Prologue: My Fiancé Dumped Me… Right?
“I won’t tolerate your selfish misdeeds a minute longer! Elizabeth la Montlivere, consider our engagement broken!”
Those words—the same as in that horrible novel—echoed throughout the hall. In the middle of a ball at the Royal Academy, no less, and all eyes were on me and the crown prince now.
“I’m not sure I understand,” I replied.
Crown Prince Vincent shook his head. “How could you not? You know full well what you’ve done to poor Lady Yulisse.”
“I haven’t done a thing.”
Thinking back on it, that was my biggest mistake. I’d avoided Prince Vincent and Lady Yulisse as best I could to prevent any rumors.
I never expected His Royal Highness to fall victim to that book, too.
I’d noticed him reading it with great fervor, but I paid it no mind. I’d assumed he was exhausted from studying and wanted to lose himself in a story.
His Royal Highness, Vincent von Weissworth, was a true talent with both pen and sword. He had his father’s flaxen hair and sapphire eyes and his mother’s noble facial features. Some people even called him a miracle, a gift from the gods themselves. Our engagement was for political reasons, but I truly believed he was worth devoting my body and soul to—until now.
Lady Yulisse Merrifield was at Vincent’s side, a look of terror on her face as she watched me. I grew dizzy as the scene unfolded exactly as the plot decreed.
I must be dreaming… Someone cursed me to have this horrible nightmare. This can’t be real.
I stepped on my foot, digging in my heel under the lacy folds of my gown.
Ow.
Come to think of it, I’d received no small number of protections after becoming His Royal Highness’ fiancée, and Vincent himself had an even stronger Ward than I did. I couldn’t imagine anyone would be able to brainwash him or control his actions. This was real, then. He was breaking off our engagement of his own free will.
Of all the misfortunes that could befall me, why this?
“I’m afraid I’m in no position to accept that,” I replied, determined to buy even a little time. “Without both His Majesty and my father’s consent—”
“I have it,” he cut me off. “Father gave me explicit permission to announce it here.”
His Majesty did?
If that was true, then House la Montlivere and our entire family were bound to collapse in on ourselves.
What would we be without His Royal Highness?
My blood ran cold, and I grew faint. Through my wavering vision, I saw the so-called heroine, Lady Yulisse. She was still making herself small at His Royal Highness’ side, apparently bewildered by this recent turn of events. When our eyes met, however, everything changed. She smiled—a confident little grin, as if she were genuinely enjoying herself. Only I could see it, and it was like looking into the eyes of the devil herself.
✦ ✦ ✦
“No…” I whispered.
I had been deceived. Blood rushed to my head. I was unfit to be queen. I was a fool to do nothing but swat away the embers that clung to the hem of my dress. If I truly wanted to protect the realm from those who would manipulate the kingdom for their own gain, I had to put out such fires.
The shock was enough that I started to black out. I lost my sense of balance, collapsing.
At that moment, a voice rang out.
“Freeze like the image in a mirror!”
A strong arm caught me around my shoulders before I hit the marble ballroom floor.
“Sorry for putting you through that, Liza,” came his warm, familiar voice.
“Prince Vince…”
No one else called me that. His soft fingertips brushed my cheek, and when I opened my eyes, he was smiling at me, just like always.
Behind him, Lady Yulisse’s smirk was frozen, as if by magic.
✦ ✦ ✦
💕 💕 💕
THE novel that started it all was published not long after Prince Vincent, Lady Yulisse, and I enrolled at the Royal Academy. Though literacy was a privilege that the average commoner was deprived of, it was reprinted again and again, to the point that they supposedly had to recarve the printing blocks. Everyone had heard of it, and it was recommended eagerly to anyone ignorant of its contents. No novel had ever been that successful, and no future book could hope to match its success. It was the one and only Even the Stars Cry Upon the Holy Maiden, or Star Maiden for short.
It was about a poor peasant girl. Blessed by the night sky, she discovered she was the long-lost daughter of the local baron. She was taken into his family and sent to the Royal Academy to study, where she breathed new life into the stuffy nobles’ traditions. Her humble, rustic charms won the hearts of many a young suitor, and eventually her pure heart attracted the favor of the Crown Prince himself.
Rags-to-riches tales had been told time and time again without anyone so much as batting an eye. Everyone had their own lot in life, and no peasant could become a princess, but it spoke to a common dream. Even I could empathize with that. I could easily understand it becoming popular even within the Academy’s walls.
Every story requires conflict, however. The crown prince in Star Maiden had a fiancée—the daughter of a duke who was a spoiled, selfish young woman. She detested the heroine for her common roots and bullied the hapless girl at every turn. Throughout the first half of the story, the duke’s daughter and her clique pestered her endlessly, but the heroine only continued to garner support from her fellow students.
The issue was that the crown prince’s fiancée had to be referring to me. The villainess of this tale even had my same hair and eye color, and the prince’s description matched Vincent perfectly. The author drew attention to that every chance they had.
Perhaps they only meant to allude to present politics, but I had a difficult time enjoying the story once I realized I was the antagonist. I also disliked how it portrayed the prince as a dimwit. He was described as only feeling motivated to study and become a good king after falling in love with the heroine, but Prince Vincent wasn’t that shallow. He’d been studying diligently for years before stepping foot in the Academy. Why, it was little better than slander—but my thoughts on that could wait.
In the novel, after a trying but enjoyable first year at the Academy, the prince confesses his love to the heroine the day before the Coming-of-Age Ball. Then, when he witnessed the villainess’ cruelty towards her at said ball, the prince denounced her crimes and broke off their engagement. Once her misdeeds were laid bare, the villainess was abandoned by her family and exiled from the kingdom. The heroine, on the other hand, was wed to the prince and received the blessing of every commoner and noble in the land. That conclusion made the author’s intent painfully clear.
Vincent and I matched our counterparts in the story perfectly, and by supposed coincidence, Lady Yulisse was the daughter of a baron out in the countryside and had the same midnight blue hair and eyes as the heroine. Our schoolmates noticed the similarities quickly, and people often confused the story for reality, expecting me to lash out against the poor, helpless country girl.
I exercised the utmost caution as I tried to live an ordinary life. Likewise, Prince Vincent neither antagonized her nor fussed over her. He treated her as he would any other classmate. I pointedly avoided both of them and even asked my friends to make sure Lady Yulisse had no complaints about her life at the Academy. Every precaution was taken to avoid making waves and keep all three of us out of the spotlight.
At the last possible moment, however—at said Coming-of-Age Ball—the passage I’d feared for the longest time became reality, though I still couldn’t imagine how or why.
Apparently, though, His Royal Highness has some sort of a plan in place to take care of this…