Chapter 1: History
The rope burned.
That was the first thing Aurēline Seraphique remembered. Not the crowd, not the prayers shouted too late, not even the executioner's hands trembling as if that would absolve him. It was the coarse hemp biting into her throat, the way her breath fractured into thin, useless gasps while the capital of Lyséonne blurred beneath her tears.
"For The Slaughter of The Duke of Solmère, Aurēline Seraphique is Sentenced to.."
"DEATH"
Aurēline had fought for days upon days for her freedom, but to no avail.
she looks towards her former lover.
And the smile.
Lucien Morvèlan's smile had been calm. Proud, even. His gloved hand rested lightly on the waist of the woman beside him, her pale head tilted just enough to feign sorrow. The future Grand Duchess of Vaelcrest, beloved, untouched by scandal. While Aurēline, youngest daughter of House Seraphique, swung.
"You should have been grateful," Lucien had murmured when they passed in the hall that morning. "History needs a villain."
The trapdoor opened.
Darkness followed.
Aurēline woke screaming.
She bolted upright, breath tearing from her lungs as if the rope still held her. Her hands flew to her neck, fingers frantic, nails biting into unbroken skin. No blood. No bruises. No hemp.
Sunlight spilled through sheer ivory curtains, warm and soft, carrying the scent of myrrh and orange blossoms. Her chambers. Not a cell. Not the gallows tower overlooking the Argent Plaza.
Her chambers in Aurelion.
"Your Grace?"
The door opened. A familiar voice, young and cautious.
Maribel.
Aurēline stared at her lady's maid, alive and unaged, brown hair braided with gold thread. Not in mourning black. Not weeping.
"What day is it?" Aurēline whispered.
Maribel frowned. "The twelfth day of Solmere, my lady. Are you unwell? You were meant to depart for Lyséonne in three days. The betrothal banquet is nearing."
The room tilted.
Three days before her engagement announcement at court. Five months before her execution.
Aurēline pressed her palm to the mattress, grounding herself in silk and carved oak. Her heart thundered, not with fear, but with a terrible, clarifying certainty.
'I have returned.'
She dismissed Maribel with a tight smile and claimed lingering dreams. Once alone, Aurēline rose and crossed to the tall mirror framed in sun-gold filigree. The girl who stared back at her was seventeen again. Softer cheeks. Clear skin. Eyes still naive enough to believe in devotion.
They hardened as she watched.
Lucien Morvèlan had betrayed her. Framed her for the poisoning of Duke Vauldric of Ironholt, a crime that conveniently removed his rival and painted Aurēline as an ambitious, foreign snake. Evidence forged. Witnesses bought. Her own words twisted in court.
And her father had been forced to watch.
She touched the glass.
This time, she would not die screaming.
This time, she would plan.
The first encounter came sooner than expected.
That afternoon, Aurēline rode east along the Aurelion riverbanks, escorted lightly. She claimed a desire for air before court travel. In truth, she wanted distance from walls that remembered her innocence.
The path wound past sunlit reeds and low stone bridges. As her horse slowed near a shallow ford, another rider emerged from the trees ahead, clad not in silk or heraldry, but steel-dark leather and a travel cloak bearing no crest.
He reined in sharply upon seeing her colors.
"My apologies, Your Grace," he said, dismounting immediately. His voice was deep, restrained. "I did not expect Seraphique banners so far from the road."
Aurēline studied him. Tall. Scar along his jaw, old and clean. Storm-gray eyes that assessed terrain before people.
"And yet you recognized them," she replied. "You are not a common traveler."
"No," he admitted. "Cassian Draxenor. Second son of the Grand Duke of Kharvûn."
Her breath caught, just slightly.
Cassian Draxenor had stood silent during her trial, gaze fixed on the floor. She remembered thinking him a coward.
Now she wondered what silence had cost him.
"You ride without escort," she said.
"I prefer honesty to ceremony," Cassian replied. His mouth curved faintly. "It saves lives."
Something unreadable passed between them.
They spoke only briefly. Of roads. Of storms on the western coast. Of the coming tensions between Vaelcrest and the Crownlands. Cassian listened more than he spoke, his attention unsettling in its steadiness.
Before parting, he hesitated.
"Forgive my presumption," he said, "but Lyséonne is dangerous. Smiles there are sharper than blades. Choose carefully whom you trust."
Aurēline inclined her head. "I intend to."
As he rode away, she felt it. Not affection. Not yet.
Possibility.
***
Two days later, at the Sunreach Cathedral in Solmère, Aurēline attended evening prayer, more out of habit than faith. The golden vaults echoed softly as incense drifted upward.
"You never liked sitting still."
The voice came from her left.
She turned.
Elior Lumeris stood beside her, clad in white and gold vestments of his house. Duke Lumeris's heir. Scholar. Diplomat. The boy who had once pressed wildflowers into her hands and promised the world was kinder than it looked.
He smiled, gentle and warm.
In her former life, Elior had pleaded her innocence before the council. He had been outvoted. Silenced. Sent away.
He had never come to her execution.
"I grew older," Aurēline said quietly.
"So did I," he replied. His gaze lingered, searching. "You look troubled. Betrothal nerves?" He bantered at her.
Her fingers curled into her sleeves.
"If I said yes," she asked, "would you tell me the truth?"
"Always," Elior said without hesitation.
She studied him, heart aching with what he had been and what he might still be.
"Then I will speak again soon," she said. "And you must listen."
He nodded. "I always do."
That night, alone once more, Aurēline spread parchment across her desk.
She wrote names.
Lucien Morvèlan.
His mistress, Selene Vauldric.
The forged apothecary records.
The bribed witness from Coldmere.
The royal magistrate who accepted the evidence without question.
