Reborn to Marry the World-Ending Phoenix

"Sister, Valerius and I have already completed the feather-exchange bond... If I can't marry him, I'll suffer the backlash. My wings will wither, and I'll never be able to bond with another beastman!"

Lysandra pulled back her collar, flaunting the glowing golden feather embedded near her collarbone—the mark of the Golden Eagle Clan.

When I opened my eyes again, the dizzying Crystal Palace of Aurelia had replaced the blood-stained altar of my nightmares.

Lysandra knelt before my father and me, her face streaked with tears.

But in her downcast eyes, I recognized the same greedy, calculating gleam from my previous life—the exact look she wore when she cut open my womb and stole my child.

In that instant, I knew she had been reborn too.

I dug my nails into my palms, using the pain to anchor my sanity and suppress the urge to rip her apart.

"Lysandra... how could you do this? Valerius is your sister's fiancé, the heir of the Golden Eagle Clan!"

My father's voice trembled with helplessness. But I knew him too well—his resolve was already wavering.

Father had always favored my "innocent" younger sister—his illegitimate daughter by a maid. Perhaps out of guilt toward her late mother, he always pampered her.

In his eyes, I—the legitimate eldest daughter with pure White Swan blood—could never compare to a single one of her tears.

Just like in my past life, despite this betrayal, he would ultimately praise her for "bravely making a choice for love."

In my previous life, I had completed the bonding ceremony with Valerius.

Two months later, I conceived.

I birthed a sacred egg for him, which hatched a fledgling with pure golden wings. He inherited my White Swan bloodline and Valerius's solar magic, becoming the absolute ruler of the Sky City and propelling the Golden Eagles to unprecedented power.

Meanwhile, aiming for nobility, Lysandra had chosen the heir of the Silver Falcon Clan.

She had no idea her marriage was a pathetic joke. Her distinguished heir was a cowardly puppet, secretly infected with the "Rotfeather Curse." Transmitted through the bond, the curse rotted wings, induced madness, and destroyed fertility.

Infected by the curse, Lysandra became infertile. Mad and wingless, she was banished by the Silver Falcons.

She blamed her misery on me, consumed by jealousy of my mate and my powerful child.

On the eve of the Golden Eagle's coronation, she lured me home under the guise of "seeking forgiveness," then activated a forbidden blood array.

Memories of that past life flashed through my mind: she hacked off my wings with a toxic blade. Laughing, she sliced my abdomen open to carve out my second egg and my bloodline's power, hoping to transplant them into her rotting body.

"If you don't die, I'll never have my chance! Why should you be the sole master of this sky?!" Lysandra's laughter echoed in my ears.

"Seraphina?" My father's voice pulled me back from my hatred. "What is your take on this matter?"

Looking down at Lysandra, a hatred intense enough to incinerate the Sky City threatened to swallow me.

I wanted to summon a storm, snap her neck, and expose her true face to the world. But reason chained my impulses.

You want that arrogant Golden Eagle, sister? Take him. I want to watch as you are reduced to ashes by his supposedly magnificent bloodline—a bloodline that covertly drains its mate.

"Since they have already completed the bond, what's done is done. I have no desire for a traitor's feather," my voice was icy.

A flash of shock crossed Lysandra's face, instantly replaced by wild ecstasy.

"Really? Sister, are you willing to let me have—"

"Yes." I cut her off.

My father let out a breath of relief. "Lysandra, you owe your sister. It is Seraphina's magnanimity that fulfilled your desires."

"I will definitely express my thanks!" Lysandra shot up from the floor and bolted, desperate to declare her victory to the Golden Eagles before I could change my mind.

Father watched his youngest daughter's retreating back with a satisfied gleam in his eye.

But the moment the doors shut behind her, the affection vanished from his face, replaced by cold calculation.

"Seraphina," my father's expression turned stern. "Although you lost the Golden Eagle alliance, with your pure bloodline, we still have options. The young lord of the Snow Owl Clan has just come of age. They monopolize the crystal core trade and boast immense wealth..."

"No."

"I already made my choice." I looked into my father's shell-shocked eyes. "I am going to bond with Corvus of the Shadow Raven Clan."

My father's face drained of color. "Are you out of your mind?! The Shadow Ravens? Those cursed birds doomed to linger in the abyss? Not to mention Corvus... his wings were broken long ago. He is a cripple!"

Centuries ago, the Shadow Raven Clan was banished by the Sky City's four major clans. Stripped of their aerial rights, they became pariahs—symbols of death reduced to wandering the sunless borders of the abyss.

In Aurelia's history, no pure-blooded daughter had ever stooped to bond with a raven. To society, their filthy bloodline wasn't fit to breed offspring capable of reaching the sky.

Yet, in my past life, as I was trapped inside that blood array facing death, I saw a dark silhouette tear through the heavens.

It was Corvus.

That broken-winged gray raven, spat on by the world, dragged his bleeding wings to smash a forbidden barrier not even the Holy Knights could dent.

In his crimson eyes, there was none of the arrogant superiority seen in other high-ranking beastmen.

He sacrificed everything to drag me out of that pool of blood, but in the end, he was a step too late.