She woke up in a hospital bed with someone else's name stitched into her wristband.
Larissa Reyes.
The name felt foreign in her mouth. Heavy. Like it belonged to a girl who had lived recklessly, laughed loudly, loved dangerously.
So what happened to the original Larissa?
Did she die the day she woke up?
She did not understand why she came back.
She lived a fulfilled life with Alaric, her father, mother, and her siblings.
The memories in her head were vivid now. They weren't even broken.
They were layered.
There were flashes of halls, empires, strategy—of being powerful. Feared. Respected. A woman who moved nations with a signature.
Then she remembered a room filled with intricately carved chests bound in brass, holding ceremonial robes and imperial regalia. To the side, a low lacquered table displaying a jade incense burner shaped like a coiling dragon.
