The Lady King

Prologue

They say the dead don't dream.

They're wrong.

I dreamed of gunmetal and rain. Of a city that never slept, where the syndicate ruled from glass towers and the underdogs bled in alleyways. I dreamed of a name — Vienne Delgado — whispered like a prayer by those I saved, like a curse by those I killed.

And then I woke up.

Not to neon. Not to asphalt.

To blood. To mud. To a sky so blue it hurt.

I opened eyes that weren't mine in a body that felt like borrowed armor. Memories crashed into me like a wave — not my own, but hers. A battlefield. A retreat. An arrow in the back. Betrayal.

Iraia Voss. The last lady warrior. Left for dead by the kingdom she swore to protect.

I sat up in a Blood Field of corpses, my hands stained with someone else's blood, and did the only thing a dead woman from another world could do.

I laughed.

Because if there was one thing Vienne knew how to do, it was survive the impossible.

And if these bastards thought they'd killed me?

They hadn't even met me yet.