Aspen POV:

The heavy oak door to my chambers was kicked open without so much as a warning knock.

Deena swept into the room like a gilded peacock, her silk gown shimmering with radiant Dragonflame embroidery.

It was the ceremonial gown crafted for her upcoming royal engagement feast—a celebration that was supposed to have been mine.

Two handmaidens scurried behind her, balancing velvet-lined jewel cases laden with royal rubies and enchanted dragon-gold.

I didn't look up from my desk.

My fingers remained steady as I traced the fine botanical sketches in my mother's worn leather journal, cataloging the neurotoxic and restorative properties of high-altitude mountain moss.

I treated Deena's arrival as nothing more than a passing, filthy draft of wind.

My absolute indifference was a sharper slap than any shouted curse.

Deena's smug smile tightened into a brittle grimace.

Striding across the room, her clawed hand shot out, snatching the leather journal from under my fingers and hurling it violently onto the stone floor.

"Still playing with dirt and dried weeds?" Deena sneered, kicking the book against the baseboard. "A No-Dragon should learn how to beg at a real master's feet, not grub around like a peasant in the mud."

I stayed still for a moment, then slowly bent down.

I retrieved the book and gently brushed the dust from its weathered cover, keeping my face entirely blank.

My silence only fed her twisted arrogance.

Deena tilted her chin up, deliberately stroking the magnificent teardrop ruby resting against her collarbone.

"A gift delivered from Prince Krishna himself," she purred, her voice dripping with vanity. "He calls it The Dragon's Blood. He told me its fire only belongs on skin as pure and noble as mine."

She took two steps closer, leaning down until her breath felt hot and cloying against my ear.

"Do you want to know what else my sweet prince said about you, Aspen?" she whispered viciously. "He said you were a bore. A cold, defective No-Dragon whose very touch felt like handling dry clay. He said keeping you by his side made him feel like he was dragging a rock."

I slowly closed the leather journal, setting it back on the desk.

Seeing that I still didn't shed a tear, Deena's eyes flashed with venomous frustration.

Needing a heavier blade to draw blood, her lips curved into a wicked, deliberate sneer.

"Then again, this whole pathetic, dirt-scrabbling existence makes sense," Deena said, flicking her golden curls. "You're the spitting image of that dead wretch you called a mother."

My pulse stopped.

The air inside the room turned instantly frigid.

"She was nothing but a lowborn apothecary slave who used cheap herbal aphrodisiacs to crawl into Father's bed," Deena hissed, stepping closer and jabbing a sharp finger toward my chest. "A worthless parasite without a single drop of dragon blood! The moment Father took my mother, your mother was thrown into the freezing courtyard like discarded garbage, coughing up her own lungs until she died alone in the dark. That's the blood in your veins, Aspen. A lineage of beggars destined to rot!"

The entire world fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

Before Deena could even draw her next breath, my arm moved like a striking viper.

My fingers clamped around her throat with crushing force.

With a single, violent motion, I drove her backward.

Her back slammed against the heavy stone wall with a sickening crack, shaking the candle sconces above us.

Deena's eyes bulged in instant terror.

Her breath choked off into a strangled, wet wheeze as her hands frantically clawed at my wrist.

But my grip was forged of unrelenting steel; she couldn't move my fingers a fraction of an inch.

I leaned in close, my silver-gray eyes locking onto hers with a lethal, absolute killing intent.

"Deena Reynolds," I whispered. My voice was quiet, smooth, and colder than the frozen peaks of Blackwood Keep. "You can take my former betrothed. You can parade your stolen jewels. You can play whatever games you want in this house." I tightened my fingers slightly, feeling the violent tremor racking her entire body. "But if you ever drag my mother's name through your filthy mouth again..." I leaned an inch closer, each word slicing like a razor blade across her skin, "...I swear on her grave, your grand royal wedding will be the day they bury you in the dirt."

For the first time in her pampered life, Deena saw true, unhinged danger.

She realized with terrifying certainty that I wasn't bluffing.

I wouldn't cry, and I wouldn't beg.

I would simply end her.

Her face flushed a deep, mottled purple as tears of pure panic streamed down her cheeks.

The two handmaidens dropped the velvet cases in horror, trembling in the doorway, too paralyzed by fear to scream for the guards.

I held her there for three agonizing seconds, letting the cold terror sink deep into her bones, before releasing my grip.

Deena collapsed onto the stone floor like a sack of silk and jewels, clutching her bruised throat, gasping desperately for air in ragged, terrified sobs.

I stood over her, casually smoothing out the cuffs of my dress.

Then, a faint, chilling smile touched my lips.

I stepped over her trembling legs, reached down into one of the open cases scattered across the rug, and picked up a small, crystal jar sealed with gold wax.

It was her prized royal beautifying balm—an expensive concoction of moon-lily oil and crushed pearl that she religiously applied to her neck and face every evening before any grand banquet.

A perfect scheme for vengeance formed in my head.

I weighed the cold crystal in my palm, and then, right before her terrified, tear-filled eyes, I slipped the jar into my pocket.

"Get out of my room," I said softly.

The spell of pride was utterly broken.

Deena scrambled to her hands and knees, clawing at the doorway before stumbling out into the corridor, her frantic weeping echoing down the stone halls as her maids fled behind her.

Aspen POV:

After Deena fled in hysterical terror, a heavy, cold stillness settled over the bedchamber.

The lingering scent of her cloying perfume mixed with the sharp odor of fear.

