I have always hated the smell of roses. Especially crimson ones: too red, too rich, too reminiscent of my childhood steeped in silence and shame. In our grand estate, roses bloomed endlessly, as if mocking me. To everyone else, they symbolized nobility, the proud crest of our family for centuries. To me, they reeked of despair.

That was my worth to him: marriage fodder, nothing more.

My mother’s final words were no comfort either. “Live quietly… and preserve the Rosewood line,” she whispered with her last breath. I was too young to understand, too naïve to see the prison those words carved for me. I thought Rosewood was my father’s name. It wasn’t. It was hers—the last shard of dignity she clung to in a marriage built on conditions and compromise.

At sixteen, my father summoned me to his study. Our estate was already half-swallowed by debt. He declared my fate with all the care of someone swatting a fly. I was to marry a Baron from the Helinia Empire.

He was ten years older than me and rotten to the core. By eighteen, I bore his child. Four months later, I lost it. Perhaps it was inevitable after watching him bring woman after woman into our bedchamber, shirking every duty he was meant to bear. I mourned the child, yes, but my hatred for the Baron was greater. Better my child gone than shackled to him.

What was his name? What did he look like? I don’t remember, and I don’t plan to.

At twenty, I divorced him and was sent back to the estate. Instead of a hug, I was greeted with a slap. My father’s eyes blazed with disgust as he scolded me, not for the life I had endured, but for the money he had lost.

Reagan always spoke for me. Always shielded me. I often wondered why.

My father scoffed. “As if the Grand Duke would look twice at that thing. She already lost her husband and her child. How much more would a high-ranking noble reject her?”

I swallowed my pride and said, “If you permit it, Father, I shall enter the competition. I will become the Grand Duchess.”

He tossed a stack of papers at me: his will. “Take it. It’s all yours. The name, the estate… and the debts.” Then he left, his new family trailing behind him like a procession of betrayal.

I didn’t cry. Not for him. But my tears came anyway, not for what I lost, but for what I never had.

He paused, a rare crack in his well-worn façade. “How could I leave you? You lost your marriage, your child, and your mother.”

“And you also lost my mother—your lover.”

The papers slipped from his hands. His mask faltered.

“I know,” I said, softer now. “I’ve known for years. I remember the fights, the whispers. I remember the red-haired man always by my mother’s side whenever her husband went to his mistress. I know you wear a disguise. I know I look like you, Reagan.”

He said nothing. Then, slowly, he removed his cloak. Gone was the stooped old man I had always known. In his place stood a middle-aged warrior with eyes like mine and a jawline I had seen in the mirror a thousand times.

“I am sorry, Sophie.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be. I only want to understand. Why didn’t she marry you?”

He sighed, crossing the room to unlock a hidden safe behind a shelf. “Because marrying that ‘father’ kept us safe. There are people, an organization, who wanted us dead. Still do. I crossed them once during a mission with my guild. I found something. Evidence. And I’ve been running ever since.”

“So that’s why you want me to marry him?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“He doesn’t want the throne, Sophie. He wants revenge. The same people who ruined our lives murdered his parents. He’s our only chance. But he needs someone he can trust. Someone like you, working from the shadows.”

I stared at the envelope, the weight of my family, my past, and my future pressing down in one breath. “But I’m worth nothing now. A noble in name only.”

He smiled faintly. “That’s where you’re wrong. This”—he tapped the file—“is your secret weapon. Use it, and he won’t dare turn you away.”

I opened the envelope and smiled, slow and dangerous. It was perfect. Evidence that could expose the shadowed organization whispered about in every guild and court: The Craigs.

“I won’t fail,” I whispered. “Not for you. Not for her. I, Sophia Grace Rosewood, will rise from these ashes. I will restore our name. And I will bring that organization to its knees.”