Echo of a Poisoned Bloom

Grace

The air tastes like poison. Bitter almonds and cloying honey, a sweetness that burns straight down my throat. My lungs seize. I gasp, a ragged, desperate sound, my hands clawing at my neck as the world dissolves into a triumphant smirk on my husband’s face and the crocodile tears of my sister. My last thought is a name, a whisper of a fragrance I almost perfected. Aethelgard’s Bloom.

My eyes snap open.

I’m not on the cold marble floor of Theo’s study. I’m in my bed. My childhood bed, with its ridiculously soft silk sheets and the scent of lavender and rain from the gardens outside. I heave in a breath, a real one, clean and full. It doesn’t burn. My hands fly to my throat. The skin is smooth, unbroken. There’s no swelling, no fire.

A dream? No. The memory is too vivid, seared onto the back of my eyelids like a brand. Theo’s hand on my shoulder, his voice a soothing poison in my ear. “Just relax, my love. It will all be over soon.” And Isobel, my darling adopted sister, dabbing at her dry eyes with a lace handkerchief. “She was always so fragile,” she’d murmured to the doctor, the same doctor Theo had paid to sign the death certificate. Natural causes. A tragic, sudden heart failure.

My heart hammers against my ribs now, a frantic drumbeat of impossible life. I throw back the covers and stumble to the gilded mirror across the room. My reflection stares back, wide-eyed and pale. It’s me, but not me. My face is softer, the lines of exhaustion and betrayal not yet etched around my eyes. I look… younger. I look twenty.

The door to my bedroom creaks open. “There you are, sleepyhead. I was about to send a search party.”

Isobel glides in, a vision in pale pink chiffon. Her blonde hair is perfectly coiled, her smile a weapon of calculated sweetness. She’s carrying a small, velvet box. The sight of her makes the phantom poison burn in my throat again.

“Happy birthday, Grace,” she says, her voice like chimes. “I can’t believe you’re twenty. It feels like just yesterday we were children, playing in the gardens.”

Twenty. My twentieth birthday. Three years. It’s been three years since my twentieth birthday. Which means… it’s three years until my murder.

I’m back.

The realization hits me not like a wave, but like a shard of ice driving into my chest. I have a second chance.

“Are you alright?” Isobel’s brow furrows with that fake concern she mastered so well. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Something like that,” I say. My voice is hoarse, but steady. Colder than I remember it being.

She dismisses it with a light laugh. “Well, don’t be a ghost tonight. Theo has the most wonderful evening planned. Everyone is already arriving.” She places the velvet box on my vanity. “He asked me to give you this. A pre-celebration gift.”

I know what’s inside. A delicate diamond necklace. A placeholder for the main event. The real diamonds he’ll offer later tonight, on one knee, in front of our families and all of society. The ring I so eagerly accepted the first time around.

“How thoughtful,” I say, my tone flat.

Isobel’s smile tightens almost imperceptibly. She doesn’t like this new coldness. The old Grace would have gushed. She would have hugged her dear sister and chattered excitedly about Theo. The old Grace was a fool.

“Just hurry and get dressed,” she says, a flicker of irritation in her voice. “You don’t want to be late to your own party. It wouldn’t look right.”

She leaves, and I turn to my wardrobe. My hand hovers over the pale blue dress I wore the first time. The dress of a naive girl, soft and unassuming. I push it aside. My fingers find a deep crimson silk gown, one my mother deemed too bold for a twentieth birthday. It’s perfect.

An hour later, I descend the grand staircase. The ballroom of our estate is glittering. Crystal chandeliers cast a warm glow over hundreds of guests in tuxedos and gowns. A string quartet plays softly in the corner. My parents, Robert and Eleanor Teller, are holding court near the entrance, their faces beaming with pride. They see me and their smiles widen.

Then I see him. Theo Durant. He stands near the fountain, laughing with a group of investors, looking every bit the charismatic heir to the Durant Industries fortune. He’s handsome, I can’t deny that. Dark hair, sharp jaw, eyes the color of a stormy sea. In my first life, I thought that storm was passion. Now I know it’s just a void.

He spots me. His conversation falters, his eyes tracing my descent. He expects the shy girl in pale blue. He gets a woman in blood-red silk, her gaze as sharp as glass. I watch the surprise flicker across his face, quickly replaced by a possessive heat. He thinks this transformation is for him. Another game to pique his interest.

He detaches from his group and meets me at the bottom of the stairs. “Grace,” he murmurs, his voice a low caress. He takes my hand, his thumb stroking my knuckles. The touch feels like a spider crawling on my skin. “You look… breathtaking. I’ve never seen you wear red before.”

“I decided it was time for a change,” I reply, pulling my hand gently from his grasp. I don’t offer an excuse. I don’t smile sweetly. I simply let my hand fall to my side.

He frowns for a split second before his practiced charm slides back into place. “A beautiful change. Come, your parents are waiting. And I believe a toast is in order.”

He tries to place a hand on the small of my back to guide me, but I step away, moving towards my parents on my own. I can feel his eyes on me, a mixture of confusion and annoyance. Good. Let him be confused.

