Chapter 1

In my past life, Selena had been sent to the frozen wastelands, where she had endured endless suffering, while I had remained in the palace, becoming the princess cherished by everyone.

So after we were reborn, Selena’s first choice had been to take away the life that belonged to me.

But she had never realized that changing fate had never depended on the lot chosen by destiny—it depended on who had the mind to control everything.

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Lyra ‘s POV

"My two princesses, from this night your fates rest in your own hands."

The Lunar Oracle, Orio Veyl, raised the two lots high, and every wolf in the palace held its breath. One would keep a daughter here in the Red Moon Pack's central den. The other would send her west with our uncle, into the frozen wastes at the edge of the world.

Selena didn't wait. She shoved me aside. "I'll choose first."

Her hand closed on the lot she wanted, and the moment she saw she'd drawn it right, the breath rushed out of her all at once. She pressed it to her chest the way a drowning wolf clings to a blood-oath, as though it alone stood between her and the dark.

Our mother came from the servants' side of the hall, where the Luna Servant Clan bowed their heads and folded their hands and asked the world for nothing. Timid as she was, she still caught Selena's sleeve.

"Why are you being so unkind tonight?"

To her, Selena had always been the gentle one, the obedient daughter who never grabbed and never wanted more than she was given. She searched that sweet face and couldn't understand what had come over her child.

She didn't see the cruel little pleasure in Selena's eyes as they slid to me. She didn't know how my sister savored this.

And she never guessed the truth that lived beneath both our skins — that Selena and I had already died once, and the moon had sent us back to walk it all again.

The moon curses twin Alphas. Orio Veyl read it over our cradles — two daughters where the pack had prayed for one, and both marked to tear the Red Moon apart once we turned twelve, unless one of us was sent away. So our father, Alpha King Ragnar Vorthys, chose the only mercy the curse allowed. One princess kept her place at the den. The other would ride west to the frozen wastes, raised as a male warrior until the curse lost her scent.

In the life before this one, Selena played the gracious sister and let me choose first, never dreaming I'd stay. So she rode west with our uncle Darian, into a cold she couldn't survive. 

She lasted less than a season, then stole the camp's coin and fled — straight into a stray pack's hands. To save her own throat she gave them everything: our bloodline, Darian's watch, the weak hours in his defenses. 

They came over the wall while the camp slept, and by dawn my uncle and half his soldiers lay dead in the snow.

Selena lived, a traitor with nowhere left to go, and crept back only to watch me wed. By then I was Lyra Crimson, the court's favored Luna, promised to the Obsidian Alpha. She couldn't bear it. Same blood, she raged — why my crown and her ruin? So she poisoned my cup and I died on the marble I'd earned.

Then the moon threw us both back. This time she clawed her way into staying, and it was me our uncle came to fetch. She thought she'd banished me to the worst place in the world.

She never guessed the true hell was the court she'd fought so hard to keep.