The corpse had Eliana's face.
Same dimple. Same jawline. Same barely-there freckle near the temple she'd always thought was insignificant.
But the eyes… The eyes were empty.
Adrien stood in the doorway, silent.
"She was me," Eliana whispered. "Another version. Another ending."
He didn't argue. Instead, he knelt beside her and pulled the locket from the dead woman's hand. It clicked open in his palm, revealing a tiny parchment curled inside.
The writing was in blood.
"She will forget. You will remember. The vow will repeat until the sin is undone."
"What sin?" Eliana asked, rising to her feet, heart pounding.
Adrien shook his head. "They won't tell me. Every time I get close, the reset comes."
"Who are they?"
Before he could answer, Celeste's voice echoed from the hall, sharp and commanding. "You shouldn't be in there."
Eliana stepped forward. "Tell me what this place really is."
Celeste's eyes darkened. "It's a prison for memories."
Adrien stood now, defiant. "She deserves to know everything."
Celeste laughed—a brittle, hollow sound. "No one ever truly wants the truth, Adrien. That's why she keeps dying."
—
They locked the room again, but it didn't matter.
Eliana had already begun piecing together the hidden puzzle: Adrien, trapped in time. Herself, repeating lifetimes. The pact, sealed by blood and silence.
The next day, she escaped the estate.
Adrien tried to stop her.
"Eliana, if you leave, they'll follow you."
"I want them to."
She didn't take the car. She walked. She didn't use her phone. She remembered, in the flashes of fire and ash in her nightmares, an old chapel buried in the woods. A name on a stone: Mara Vellin.
She found it exactly where her dream led her—half-sunken beneath twisted trees, ivy choking the stones. Inside, the chapel was burned out, but a cellar door lay hidden beneath the altar.
The same sigil from the locket was carved into the stone.
A circle of thorns.
She pushed it open.
Stairs spiraled into cold, black nothing.
She descended.
—
In the catacombs below, there were candles still burning.
And someone waiting.
A woman with a veil, skin gray as ash, eyes stitched shut with crimson thread.
"You returned," the woman said.
Eliana froze. "Who are you?"
"I'm the one who made the first vow."
Eliana's breath hitched. "Then you know how to break it."
The woman tilted her head. "Why would I help you? Every lifetime you forget, you come back asking the same thing. And every lifetime, you betray him."
"I don't want to betray him. I want to remember him."
The woman rose from the chair and reached out. "Then let me show you what you've forgotten."
Eliana took her hand.
Pain surged like lightning through her skull—visions crashing into her. A burning tree. Adrien kneeling in blood. Her own hands, soaked in red, holding a dagger.
She had killed someone. Not Adrien.
A woman.
A bride.
She stumbled back. "What did I do?"
"You swore vengeance," the woman said. "You bound your soul to Adrien's not out of love, but guilt."
"Who did I kill?"
The woman smiled, teeth sharp. "Your sister."
Eliana gasped.
"I never had a sister—"
"Yes, you did. She was the first bride chosen for Adrien. You murdered her on the eve of their wedding and took her place. Your love began with blood."
"No—no, I wouldn't—"
"You did. And your punishment was to relive it, over and over, until you choose love over revenge."
—
Eliana fled the cellar, gasping, falling to her knees beneath the twisted trees.
Everything she thought she knew was a lie.
Adrien hadn't stolen her future.
She had stolen someone else's.
She had killed her own blood to claim a man she wasn't meant to have.
But why didn't he remember?
She needed answers—and only one person had the key.
Celeste.
—
She stormed into the manor at midnight. Rain poured outside. Thunder cracked above like a divine judgment.
Celeste met her in the hallway, unfazed. "You went to her."
Eliana held up the locket. "You knew I wasn't the first."
"You were the worst," Celeste said coldly. "You didn't just forget. You chose to."
"What do you mean?"
"You begged us to erase you. After every cycle. Because remembering hurt too much. Adrien never asked for forgetfulness. You did."
Eliana's hand shook.
"I killed my sister."
Celeste nodded. "And you married her fiancé."
Tears streamed down Eliana's cheeks. "Why didn't he stop me?"
"Because he loved you even then."
That shattered something inside her.
Adrien had always known. He had loved her through lifetimes of betrayal. He chose her, again and again.
And every time, she forgot.
She whispered through clenched teeth, "This time, I remember."
—
At dawn, she crept into Adrien's room.
He was sleeping, peaceful.
She pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I remember everything."
His eyes snapped open.
And a smile broke across his face, full of sorrow and relief. "Then we're running out of time."
She frowned. "Why?"
"Because now that you remember, they'll come to kill you before you break the vow."
And before she could answer—
A scream rang through the house.
Followed by gunfire.
Then silence.