The silk chafes against my wrists—not because it’s rough, but because I know what it represents. Lies. Submission. I kneel before the altar of the Twin Moons, head bowed, reciting vows I’ve already broken in my mind a thousand times. Around me, incense coils like surveillance drones, carrying whispers to the High Seer’s ears. My pulse syncs with the hidden implant beneath my collarbone. Three heartbeats per second—calm. Controlled. Ready.

They think I’m Serra of House Vale, resurrected from ashes after the fire that should’ve killed me. They don’t know I’m Fenella Muir, agent of the Temporal Integrity Bureau, pulled backward through a rupture in the timeline. Or that the ceremonial dagger at my belt contains monomolecular alloy capable of slicing through bone and chrono-shielding alike.

Then Malrik enters—the man who ordered my erasure centuries from now. He smiles like he knows something. Maybe he does. Time isn’t linear here. It breathes. It remembers.

His voice cuts through the hymns. ‘Rise, Lady Serra. Prove your loyalty. Execute the prisoner—the one who claims to be your twin.’

I rise. The blade hums faintly. The prisoner looks at me with my own eyes.