Chronicles of the Forsaken

The sound of the rain was deafening, a torrent of water hammering against the stone walls of the castle. Each drop was a reminder of the cold, unyielding world Seira Leonardo had been born into. Outside her window, the night was deep, the moon obscured behind thick clouds, as if the heavens themselves sought to hide from the endless shadows of the kingdom below.

Inside her room, Siera sat at her large oak desk, her fingers gripping the edges with a silent intensity. The candlelight flickered weakly, its golden glow casting fleeting shadows across the heavy, velvet curtains. She was alone, as usual. She always was.

She closed the book in front of her with a final, deliberate motion. The pages were worn, the cover cracked from the countless times her hands had turned them, devouring the story inside. "The Silent Echoes of Tomorrow," a science fiction novel, had been her latest obsession, its pages offering a brief escape from the suffocating reality of her life. A world of shining cities and technological marvels, where the laws of nature bent to the will of humankind, where power was limitless, and the ordinary could become extraordinary. In that world, she was no longer the forgotten princess of a decaying kingdom. In that world, she could be someone else—someone free.

But no matter how much she escaped into those worlds, they never lasted. She was always dragged back to the harsh reality of her existence: a second-born princess in a kingdom teetering on the brink of collapse, the unwanted child of a king who barely acknowledged her, and a kingdom that saw her as a mere shadow. She had no purpose here—just the weight of a legacy that was both hers and not hers, a burden she would carry for the rest of her life.

Seira's eyes lingered on the book for a moment, the words blurring together as she let out a soft sigh. She had always wondered what it would be like to live in a world where she wasn't bound by the chains of her bloodline, where she could carve her own path. But in the end, that was just a dream. She was the villainess in her own story, a character destined to fail.

Maybe that's what I deserve, she thought bitterly.

She stood from her chair, her gaze turning toward the window. The storm outside had grown worse, the wind howling as if the very earth itself was crying out in frustration. For a moment, she imagined the winds carrying her away—far away from the walls of this cursed place. But that was impossible. The storm might rage, but she was always anchored to her fate.

Seira turned and walked slowly to the large window, the chill in the air biting at her skin. The castle stretched out before her, an endless labyrinth of cold stone and towering walls. Her father, King Ragnar Leonardo, ruled from the tallest spire in the center of the castle, a man whose cold eyes and colder heart had driven the kingdom into despair. Her siblings, her elder sister Elara and her younger brother Tobias, were little more than pieces on a chessboard to him, each of them a tool for his own ambition. Elara, the perfect heir, the crown princess. Tobias, the forgotten one, too weak to challenge the throne. And Seira—second-born, second-class, forever overlooked. She was neither a daughter nor a sibling in the eyes of the king. She was a weapon, a pawn in a game that had already been decided.

Her breath fogged up the window as she stared out at the dark landscape. If only I could leave it all behind. If only I could escape this life and be someone else.

The thought was fleeting, a simple wish whispered into the void. She knew better than to believe in such things.

As her mind wandered, she felt a strange sensation creep over her—a shiver that ran through her entire being. It wasn't the chill of the storm, nor the coldness of the room. It was something else, something foreign, like an invisible hand pressing against her chest, pushing her into the unknown.

She blinked rapidly, her vision swimming as the world around her seemed to distort. The room spun, and for a moment, everything went dark. The edges of the world blurred and melted away, like ink running in water. She gasped, her heart pounding, but the sensation did not fade. Instead, it grew stronger, more intense.

She reached out, her hands grasping for something solid, but there was nothing. No walls, no desk, no books. Only a void, empty and endless. The silence was suffocating.

And then, without warning, she fell.

The sensation of falling was unlike anything she had ever experienced. The ground beneath her feet vanished, and she felt weightless, as though her very existence was being ripped away. She closed her eyes, heart racing, unable to comprehend what was happening. She had read about it in books—an out-of-body experience, a journey into another world. But this felt too real. Too raw.

The world around her shifted again, this time more violently. The void cracked open like a wound, and Seira was swallowed whole.

When she opened her eyes, the world was no longer the same.

Her senses exploded in a rush—smells, sounds, textures, all too vivid and overwhelming. She could hear the rustling of leaves, the distant calls of birds, the clinking of metal against stone. The ground beneath her was cold, smooth, and hard. She stood on it, disoriented, trying to gather her bearings. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, the trees around her dark and foreboding. The kingdom she had known was gone. This was something else—a place entirely unfamiliar.

She looked around, her breath catching in her throat. Her pulse quickened. She was still wearing the same gown she had been wearing earlier, but everything else was wrong. The world around her wasn't hers. She wasn't in her room. She wasn't in her kingdom. She was... somewhere else.

No...

Her hand flew to her throat, and she gasped as her mind tried to catch up with what her body was feeling. The heavy weight of the crown—no, not a crown, a diadem, rested atop her head. She reached up, her fingers trembling as they brushed against the cold metal. It was real. Too real.

She wasn't her. She was Seraphina Valemont.

And she was in her own body, standing in the middle of a world that shouldn't have existed, a world she had only read about in the pages of her books. She had died, hadn't she? How was this possible?

A soft sound broke through her reverie, a rustle from behind her. She whirled around, her heart racing, only to find a figure standing in the distance—a tall, dark silhouette against the dimming sky. They were watching her. But Seraphina couldn't move. Her limbs felt heavy, her breath shallow.

She was not alone.

And she had no idea what fate awaited her in this strange world. But she knew one thing for certain:

She was no longer the girl who had wished for escape. She had escaped—and now she was trapped.

This is where her story began—as the villainess who is destined to fall, but can she fight to rewrite her own fate... Can she turn time and work on changing the past??? Will fate give her a second chance at life??