SERAPHINA'S POV:
While I waited for Moira to return with the annulment decree, my mind drifted back to the past.
I remembered that Kaelen's desperation to appease me, to bring Jacqueline before me, wasn't just about his twisted sense of love.
It was about my mother's dowry.
That immense fortune, provided by the Beaumont merchant family, was the prize he had coveted all along. According to kingdom law, a noblewoman's dowry was managed by her husband after marriage. By marrying me, Kaelen would gain legal control of it all.
And Jacqueline, that seemingly fragile woman, had used that money in our past life to weave her way through the noble circles, paving Kaelen's path until he caught the eye of the truly powerful Prince Damian.
The thought of Prince Damian sent a jolt of ice through my heart. That man was a nightmare far more terrifying than Kaelen.
Then, a forgotten detail surfaced.
In my final days, locked away in that abandoned manor, a man had come to see me.
He was cloaked and injured, and through the iron bars of the dungeon, he had passed me a piece of bread and a flask of water.
My mind had been clouded with pain and fever, but I remembered his eyes. They were impossibly bright, like stars, and he smelled faintly of snow-dusted cedar.
At the time, I had assumed he was one of Kaelen's men—a guard taking pity on a dying prisoner and risking punishment to give me food and water. I had been too weak to question it.
But now, with my mind clear, the memory felt wrong. Kaelen's men had treated me with nothing but contempt. None of them would have risked his wrath for my sake. And the stranger had been injured himself, his cloak concealing both his face and any crest that might have revealed his identity. Whoever he was, he had not belonged in that manor.
Who was he? Why would he risk his life to help me? The question lodged itself in my mind like a thorn.
A soft knock on the door pulled me from my thoughts. It wasn't Moira; her knock was lighter.
"Sister? It's me, Cressida. May I come in?"
Cressida Croft. My stepmother Lady Elara's daughter. My stepsister. The one who had stabbed me in the back countless times in our past life.
"Enter," I said, my voice flat.
Cressida swept in, dressed in a confection of pink silk that made her look like a doll. Her dress had a clumsy dragon-wing embroidery on the shoulder, a cheap imitation of the emblems worn by true high nobility. She saw me and immediately arranged her face into an expression of deep concern.
"Sister, I heard Lord Kaelen returned... Are you alright? He didn't trouble you, did he?" She glided to my side, reaching for my hand.
Again, I shifted away, avoiding the touch. I didn't want these false people near me.
I remembered with perfect clarity how Cressida had "accidentally" let it slip that Jacqueline was "gravely injured and homeless" after saving Kaelen, preying on my foolish sympathy.
"I'm fine," I replied, watching her pathetic performance.
Cressida seemed surprised that I wasn't confiding in her as I used to. Her eyes darted around the room before she adopted a look of righteous indignation.
"That Jacqueline woman has no shame! A commoner of unknown origins, trying to attach herself to the Sterling family! Don't you worry, sister. Mother and I will stand by you!"
How laughable. In our last life, Lady Elara had paid lip service to helping me while secretly sending word to Kaelen that Cressida was far more gentle and suitable to be the lady of his house.
They were both desperate to climb higher.
"Stand by me?" I looked at her at last, letting my gaze travel slowly over the pink silk and the ridiculous imitation dragon wings on her shoulder. "How touching. Though if Jacqueline disappeared tomorrow, I suspect you and your mother would be far more interested in taking my place than defending it."
Cressida went perfectly still. For one naked second, the concern vanished from her face. Shock flashed through her eyes before she hurriedly covered it with an offended smile.
"Sister, how could you say something like that?"
"Quite easily." I turned back toward the mirror. "You should try being sincere sometime. It requires much less effort than pretending."
Just then, Moira returned, holding a piece of fine parchment—the annulment decree.
"My lady, what you asked for." Moira handed it to me.
Cressida saw the heading on the document and gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Sister! You... you're annulling the engagement? Are you mad?"
I ignored her outburst, took the quill, and signed my name at the bottom: Seraphina Croft.
My handwriting was firm, without a single tremor.
"From this moment, I have no relation to Lord Kaelen Sterling," I declared, handing the signed decree to Moira. "Keep this safe. I will present it to Father myself at the ceremony."
Cressida stared at me as if I were a monster. She couldn't comprehend it. An unmarried woman who had broken her own betrothal would be an outcast in noble society.
But she didn't know that I simply didn't care.
"You... you'll live to regret this," Cressida stammered, before turning and fleeing the room.
I watched her go. She was rushing to tell her dear mother, no doubt.
Good. I wanted them all to know.
