Resetting The Villainess

The Sea-Book wasn’t supposed to hum.

Books, in general, did not hum. They whispered when pages turned, sighed when dust settled. But this one… this one sang — low and soft, like a heartbeat I couldn’t quite place.

It had started three nights ago, when I’d left it on my desk beside the pendant.
Now, under the crescent moon, it glowed faintly — its cover rippling like the surface of dark water.

My room was silent, save for the rhythmic ticking of the clock and my own uncertain breathing.

I hesitated before touching it.
Every time I opened this book, something changed.

The words rearranged themselves.
New lines appeared where old ones had been.
And sometimes… the pages seemed to speak back.

But tonight, the pull was different. Stronger.
The air itself seemed to bend toward it.

I brushed my fingers across the cover. “What are you?” I whispered.

The Sea-Book opened on its own.

Ink swirled, letters shifting until they formed a single sentence — written in a script that looked older than language itself.

To the one who bears the Dusk, remember.

The room dimmed.
The flame in my lamp flickered, then steadied.

And the world changed.

The page came alive — not with words, but with images made of light and shadow. I saw a vast city carved into the heart of a mountain, silver rivers glowing beneath arched bridges. Towers of obsidian stretched toward a twilight sky where a pale moon hung heavy and red.

Voices echoed faintly, overlapping whispers in a language I did not understand.

Then a figure appeared.

A man stood on the edge of a cliff, wind tugging at his dark cloak. His hair was black as the sea at midnight, his eyes like molten amber. Behind him, the city burned.

Kaelith Auren, the book murmured through my mind, a voice both ancient and familiar.
The last heir of the Shadow Throne.

I gasped.
Kaelith Auren — Auren’s ancestor. The name that history erased.

The vision shifted. The man knelt beside a woman with hair the color of frost and eyes glowing faintly blue. She held a child in her arms — an infant swaddled in black silk embroidered with a crescent flame.

We will hide the blood within light, she whispered. And one day, when the moon calls her name, the Shadows will rise again.

The image fractured — like glass struck by a hammer — and the sound of waves crashing filled my head.

When I blinked, I was back in my room.

Except… my pendant was glowing.

The sigil etched on its surface pulsed with the same faint, silvery light that had filled the book. It grew brighter, brighter still — until a thin beam of light shot from the center, searing across my palm.

I cried out, dropping the pendant.

A mark burned into my skin — small, crescent-shaped, wrapped in the curl of a flame.

The Lunar Crest.

I’d seen it before — on the floor of the hidden sanctuary beneath the manor. And on the ring Auren wore on his right hand.

My breath hitched. The mark shimmered faintly, as if alive.

Then came the voice — soft, female, and achingly gentle.

Daughter of Dusk… the Moon remembers you.

The Sea-Book slammed shut.

For a long moment, I just sat there, staring at my hand. My pulse thudded in my ears. The mark still glowed faintly, its light pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.

The door burst open.

Auren stood there, breathless, his usual calm shattered. His coat hung loose around him, dark hair tousled from the wind.

“What did you do?” His voice was low, sharp. “I felt the surge from halfway across the city.”

I swallowed. “I—It just… happened.”

His eyes fell to my hand. When he saw the mark, his expression changed completely.
The tension left his shoulders. His gaze softened — reverent, almost disbelieving.

He stepped closer, slowly, as though approaching something sacred.
When his fingers brushed the edge of the mark, the light flared, casting his face in silver.

Then — to my utter shock — Auren dropped to one knee.

I stared down at him, stunned. “Auren—what are you doing?”

His eyes lifted to meet mine. And for the first time since I’d known him, he wasn’t smirking, or teasing, or hiding behind words.
He looked… awed.

“You’ve been chosen,” he said quietly. “And that means the Shadows will rise again.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came.

He took my hand gently, the glow reflecting in his eyes. “Your mother must have known. The pendant, the book — they weren’t just relics. They were a call. And now…”

He hesitated, then whispered, almost to himself,

“Now the Moon has answered.”

My pulse wouldn’t steady.

I didn’t understand what this meant — what any of it meant — but deep inside, beneath the fear, something stirred.

A memory.
A warmth.
A whisper that wasn’t mine.

The world will remember what it buried.

And for the first time, I realized — maybe my rebirth wasn’t an accident.
Maybe I hadn’t been thrown into this world at random.

Maybe I was sent.