I walked over to the stone casement, watching her scurry across the torchlit courtyard below, clutching her bruised neck while her maids scrambled behind her.

My hands were still steady—not a single tremor of hesitation, only the cold adrenaline of calculated retribution.

I closed my eyes, and the bitter memories of the past flooded into my mind.

I remembered my mother, Elara Beaumont.

She had been the most brilliant apothecary in the realm, gifted with an unparalleled understanding of biological chemistry and medicinal flora.

But because she was a No-Dragon, high society viewed her as little more than an outcast.

When she met my father, Fredrick Reynolds, he was nothing more than an ambitious junior noble plagued by a latent, crippling bloodline disease.

It was my mother who spent sleepless nights formulating rare tinctures to purge his condition, single-handedly curing him and paving his ascension to the Council of Elders.

Yet the moment Fredrick secured his wealth and power, he discarded her like an old shoe.

He married Eleanor for her pure dragon lineage, banishing my mother to a dilapidated pavilion on the outskirts of the estate to cough up blood until she died of a broken heart.

Her dying words to me had been, "Aspen, never trust a Reynolds."

For years, I had been a blind fool, pouring my entire heart into Prince Krishna in a desperate search for love and belonging—only to walk the exact same tragic path as my mother.

Three days ago, when Fredrick Reynolds marched into this room at Eleanor's urging, coldly commanding me to yield my betrothal and status to Deena and submit to being sold off to the ruined, paralyzed Boyce Carlisle, the final pillar of my sanity collapsed.

Consumed by grief, betrayal, and unbearable despair, I tied a silk cord around the rafters and hung myself.

Everyone in the manor believed it was a sheer miracle that I opened my eyes three days later.

They had no idea that during those three days of comatose darkness, my soul had crossed the dimensional void into a parallel, hyper-advanced civilization known as the Modern World.

In that world, I grew up as a penniless orphan.

But in a society governed by merit, knowledge, and modern science, I rose through sheer grit, graduating at the absolute top of the nation's premier medical academy.

I devoted that entire lifetime to clinical surgery, neurotrauma, and advanced pharmacology—saving countless lives and pioneering revolutionary neural regeneration techniques that earned me the legendary title of The Peerless Healer.

I lived that second life to a peaceful old age, closing my eyes on my deathbed—only to wake up in a sudden gasp back in my twenty-year-old body, precisely two days after my suicide.

The weak, weeping girl who begged for Prince Krishna's scraps of affection died on that cord.

I had returned as a master surgeon and biochemical genius, armed with centuries of cutting-edge clinical mastery that this primitive world of swords and dragons could never comprehend.

I opened my eyes.

Every trace of sorrow was gone, replaced by absolute, glacial resolve.

Walking back to the table, I set down the crystal jar of royal beautifying balm I had taken from Deena.

From the hidden compartment in my mother's wooden chest, I pulled out a small packet wrapped in oiled paper: Dragon's Shade powder.

On its own, the crushed herb was harmless.

But when combined with the lunar pearl extract used exclusively in royal court cosmetics and activated by body heat, it triggered a violent, delayed biochemical reaction twelve hours later.

The symptoms were horrifying: an angry, weeping scarlet rash covering the entire face and chest, paired with unbearable agony and itching.

It mimicked a disgusting, incurable pestilence, yet after twelve hours, the compound would metabolize completely and vanish without a trace, leaving no evidence for any physician to find.

Using a fine silver needle, I stirred a precise pinch of the powder into Deena's cream until the paste was seamlessly smooth.

I knew Deena's vanity.

With her engagement banquet only three days away, she would order her servants to sneak back and retrieve her prized cream, and she would slather it on religiously.

I could already picture it: Prince Krishna lifting his radiant bride's veil on their wedding night, only to recoil in sheer revulsion at the hideous, festering rash covering her face.

A razor-thin smile touched my lips.

Consider this the first installment of your debt, little sister.

I set the doctored jar in a visible shadow near the door.

A gentle knock broke the silence, and Penny, my personal handmaiden, slipped into the room carrying a bowl of hot broth.

Her eyes were red and puffy from crying.

"My lady..." Penny's voice trembled with grief. "The entire manor is whispering. They say... they say the Elder is exiling you to the frozen wasteland of Blackwood Keep. Lord Boyce is a shattered, dying man... it's too cruel!"

I took the warm bowl and looked into her tear-streaked face.

Penny had been with me since childhood, the only person in this venomous household genuinely loyal to me.

"Penny," I said softly, my voice firm and reassuring. "I leave for Blackwood Keep at dawn. It is a dangerous, frozen ruin, and you are not obligated to follow me."

Penny didn't hesitate.

She dropped to her knees, grasping my hand tightly.

"Wherever you go, my lady, Penny will go. Even if Blackwood Keep is a dragon's tomb, I will never leave your side."

Warmth spread through my chest.

"Pack our warmest cloaks and every medical ledger in this room, Penny. We aren't going there to die. We are going there to take command."

After Penny left to prepare our trunks, I looked out toward the distant northern mountains.

My next moves were clear: First, give Deena and Krishna an unforgettable wedding catastrophe. Second, establish absolute control over Blackwood Keep. Third, heal Boyce Carlisle.

To the world, he was a living corpse with a shattered Dragon Core.

To the greatest surgeon of two worlds, he was the ultimate clinical challenge—and the sharpest, most terrifying weapon I would ever forge.