Imperial Palace – Three Days After the Banquet
Sunlight spilled through the arched windows, pooling like honey on the marble floor—too warm, too golden, for a morning so bitter.
Emperor Callistus Aurelis slouched in his throne as though the weight of the Empire had finally settled in his bones. A glass of iced rose tea dangled from his fingers, untouched, condensation trailing like sweat down the crystal.
A junior secretary read from the decree.
"…and with the engagement formally dissolved, Lady Seraphina Vaelmont has been stripped of all titles and exiled to the Outer Borderlands, as per Her Majesty's recommendation. Crown Prince Lucien has since begun courting Lady Evelyn Vaelmont."
A silence followed—sharp, expectant, the way a blade hesitates just before the cut.
The Emperor closed his eyes for a beat too long.
Then: "You let them exile Seraphina."
The boy hesitated. "Your Majesty… the order bears your seal."
Callistus opened one eye. "I sign seventeen death warrants before breakfast. Do you think I read every betrayal they slip under my hand?"
The boy flinched.
Callistus set the glass down with a quiet clink, then rose with the grace of a soldier too tired to pretend he's anything else.
"No one told me they were banishing the only woman in this court who ever handed me six dead traitors, a balanced budget, and a smile sharp enough to peel skin."
"She was cast as a villainess."
"She was a villainess." A pause. Then, lower: "Just not our villainess."
He crossed to the window, gaze fixed on the distant gardens where everything still bloomed as if the Empire weren't already bleeding.
"Who signed off?"
"The Empress. And the Crown Prince."
Callistus chuckled. A bitter thing. "Of course. The boy's pride and the woman's need to cut anything she can't control."
The secretary glanced up. "Shall I summon them?"
He waved the idea away like a buzzing fly.
"No. Let them taste the peace- they've won."
He tilted his head, watching the wind bend the roses.
"She's not coming back," he murmured. "But we'll feel the edge of her absence soon enough."
And this time, when the blade falls, it won't be from her hand—but it will be hers all the same.
⸻
Borderlands – Outskirts of Arvis Hollow
The train screeched into the station like it resented its own survival.
Dust clung to the windows. The platform was cracked stone and stubborn weeds. Wild dogs barked in the distance. The air tasted like dry earth and old smoke.
Seraphina Vaelmont stepped off in white heels and a travel-stiff coat, her shadow long behind her.
Kael followed, carrying her luggage, sleeves rolled to the elbow.
"Quaint," he muttered, surveying the town.
Seraphina said nothing, eyes scanning the peeling signs, the unpaved roads, the people pretending not to stare.
A station worker—broad-shouldered and sun-scorched—squinted at her.
"You the noble brat they dumped out here?"
She smiled with polite venom. "I prefer retired stateswoman."
He grunted and walked off.
Kael chuckled. "You're popular already."
"Good. I was never fond of fans."
⸻
Flashback – Age 9
She'd earned a silver dagger for brokering peace between two feuding houses. It glittered on her belt as she fell asleep that night.
The maid came just after midnight—face calm, hands steady, knife aimed for the throat.
Seraphina woke to the sound of her own breath catching—and used her gifted blade to slit the woman's neck before she could scream.
The blood dried fast. The lesson lasted longer.
Every peace you forge makes someone want you dead.
⸻
Present Day
As they walked toward the town's edge, Seraphina caught the scent of gun oil and sweat—too sharp to be local.
She didn't flinch. Just smiled.
Someone was already drawing a blade.
How familiar.
How… boring.
⸻
By midafternoon, the estate loomed ahead—mossy walls, cracked gates, a manor with sagging shutters and a front step that groaned like an old soldier.
"A palace," Kael said dryly.
Seraphina stepped over a broken tile. "It's peace."
She didn't care that ivy had swallowed the windows or that the orchard was little more than stumps and weeds. For the first time in years, no one was watching. No daggers were being sharpened with smiles.
She unpacked, uncorked a bottle of wine, and toasted to the absence of duty.
"To freedom."
They drank.
For three blissful days, she did nothing.
No letters. No ledgers. No threats. No whispers curdling behind council doors. No locked boxes needing clever hands.
She let the sun kiss her skin. Let her bare feet sink into the riverbed. Let her muscles forget the armor they'd worn for a decade. Her shoulders softened. Her silence wasn't tactical—it was restful.
She exhaled.
She let herself hope this might be enough.
Until the first brick shattered her gate.
⸻
Village Chatter – Arvis Hollow
"She's a noble."
"Same kind that taxed us for breathing."
"They say she seduced the prince, nearly toppled the court."
"Gold buttons don't make a clean heart."
⸻
Day four: windows smashed.
Day five: merchants turned their backs.
Day six: someone tried to torch her fence.
Kael caught the arsonist. Sent them home limping.
"They're proud," he told her. "And tired of being ruled by people who've never been hungry."
"I haven't ruled anyone."
"They don't care. You wear the enemy's face."
That night, she stood alone before the manor.
Moonlight reflected off shattered glass. Graffiti slashed across the stone like claw marks. As if the house itself had been accused and convicted.
One phrase stood out in charcoal:
NO NOBLES. NO KINGS. GET OUT.
She stared.
She didn't frown. She didn't rage. She didn't flinch.
But something inside her—quiet, buried—ached.
She'd come here to vanish. To rest.
The world hadn't forgotten her. It simply waited until she set her sword down.
She bent to pick up a shard of glass and studied her own reflection in it: tired eyes, a thousand-yard stare.
Then she smiled.
Not the sly curve reserved for the Empress.
Not the mocking tilt she gave Lucien.
This one was cold steel drawn slow from a sheath.
"You fear nobles," she said softly. "But I'm something else now."
In the study, dust coated every surface. She opened a drawer that stuck from disuse, pulled out an old blueprint—one of the original trade maps from before the capital forgot these lands.
Her fingers traced forgotten routes. Buried mines. Unguarded borders. She remembered every negotiation, every betrayal, every forced compromise.
A blade loses meaning when peace is kept by cowards.
She smiled again.
"No kings?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "Fine. I'll build something better."
Her eyes gleamed like flint.
"And when the Empire falls—because it will—don't look for salvation in your prince."
"Look to the borderlands."
"I'll already be waiting."