Chapter 1
I was once the favored concubine of His Majesty Felix Benedict, sovereign of Valcaryn Regnum. Favored beyond reason.
While the Emperor was away from the capital, the other women of the inner court joined forces, stormed my chambers, and fed me poison until I stopped breathing.
When my eyes opened again, I was no longer a consort of the crown. I had returned as a palace servant.
They whispered in the corridors, "His Majesty dismissed the entire harem for Lady Arabella Celeste. One woman only, and no rivals."
"I heard the king treasures Lady Arabella Celeste like the apple of his eye. If even a single hair of hers falls out, he'd be heartbroken," another chimed in.
"They built her a Astral Ascension Tower filled with treasures from every corner of the realm. No one else is allowed within a hundred steps."
Only then did I understand that the devotion Felix once showed me had been little more than theater. Compared to the favor shown to Arabella, mine had been nothing at all.
And then I finally saw her with my own eyes. She looked exactly like me.
*****
"Have you no sense at all? Kneel when you stand before Her Grace," the palace maid in violet snapped like a whip.
Only then did I recover from my shock. I dropped to my knees at once.
"Please forgive me, Lady Arabella Celeste. I beg your mercy," I stammered, voice shaking.
My knees struck the stone floor with a dull crack, pain shooting up my legs so fiercely I nearly cried out.
Half a month ago, I had ruled the inner court like a tyrant. Kneeling? Even formal courtesies had been optional for me.
"You will remain there until nightfall," Arabella declared, her red lips scarcely moving, as though she were announcing a trivial inconvenience. Then she turned and departed, her retinue flowing after her like a tide.
The sun still burned high. Night was hours away.
Beatrice Miriam, the matron assigned to oversee me, noticed my pallor and leaned close, her voice heavy with warning. "Helena, Her Grace shows mercy in sparing you.
"Had His Majesty known you offended her, you would likely have been beaten to death in the courtyard."
When Felix first took the throne, he had ruled with justice and restraint. But after that affair…
I knelt without protest, though inside my thoughts crashed like a storm at sea.
I had been Felix's chosen consort. Because of his favor, the others had grown resentful. While he led his armies abroad, they invaded my chambers and forced poison down my throat.
Three years had passed since my death, and it was now the sixth year of the King of Valcaryn Regnum's rule.
It was like I'd become a spirit from a storybook, suddenly waking up in the body of a palace maid named Helena Octavia.
When I first woke up, panic gripped me and I wanted to go find the king. But I was told he was at Aurelia Palace with Arabella.
That was my former chambers.
Only three years had passed, and Felix had already found another beloved. Worse, he cherished her far more fiercely than he ever had me.
And he had changed. Courtiers who spoke ill of Arabella were dismissed from service. Servants who displeased her were sent to the dungeons, or beaten until they did not rise again.
Why, then, would I seek him?
Better to tend roses and keep my head bowed.
Yet that day, in the palace gardens, I encountered the woman everyone feared.
She looked just like me back then.
If she was Cordelia Florence, then who was I?
The noon sun scorched the marble stones.
After barely an hour of kneeling, my vision blurred, tears slipping free despite my will.
What cruel fate. To live again only to suffer thus was worse than death.
Just before darkness claimed me, I saw a flash of royal gold. By instinct alone, I reached out. "Your Majesty…"
I awoke beneath familiar curtains. The King's own bed.
Silver basins carved like lilies were set throughout the chamber, packed with ice brought from the northern vaults. Cool mist drifted through the air, stealing the heat from summer.
"Miss Octavia, what fortune you possess. His Majesty carried you here himself," Ophelia Blanche, the head maid of the Empyrean Court, exclaimed as she rushed to my side to help me sit up.
"You're awake," Felix said, stepping in dressed in simple court attire. Ophelia bowed swiftly, ushering the other servants out as though chased by hounds.
Three years had passed, yet Felix remained much the same. His face still bore the elegance of a fallen saint, his posture regal and unyielding.
His eyes, blue and fathomless, held a depth no one dared linger upon.
Only he was thinner now. Sharper. The gentle monarch I had known was gone, replaced by a ruler whose temper lay buried beneath ice.
"Do you have anything to say?" His voice was colder than the melting ice nearby.
For an instant, habit nearly betrayed me. I almost rushed forward, clung to him, demanded justice as I once had.
Then I caught the scent of perfume on his robes.
Something tightened painfully in my chest. Faced with his indifference, words deserted me.
He had never spoken to me like this before.