By Fate I Return

A "what If" verse to one of my favourite stories By Fate I Conquer by Cora Reilly

let's reread this from Cressida 's pov this time

Pain. Agony. The slow, torturous drag of a blade slicing through skin.

Cressida had always known she would die unloved. She just hadn't thought it would be like this.

Navio grinned above her, his knife drenched in her blood, his eyes alight with cruelty. Piece by piece, he carved her away, his hands methodical, his movements steady. Her body was nothing but a discarded sacrifice, a name barely whispered in the halls of history.

Ammo wouldn't mourn her.

No one would.

And maybe, just maybe, she deserved it.

Her eyes fluttered shut, darkness claiming her in its cold embrace.

But when she opened them again-

She was sixteen.

Back in her childhood home, her mother's voice calling for her. Her hands were smooth, unstained by the sins she hadn't yet committed.

Cressida's breath hitched.

She was alive.

She was back.

And she would not make the same mistakes again.

Or so she thought.

Because despite everything, despite knowing the heartbreak, the pain-

She still found herself in Ammo's bed.

And this time, he wasn't letting her go.