My father kisses my cheek. “There’s my birthday girl! Twenty years old. It’s a big night, Grace. A very big night.” He winks, a clear reference to Theo’s impending proposal. He thinks it’s the greatest match in a generation, the union of Teller Aromas and Durant Industries. He has no idea he’s trying to marry his daughter to her future murderer.

My mother fusses with a stray strand of my hair. “Darling, that dress is a bit much, isn’t it? Still, you look lovely. Isobel helped you, I assume?”

“No,” I say calmly. “I chose it myself.”

Before she can comment further, the gentle clinking of a glass being tapped for attention fills the room. Theo is standing on the low dais where the quartet was playing. The musicians have paused. A hush falls over the crowd. Here we go. The opening act of my destruction, Take One.

“Friends, family,” Theo begins, his voice resonating with false sincerity. “Thank you all for coming to celebrate this momentous occasion. The twentieth birthday of the incredible Grace Teller.” He smiles directly at me, a smile meant to make me melt. It makes me want to scream.

“I have known Grace for years,” he continues. “I have watched her grow from a sweet, shy girl into the stunning woman you see before you. She is kind, she is gentle, and she has a pure heart that is a rare treasure in this world.” He’s painting a portrait of a lamb for the slaughter. My stomach twists.

He walks towards me, never breaking eye contact. The crowd parts for him like he’s a king. “Grace has always been the quiet artist, the dreamer. She sees the world in a way the rest of us do not. But dreamers need protectors. They need someone to ground them, to help them navigate the complexities of life.” His condescension is a physical force, pressing down on me. I stood here once before and soaked it up, believing it was love.

He stops directly in front of me. The air is thick with anticipation. Isobel is standing just behind him, a perfect picture of supportive sisterhood, her eyes gleaming with triumph. She’s been pushing for this for years. Pushing me into his arms, all while seducing him behind my back.

Theo’s voice drops to an intimate whisper, though it’s amplified by the room’s acoustics. “I want to be that person for you, Grace.”

He sinks to one knee. Gasps ripple through the ballroom. He produces a black velvet box, the same one I was buried with. He opens it. A magnificent diamond, cut like a star, winks in the light.

“Grace Teller,” he says, his voice thick with emotion that he doesn’t feel. “Will you do me the incredible honor of becoming my wife?”

The silence is absolute. Every eye is on me. They expect tears. They expect a breathless ‘yes’. I give them neither.

I let the silence stretch, watching the confidence in Theo’s eyes waver, replaced by a flicker of uncertainty. I look past him, at Isobel. Her smile is frozen on her face. I look at my parents, their expressions a mixture of pride and impatience.

Then I look back down at the man kneeling at my feet. The man who will mix poison into my tea and watch me die without a shred of remorse.

I draw a slow, steadying breath.

“No,” I say.

My voice isn’t loud, but it cuts through the silence like a surgeon’s scalpel. It is clear, calm, and utterly final.

Theo’s face drains of color. He stares at me as if I’ve just spoken in a foreign language. “What?” he whispers, the sound swallowed by the cavernous room.

“I said no,” I repeat, a little louder this time. “Thank you for the offer, Theo. It was quite a performance. But I will not marry you.”

The entire ballroom erupts in a cacophony of shocked murmurs. My father takes a step forward, his face turning a dangerous shade of red. “Grace, what is the meaning of this? This isn’t a joke.”

“I am not joking, Father,” I say, turning to face him. I ignore the humiliated rage now twisting Theo’s features as he slowly gets to his feet. I ignore Isobel, whose mask of sweetness has shattered, revealing the venomous envy beneath.

I have the floor. And I am not done.

“I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking lately,” I announce, my voice gaining strength and ringing through the room. “About my future. About the family business.”

My father looks utterly bewildered. “The business? What are you talking about?”

“Teller Aromas is my legacy as much as it is yours,” I state, my gaze sweeping over the stunned faces of our guests, our rivals, our allies. “I’ve spent my life being the ‘quiet artist’. That ends tonight. Effective tomorrow morning, I will be taking my rightful place at the company. I’ll be in your office at nine a.m. to discuss my new role. I trust my shares as the majority heir are still in order?”

A new wave of shock silences the room. My mother looks like she might faint. Theo is staring at me with pure, unadulterated fury. He didn’t just lose a docile fiancée; he lost his inside track to controlling my family’s company. Isobel looks like she’s been slapped. Her entire plan, their entire plan, has just been detonated.

Without another word, I turn. I don’t run. I don’t offer any further explanation. I walk calmly through the stunned crowd, heading for the solitude of the gardens. Let them whisper. Let them stare. This is only the beginning.

As the cool night air hits my face, one thought burns brighter than all the chandeliers in the ballroom. They stole my life’s work. They took the formula for Aethelgard’s Bloom, the revolutionary perfume I’d nearly perfected, and built an empire on my grave.

They thought they buried Grace Teller, the fragile little artist. They have no idea they just woke up a queen. And this time, I’m building my own empire. Not on their graves. On their ashes.