After Winter

In the Celestra Republic, there once existed an inseparable trio known as the AAA+ Queens of skating, Mika, Ari, and Lia, the queens of the ice. They dominated every podium, constantly switching places between bronze, silver, and gold, never leaving room for anyone else.

Beyond the ice, they were best friends, widely known and admired across the entire Celestra Republic.

But their friendship... didn't begin the usual way.

While most friendships start with honesty and simple introductions, Aurea Mikaela Llorente's began with a lie, a small one, just to start a conversation with two of the most well-known ice skating transferees in their town, Clarisse Annelise Montclair and Tahlia Avielle Grayson.

What was meant to be temporary slowly turned into something real. The lie became routine, routine became familiarity, and familiarity became friendship. For a time, they were inseparable, not just as skating partners, but as something closer, something that felt permanent.

Until it wasn't.

Because the same lies that brought them together eventually became the reason everything fell apart.

More than a decade later, Mika is left with the consequences of a friendship she broke and a past she cannot undo. At twenty-eight, she is left with one question, how do you fix something you were the one who destroyed?

With no clear answer and no easy way back, she turns to the only thing that ever worked for her before.

Another lie.

This time, bigger than anything she has ever told.

A lie that will bring her back to the lives she once lost, even if it means becoming someone who no longer exists.

Even if it means faking her own death.