Pain came first—sharp, iron-hot, blooming behind her eyes like cracked glass.
Then the smell: roses gone rotten, heavy incense, and something metallic underneath. Blood? No… ink. Old parchment and candle wax.
Her eyelids fluttered open.
She was lying on silk so fine it felt like lying on water. A canopy of midnight velvet draped above her, embroidered with silver threads that caught the flicker of a dozen candles. This wasn't her cramped apartment. This wasn't the screech of tires or the hospital beep she'd half-expected after that blinding truck light.
This was… a bedroom carved for royalty. Or a prison disguised as one.
She tried to sit up. Her body obeyed—barely. Every muscle ached as though it had been unused for years. Or poisoned.
A mirror stood across the room, tall and framed in blackened silver. She dragged herself toward it, bare feet silent on cold marble.
The reflection staring back wasn't hers.
Long hair the color of spilled midnight cascaded past narrow shoulders. Skin pale as moonlit snow. Eyes—hers were brown; these were storm-gray shot through with threads of violet, like lightning trapped in fog. A face beautiful in the cruel way of people who were born to be envied and hated.
And across her left collarbone, faint but unmistakable, three small black marks inked in perfect formation:
T O D D D
Like a brand. Like a countdown.
She touched them. Cold. They didn't smudge.
"What the hell…?" Her voice came out soft, melodic, aristocratic—and completely unfamiliar.
Memories that weren't hers surged in like floodwater.
Elara Veylthorne. Youngest daughter of Duke Veylthorne. The "cursed triplet." Engaged since childhood to Crown Prince Lysander. Destined to die in three months—poisoned at her own wedding feast. Or exiled and hunted. Or burned as a witch. Every path ends in ash.
The original Elara had known it. Had accepted it. Had even welcomed it.
But the woman now wearing her skin had not.
She— I —was someone else entirely. A twenty-something office worker from Earth who'd spent her nights binging villainess manhwa and cursing every predictable plot twist. And now… this.
A soft knock at the door.
"Miss Elara? The seamstress is here for your gown fittings. His Highness requested you look… perfect for the engagement banquet tomorrow."
The voice was polite. Too polite. The kind of politeness that hid knives.
She straightened. Forced a smile she didn't feel. "Enter."
A woman glided in—mid-thirties, immaculate silver hair pinned in an elaborate twist, eyes lowered demurely. But when she looked up for a fraction of a second, there was something sharp there. Calculating.
"Miss, your marks… they're darker today." The seamstress's gaze flicked to the TODDD brand. "Should I… cover them again?"
Elara—no, she needed a new name in her head. Something to hold onto. Toddd . That's what they whispered behind hands. The girl marked by fate. Three deaths waiting.
"Leave them," she said quietly. "Let them see."
The seamstress blinked. Surprise flickered before the mask returned. "As you wish, my lady."
As the woman began measuring silk and pins, Toddd's mind raced.
This world had magic. Thin threads of it hummed in the air, like static before a storm. The original Elara had been born with too much—wild, uncontrollable. It had killed her two older sisters in the womb. Or so the rumors said. The surviving triplet was both treasure and curse.
But the memories held gaps. Huge, deliberate ones.
Why had the original Elara stopped fighting? Why had she smiled at her own execution date in her diary?
And the prince—Lysander—was he truly the golden savior the story painted, or something darker?
A chill crawled up her spine.
She caught her reflection again. Those violet-gray eyes seemed to stare through her. As though something else was watching from inside the mirror.
The seamstress finished pinning the gown—a deep sapphire that shimmered like poisoned water.
"Beautiful," the woman murmured. "A pity…"
She trailed off.
Toddd turned. "A pity?"
The seamstress hesitated. Then, very softly: "They say the TODDD mark only appears on those fated to die three times before the final rest. Once at birth. Once at love. Once at betrayal."
She swallowed. "And the fourth… no one has ever survived to tell."
Toddd felt her pulse spike.
Three deaths.
She already felt the first echo in her bones—like she'd died once already, back on Earth.
The seamstress curtsied and left.
Alone again, Toddd walked to the window. Beyond the gardens lay the capital spires, glittering under a bruised twilight sky. Somewhere out there was the prince who would soon call her fiancée.
Somewhere out there were people who wanted her dead— again .
And somewhere, deep in her new memories, a whisper stirred. Not hers. Not the original Elara's.
"Welcome back, little triplet. We've been waiting."
She froze.
The voice had come from inside her skull.
Not a memory.
Something alive.
Toddd pressed a hand to her temple.
Tomorrow she would face the banquet. The prince. The court that already whispered her death.
And whatever had just spoken to her from the shadows of her own mind.
She smiled—small, sharp, dangerous.
If fate wanted her dead three times…
She would make it regret ever marking her.