Reborn Frost Fae & Dark Lord

This moment is exactly as it was in my previous life. The doors blow open, heat rolls across the hall. Prince Salian of the Phoenix Court arrives in his full power, in surface form, and Mira is in his arms. My sister, my husband's arms around my sister. She looks at me over his shoulder, satisfied, certain. In my previous life, on the day of the Bloomrite, my sister chose someone else. She left the bore night, the one nobody wanted for me. It was fate, a frostborn for a beast. Instead, I saved Prince Solian of the Phoenix Court by accident. He took me as his queen. After the bonding, I bore five heirs for the Phoenix bloodline, a clan that had gone generations without children. I became a legend across the Everlight realm. My sister, bonded to her chosen lord, was cast out for barrenness. I came home with my youngest sister poisoned my bowl, me and my child both when I woke, it was the day of the right again. Everyone present is a worthy son of their bloodline. Choose freely. Then the doors blew open. The air outside turned the color of a wound. Heat rolled across the hall. Creatures called from everywhere at once. He arrived in a surge of flame touched power, Prince Solian of the Phoenix Court, in his full power, in surface form, and he had his arm around my sister's waist. Era saved my life. From this day forward, she is my true mate. Half the Frostbay Covenant elders were taken aback. Some even shedding tears of emotion. A Phoenix Court Lord choosing one of ours, choosing hers first and only. It hadn't happened in living memory. Mira looked at me over his shoulder, satisfied, certain I knew then she'd been reborn too.

In my first life, Mira had caught wind of something about the Phoenix Court. The bloodline could produce pure divine heirs given the right conditions. She decided that was her destiny, so she sent me away beforehand, choosing her partner before I even arrived. But by some twist of fate, I wandered into the deep passage beyond the hall. There was a Phoenix Court shifter in the passage, down on one knee, barely holding his form. His body was running at full flametouched power. The frost around him had already started burning. Another few minutes and he'd have taken the whole grove. I didn't think about it. I just moved. Poured everything I had into Frostborn Current until it stopped fighting back, then sealed his wounds. He lived. I walked away. Wait. it is a token. He pressed a frost scale crystal into my palm. By the time I reached the hall, only the bore knight was left. I refused. Elder Sylvan was furious. They were about to force the bond when Prince Solian arrived and named me his. I went to the Phoenix Court. Mira went elsewhere. I bore five Phoenix heirs and became something the Everlight realm talked about. She never conceived. They sent her home. She waited until I visited, poisoned my food, mine and my child's both. I still remember what it felt likethe burning from flametouched power, from the inside out. Her face in the firelight. Now I looked at her, draped against Prince Solian, already victorious. She thought she'd won. She hadn't thought through what it would cost her. Phoenix Court lords are of the flametouched element. Their mates sleep in flametouched air, bathe in flametouched heat, eat flametouched food. For a bloodline like ours, frostborn by nature, that's not a marriage. It's a slow execution. Last time, I had no choice but to pretend to like it every day. I smiled through the sacred ember isles, through the scalding baths, through the meals that felt like swallowing coals. By the time I was pregnant, my soul core was already cracked. The children drew what was left. Mira was frostborn too; she just didn't know what she'd agreed to yet.