She drew lines. Connections. Weak points.
Cassian Draxenor knew shadows and war. Elior Lumeris knew law, faith, and the slow poison of truth.
She smiled, thin and deliberate.
"I will not rush," Aurēline whispered to the candlelight. "I will let them build the noose themselves."
Outside, the bells of Solmère rang, bright and hopeful.
Five months remained.
And this time, Aurēline Seraphique intended to live.
She did not sleep.
Aurēline paced the length of her chamber as dawn crept pale and gold through the curtains, catching in strands of her loose blonde hair as it spilled down her back. Each turn brought her past the same landmarks. The writing desk. The mirror. The window overlooking the eastern gardens where fountains murmured like gossiping courtiers.
Lucien Morvèlan.
The name pulsed in her thoughts like a bruise pressed too often.
The engagement was the keystone. Everything that followed, the accusation, the isolation, the trial, all of it had been built atop that single, gilded promise. If she could prevent the betrothal, delay it, taint it, or fracture it publicly, the future would splinter into something unrecognizable.
But Lucien wanted the alliance. House Morvèlan needed Aurelion's wealth and sanctity. And the Crown desired unity above all else.
Refusing outright would shame her father. Claiming illness would buy days at best. Fleeing would mark her guilty before any crime was committed.
Aurēline stopped before the mirror, hands braced against the frame.
'I need truth. Or leverage. Or a blade sharp enough to cut silk.'
Her thoughts turned, inevitably, to Elior.
He would not lie to her. That alone made him dangerous.
By midmorning she sent for him under the pretense of spiritual counsel, a request that no one dared refuse. They met in a quiet cloister garden near the cathedral, marble benches half-hidden by climbing roses. The air smelled of incense and dew.
Elior arrived without ceremony, his expression soft but alert.
"You look as though you have been arguing with fate," he said gently.
"I have been losing," Aurēline replied. "Sit."
He did.
For a moment she said nothing, fingers twisting together in her lap. The sunlight caught in her hair, turning it almost white gold, a Seraphique trait long praised and long resented.
"I am to be engaged in three days," she said finally. "You know this."
"Yes." He nods, taking a long sip of tea.
"I do not want it." she said stern.
Elior did not look surprised.
"Lucien Morvèlan is not what he seems," she continued, carefully. "And the marriage would place me in danger."
"Political danger?" he asked. "Or personal?"
"Both," Aurēline said. "And worse, I believe it would place my father at risk as well."
Elior exhaled slowly. "That is a grave claim."
"I know."
He studied her face, searching for hesitation, exaggeration, hysteria. He found none.
"If I speak," Elior said, "it must be with precision. Anything less will be dismissed as sentiment. What do you want from me, Aurēline?"
Her breath steadied. This was the moment that mattered.
"I want to prevent the engagement without dishonoring House Seraphique," she said. "I want Lucien unable to claim me without revealing something he cannot afford the court to see."
Silence settled between them.
Then Elior leaned back slightly, eyes lifting to the cathedral spires beyond the garden.
"There is precedent," he said slowly. "Rare, but recorded. A betrothal may be lawfully delayed if credible evidence is presented that the union threatens the spiritual or political stability of the realm."
Aurēline's heart thudded. "Evidence such as?"
"Conflicting loyalties. Undisclosed oaths. Financial corruption. Even the suspicion of treason, if it can be tied to foreign influence."
Lucien's mistress flashed in her mind. Selene Vauldric. Ironholt blood. Vaelcrest ambition.
"And who determines credibility?" Aurēline asked.
"The Crown's magistrates," Elior said. "And the Argent Synod."
he almost laughed.
"In other words, men Lucien already courts."
"Yes," Elior agreed quietly. "Which is why timing and source matter more than truth alone."
He looked back at her then, gaze sharpening.
"If this is pursued, you will make enemies," he said. "Powerful ones."
"I already have," Aurēline replied.
Elior hesitated. "If I help you, I must do so as a jurist, not as a friend. I will not falsify records."
"I would never ask you to," she said. "Only to recognize what already exists."
Something like resolve settled in his expression.
"Then bring me a thread," Elior said. "One true thing. I will pull the rest."
When they parted, Aurēline did not feel relief.
She felt momentum.
She departed for Aurelion that same evening, the sun setting behind her as the plains stretched wide and radiant. This land was hers. Holy cities. Golden rivers. And people who still believed House Seraphique stood for light rather than ambition.
In the privacy of her solar that night, Aurēline began again.
Not with names this time, but with questions.
Why had Lucien chosen her, the youngest daughter, rather than a more politically entrenched bride? Why had Selene Vauldric been so well positioned to replace her? Why had Duke Vauldric of Ironholt's death benefited House Morvèlan more than any other?
She summoned old correspondence. Trade ledgers. Reports from the northern passes. She read until her eyes burned, until patterns emerged where none had existed before.
Iron shipments rerouted. Coin flowing through shell accounts in Vaelcrest. A donation to a Solmère apothecary guild two weeks before the duke's poisoning.
Aurēline smiled, slow and cold.
"This is where you erred," she murmured. "You assumed I would never look."
She wrote to Cassian Draxenor under seal, careful and neutral, requesting insight into Vaelcrest troop movements under the guise of diplomatic curiosity. She wrote to a minor clerk in Coldmere whom she remembered breaking down on the stand, asking after his family's health and enclosing gold.
She said nothing of revenge. Not yet.
By the time the candles burned low, Aurēline leaned back in her chair, mind sharp despite exhaustion.
Lucien Morvèlan wanted a flawless union, sealed in sunlight and song.
She would give him delay. Doubt. And the first crack in his perfect smile.
Five months remained,
And the game had begun.
Chapter End.