The day my husband, Stellan Montclair, was killed in battle, my cousin, Daphne Langford, wept and declared she would follow him in death.

No one asked for my opinion.

By the time I arrived, they had already decided everything. In seven days, Daphne would be laid to rest alongside my husband in the Montclair family crypt, bearing the title of his lawful wife.

When I stepped into the chapel, I found Daphne reclining on a cushioned chair with a damp cloth pressed to her forehead while my mother-in-law, Vivienne Prescott, personally spoon-fed her warm broth. Meanwhile, my son, Ansel Montclair, had been kneeling before the coffin for six hours straight, both legs so swollen that they were trembling.

No one told him to get up. No one offered him a cushion to kneel on.

Vivienne glanced up at me. "You're back. Daphne's being interred in the Montclair crypt as the lawful wife in seven days. See to the arrangements."

In my previous life, I did not dare disobey. The entire capital praised Daphne for the depth of her devotion. Vivienne called her a woman of honor. The moment I so much as furrowed my brow, countless mouths stood ready to call me petty and small-hearted.

Yet seven days later, Stellan came back from the dead.

Only then did I learn that he had taken a death-feigning potion so that he could openly and rightfully marry Daphne. I was cast from wife to concubine and spent the rest of my life crushed under Daphne's thumb.

My son was stripped of his status as the legitimate heir, barred from the family title, and left to scrape by among commoners for the rest of his days.

This time, though, I was living it all over again.

I crouched down and lifted Ansel from the cold stone floor. Then, I looked at Vivienne. "If her devotion runs that deep, let her be buried with him today."

The chapel fell silent.

Daphne Langford was so startled that she stopped her feigned weeping and looked up at me. "You... What did you just say?"

"We're sending you into the crypt to be buried alongside my husband today."

I did not even lift my head. I kept my attention on rubbing liniment into my son's swollen legs, my tone perfectly flat. "Since you love my husband so deeply, I'm granting your wish now. Shouldn't you be thanking me?"

That shut Daphne up. She had nowhere to turn but my mother-in-law, Vivienne Prescott. Her voice went soft as she wheedled, "Vivienne, can you believe her?"

Vivienne patted Daphne's hand to soothe her, then turned to me with fury in her eyes. "Elara Renworth, you must've gone mad. How dare you speak to Daphne that way?! Daphne loves Stellan so deeply that she's offered to be buried alongside him. Where else in this world would you find someone willing to do that?

"Could you? Would you give up every comfort this life has to offer and even your own son to go into the crypt to die for Stellan?"

A cold laugh escaped me. She was right. I could not do it, and I was not willing to. That was precisely how these words of hers had cowed me in my previous life.

Back then, I genuinely admired Daphne for being willing to die for my husband, and I genuinely pitied her for losing her life so young.

That was why even though it galled me to surrender the title of lawful wife, even though it galled me to give up the chance to be laid beside my husband when my own time came, I still gritted my teeth and agreed.

I never imagined that all of it was a conspiracy.

My husband, Stellan Montclair, had faked his death. He did not want the reputation of a man who cast aside the wife who had suffered alongside him through the lean years, so he devised this scheme to make me relinquish my position willingly.

Once Daphne had played her martyrdom act to its conclusion, he would rise from the dead and marry her in full view of the world.

In the last 20 years of my previous life, the two of them lived as a devoted, loving couple. Meanwhile, Ansel and I were banished to a forgotten cottage at the far edge of the estate, left at the mercy of anyone who wished to torment us. We both withered away and died in misery.

This life would be different.

I buried the cold edge in my gaze and looked up at Vivienne.

"Mother, let me remind you. I am the mistress of this estate. With Stellan gone, my word is law here."

I turned to the servants standing outside the chapel. "Well? Escort the young lady to the crypt."

The servants exchanged uneasy glances, none of them daring to move.

I swept a cool look over them. "Think carefully about who the future master of this estate will be."

They did not know Stellan's death was staged. All they knew was that Ansel, his only son and the sole heir to everything, was in my arms.

A moment later, a crowd of them rushed forward, seized Daphne, gagged her, bound her hands, and dragged her out. The whole thing was over in seconds. Vivienne did not even have time to react.

When she finally processed what she was seeing, she pointed a trembling finger at me.

"You... Elara, just you wait. My son's spirit will not let you get away with this!"

I ignored her and instructed the servants to escort the old woman to her chambers to rest.

I knew perfectly well what she really meant. In seven days, the death-feigning potion would wear off and Stellan would come back to life. When that happened, he would not let me get away with it.

However, that was fine. I was not going to give him the chance.

In this life, Stellan Montclair was going to stay exactly what he was—a dead man in a crypt.

"Mother."

Ansel tilted his head up to look at me, reaching out with a small hand to tug at my sleeve.

I crouched down and looked at his little face. His chin had sharpened to a point from how thin he had grown, and something inside my chest tightened.

In my previous life, Vivienne insisted that with his father suffering on the front lines, no son of the household had any right to comfort. She slashed Ansel's food, clothing, and every allowance meant for him.

Even when his birthday came around, I was scolded for spoiling him just for making him a birthday cake.

I had gone to Stellan and begged him to intervene. His answer had been simple. "Mother is right. If people found out the general's son was living in luxury, I'd be skewered for it."

