THE SOUL'S EXCHANGE

prolouge

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In the stillness between life and death, where even time seemed to hold its breath, two women were drawn together by fate's unseen hand.

On one side of the world, Sitara Evangeline Potters-Black lay surrounded by the aching hum of magic, her final moments slipping away as the veil of death slowly descended. The birth of her child was a momentous occasion, but for Sitara, it would also be her last. As she struggled for breath, the pull of the beyond grew stronger. But Sitara, the mistress of death, knew this crossing was no accident. There were no accidents when it came to death-not for her.

Far across realms, in the land of dragons, Alicent Hightower lay writhing in pain, her body weakening as her son Aegon II took his first breath. Bloodied sheets and the smell of ash filled her senses as she too felt the cold hands of the Stranger-Westeros' god of death-beckoning her toward eternal rest. The weight of duty, the isolation of a loveless marriage, and the rivalry that tore at her heart were swept away in the tides of her last breath.

But the gods had other plans.

In the twilight between their deaths, the Stranger intervened, exchanging the souls of the two women. The Mistress of Death was reborn, her soul carried across realms into the body of Alicent Hightower. And Alicent, lost to her world, vanished into the void, leaving her body to the mercy of Sitara's fierce spirit.

The weight of a crown pressed upon her brow. Sitara-now Alicent-awoke in a world filled with dragonfire and whispers of treachery, where the delicate dance of power was played with lives as its stakes. Confusion, sorrow, and defiance swirled within her as memories that were not hers flooded her mind: a rivalry with the king's heir, Rhaenyra. Viserys, a cold, distant husband, and a family divided by ambition. A marriage made of not love but duty and her supposed father's ambition.

Yet, even in this strange world, her own powers still pulsed through her veins-ancient magic from a realm beyond Westeros. A magic this world had never seen. It clung to her like a second skin, whispering secrets and stirring the tongues of dragons.

But beneath the surface of these new burdens lay something more-a fire that blazed not from duty but from the heart. Daemon Targaryen, brother to husband, a man whose reputation was as wild as the dragons he rode, stirred something in her that defied reason. At first, their encounters were nothing but sharp words and colder stares. But within their rivalry lay a tension, a passion that neither could deny for long.

As war loomed on the horizon, and the Dance of the Dragons prepared to unfold, Sitara-now Alicent-faced choices that would reshape the very foundations of House Targaryen. With her children's future hanging in the balance, and her heart caught between duty, magic, and forbidden love, Sitara would have to wield her power wisely. The gods had chosen her to rewrite history, to alter the course of a bloody war, and to save a dynasty teetering on the edge of ruin.

In a land of dragons and gods, of rivalries and fire, Sitara had been brought to play a dangerous game. The stakes were higher than ever, and the Dance had only just begun.

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