Sister Steals My Groom? Reborn: The Weak Elf I Married Was Actually Heaven's Strongest

"Sis, Marcus and I are truly in love."

Celia's voice came from my left. She was kneeling three steps away from me, tears clinging to her lashes, trembling on the verge of falling.

I snapped my eyes open, my fingertips still carrying the phantom sensation of charred flesh. Above me hung the crystal chandelier beneath the council dome, its light cold as a blade. The air was thick with the scent of incense and old books. This was Father's study.

I was kneeling before the Oath Stone.

I knew the pattern beneath my knees by heart. The blood-bond betrothal ceremony came once every hundred years.

"We've already slept together. If I can't marry him, my whole life will be ruined."

Father sat in his high-backed chair, fingers tapping against the armrest. The way he looked at Celia was always the same—helplessly indulgent, spoiled by affection.

"Elara," Father said, "you see..."

I didn't look at him. I looked at Celia.

Her head was bowed, her shoulders trembling lightly, like a girl on the verge of breaking under the weight of love.

But the muscles at the corners of her mouth were too tight. There was a faint gleam in her eyes, exactly like the one she had worn in my last life when she stood before the stake.

She looked pleased with herself.

She had been reborn too.

"Elara, the council requires a blood-alliance marriage every hundred years. Since your sister has already..."

"Since my sister and Marcus love each other, I naturally won't stand in their way."

My voice was flat. My nails bit into my palm, then loosened.

The study went still for a moment. Father froze, all the arguments he had prepared suddenly useless. Celia looked up at me. Her tears were still there, but her pupils tightened.

She stared at me in disbelief, but there was nothing on my face.

"Really? Then your marriage match... There's still an opening with the vampire family, the Veymores, and the draconic Drake family isn't bad either, or..."

"I choose the elves. Sylas Soren."

Father's hand stopped in midair.

"The elves?" He frowned. "Sylas Soren? Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," I cut in.

Father's expression shifted. The Soren bloodline of the elven family had been cursed three hundred years ago. None of them lived past forty. Marrying into that family meant widowhood. Even if you had children, they would carry the curse too. No one in the council ever chose them. Sylas Soren's name sat at the bottom of the marriage roster year after year.

"You really won't change your mind?" Father's voice weakened.

I rose to my feet, my knees tingling with numbness.

"No."

Celia stood up too quickly, the hem of her dress knocking over a copper basin nearby. Water splashed across the floor, but she didn't look down. She was staring at me.

"Sister, the elves..." She covered her mouth, but laughter leaked through her fingers. "Elves are wonderful. They're all beautiful."

Then she turned and ran out, her footsteps echoing all the way down the corridor.

To spread the news.

Father let out a sigh. He sounded relieved too. I didn't look at him. I walked out of the study.

The draft in the corridor rushed over me, and I leaned against the stone wall for a moment. The spot where my nails had dug into my palm still burned. Hatred surged up in me, tightening my throat. I clenched my jaw, then let it go.

Then I headed downstairs.

At the turn of the staircase, Celia's voice drifted out from the side parlor. She was laughing so hard she could barely catch her breath. Someone beside her asked something I couldn't make out. All I heard was her voice rising at the end.

"An elf! She actually picked an elf!"

I kept walking.

The parlor door was slightly ajar. Celia had already seen me. She stepped out, that barely-contained smile still hanging on her face.

"Congratulations, sis." She tilted her head. "Sylas Soren—the most beautiful man among the elves."

She covered her mouth again as her shoulders shook with laughter.

"Well, you know... anyway, you're healthy. Maybe you'll even outlive him by a few years."

I walked past her.

"From your lips to God's ears."

Celia's laughter stalled for half a beat. I didn't turn around. I walked to the end of the hall and pushed open the door to my room.

Then I shut it.

The room was quiet. On the vanity sat the silver comb and white flowers prepared for tomorrow's wedding. The servants had everything ready. I sat on the edge of the bed, picked up the silver comb, and turned it once in my hand. The teeth were cold.

From outside came the sound of bells—the sunset bell, rung only once every hundred years. Tomorrow morning, three families would complete their marriage alliances before the Oath Stone at the same time. Celia would marry Marcus. I would marry Sylas Soren.

In my previous life...

In my previous life, I chose Marcus.

At the time, I thought he was loyal. After all, he was the heir to the werewolf family, the kind of man whose eyes always seemed fixed on you, who always stood ramrod straight in the council chamber.

I bore him a son. On the day the child was born, his bloodline was identified as Arbiter. The council held an emergency session that very night and named him the next ruler. Marcus's power multiplied tenfold overnight.

Celia, meanwhile, married into the vampire Veymore family. But the vampires were decadent in ways she had never expected, and in the end she was infected with a curse that left her barren for life.

After that, she went mad. Jealousy twisted her into something deranged, until she burned me and my child alive.

As for why she chose the Veymores in the first place, it was because the men of that family were all handsome. Back then, she had laughed sincerely and said, "A face is forever."

I set the silver comb back down.

In my mind, I went over tomorrow's sequence of events. The church stood on the east side of the council grounds. There were three places before the Oath Stone: werewolves in the center, vampires on the left, elves on the right. Sylas Soren would stand on the right, and I would stand across from him.

In truth, I had only seen him once—my last glimpse before I died, through the firelight. Silver hair, green eyes, exactly as the stories said.

Someone knocked at the door.

"Miss, Miss Celia is downstairs. She says you agreed to give her your role as tomorrow's officiant."

She had taken the officiant's role too.

By custom, the eldest sister served as officiant. She wanted that role because she wanted me standing among the guests, forced to watch her marry Marcus.

"Then let her have it."

The butler's footsteps retreated. I pinned one of the white flowers into the wig prepared for tomorrow's styling and glanced at myself in the mirror.

The face looking back at me was calm. There was no emotion in my eyes.

Good.