That day, they sent servants to take Ansel from me by force. I cried until I had no tears left, and it made no difference.

However, things were different now. Stellan would remain in his death-like state for seven days. I had more than enough ways to make sure he never woke up.

"Prepare the carriage."

I was going home to the Renworth household.

The carriage had barely come to a stop when I spotted my brother, Everett Renworth, hurrying out through the front gate. The sight of him, whole and unharmed, rooted me in place.

The memories hit me all at once.

In my previous life, Everett learned what I had suffered at the Montclair estate and went to confront Stellan in a fury. He believed his standing as the kingdom's top-ranked scholar, personally commended by the crown, and the weight of the Renworth name would be enough to give Stellan pause.

He could not have known that Stellan was already so besotted with Daphne that nothing else mattered. To bury the scandal of elevating his mistress and destroying his wife, Stellan ordered his men to ambush Everett on the road. They killed him and left his body in the hills like an animal.

Everett endured over ten years of grueling study. He was first in the royal examinations, hand-picked by the king himself.

He was a mind brimming with promise, and he had a future without limits. Yet, he was dead before he turned 30.

Meanwhile, I was trapped in that forgotten cottage on the estate grounds. They would not even let me retrieve his body.

I was still lost in the anguish of that other life when Everett reached me.

"Elara?" He frowned slightly, concern threading through his gaze. "I heard about everything. Stellan... Are you..."

He was probably going to tell me to grieve well, to not be too hard on myself.

"Everett..." I shook my head and cut him off. "There's no one in this world who wants him dead more than I do."

Everett went still.

Everett did not know how many years of suffering were buried in that single sentence. I took a deep breath and told him everything. All of it, from this life and the one before. My slow, miserable death; Ansel growing up in poverty with nothing to his name; Everett's murder.

When I finished, the color had drained from his face.

"Is all of this true?"

"Every word."

A long silence passed. The warmth bled out of Everett's eyes until they were cold as stone.

"Good. Then we make sure he stays dead."

…

The second day of Stellan's feigned death, I went to the palace to seek an audience with the king.

I needed His Majesty's own decree to seal the deaths of both Stellan and Daphne in the official record. Once that was done, coming back to life would mean they had deceived the crown.

I waited on the stone floor of the great hall, the cold seeping through my knees until they ached.

Back then, I came to petition the king for justice, to accuse Stellan of abusing his wife and son, of murdering my brother, of faking his death to deceive the world. However, by then, it was already too late.

Everett was dead, the Renworth family was in ruins, and Stellan had just returned from yet another victorious campaign. The king was never going to punish his prized general. I waited for three days and three nights and never even got past the doors.

Yet now, Stellan was dead as far as the world knew, and I was the grieving widow of a fallen war hero. So I had barely been waiting half an hour before His Majesty summoned me inside.

I pressed my forehead to the floor, every word deliberate and clear.

"Your Majesty, my husband, General Stellan Montclair, has fallen in battle. My cousin, Daphne Langford, so moved by his valor, has offered to follow him in death. I humbly beseech Your Majesty to grant Daphne a posthumous title of honor in recognition of her devotion, and to permit her burial alongside my husband in the Montclair family crypt."

There was a pause from behind the royal desk.

I knew why. There were not many women in this world who would willingly agree to let another woman be buried beside their own husband while they themselves still drew breath. Even fewer would personally petition the crown for an honor on that woman's behalf.

However, I knew the king would agree. There was no reason to refuse a living woman's request to bestow honors upon the dead. Better still, word of this would spread as a shining example of his benevolence, proof that the crown honored its soldiers and rewarded virtue.

"Granted."

That one word was all I needed.

I bowed my head in thanks, a cold smile hidden against the stone.

In my previous life, I gave ground at every turn, believing it would earn me even an ounce of sincerity in return. What did it get me?

I surrendered my title as lawful wife, surrendered my son's future, surrendered 20 years of my life, and in the end, I died in a crumbling cottage where no one even brought me a cup of warm water.

This life would not go the same way.

With the royal decree issued, Daphne was now officially recognized by the crown as a devoted woman who chose to be buried alongside her beloved. If Stellan dared come back to life after that, it would be treason.

It would mean the king had been deceived into granting a false title, deceived into honoring a fraud. And when that came to light, the two of them would not be the only ones who paid for it.

I stepped out of the palace, and the midday sun hit me so hard that it made my vision swim.

My thoughts drifted to Ansel. In my previous life, he waited in that chapel for three days and three nights, and the damage it did to his legs never healed. Every time the rains came, the pain was so bad he could barely walk.

As for Stellan and Daphne's children? They lived in the main wing, wore silk, and attended the finest schools. Ansel could not even count on a full meal.

Well, not this time.

This time, Ansel would be the sole legitimate heir of the Montclair estate.

I had barely stepped through the door when Vivienne was already there. She had broken free of the servants I posted to watch her and came flying at me with her hair wild and loose.

"You vile woman, what are you trying to do? Why did you go to the palace?"

I looked at her and pried her fingers off me. I did not answer either question.

I simply turned to the servants who had come running after her. "Are you going to escort Mrs. Montclair Senior back to her room, or do I need to ask twice?"