Snow fell like feathers from the sky.
Vivica pressed her face against the carriage window, not enough to leave a mark, just enough to see. White blanketed everything. The trees, the rooftops, even the horses' backs. They moved through a town so clean, so neat, it looked like it belonged in a picture book—a real one, not the torn ones from the orphanage.
The buildings were tall and pretty, like dolls' houses dusted with sugar. People wore thick coats with silver buttons. Children ran across the cobbled streets with red cheeks and warm mittens. There were lanterns glowing like stars in the soft fog of snow.
It was the most beautiful thing Vivica had ever seen.
But she didn't say that. Not out loud.
Not in front of him.
Across from her sat the Duke of Devonshire—her father, Damon.
He didn't look at her much.
But when he did, it was like being seen through a glass wall. Like he was trying to understand something that didn't want to be understood.
Vivica sat very still, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her boots didn't swing. She didn't ask questions. She didn't smile.
But she had looked. Just for a moment.
And Damon noticed.
He didn't say anything. But one corner of his mouth twitched—just a little. Like a thought almost turned into a smile and changed its mind.
Vivica turned away from the window and stared at her shoes instead.
The carriage rolled on through the town and up a long hill where no other houses stood.
At the top... was something that didn't look like a house at all.
It looked like a palace made of stone and snow.
The Devonshire Estate.
It was huge.
Towers with spires like spears stabbed into the clouds. Windows gleamed with golden light. There were statues along the front walk—knights, lions, angels, all watching. Vivica felt smaller than ever.
The carriage stopped. The footman opened the door. Cold air rushed in, sharp and clean.
Damon stepped out first.
Vivica followed, carefully. Her boots crunched in the snow.
Servants bowed their heads down.
And in front of them, stood two people. A woman in a fur-lined gown, her hair pinned like a crown. And beside her, a girl with bright eyes and bouncing curls, dressed like a doll with rose-pink ribbons.
"Damon," the woman said warmly, walking toward him. "Welcome home."
He bent his head slightly to her. Not like how someone greets a wife—but something softer. Something private.
Then the little girl ran forward. "Father!"
Vivica flinched.
The girl—Belle—threw her arms around his waist. Damon didn't push her away. He put a hand gently on her head. His eyes didn't look cold when he looked at her.
Vivica watched in silence.
"This is Vivica," Damon said after a pause, his voice firm again. "My daughter. Your…" Damon kissed Belle's forehead, "older sister." He switched his gaze to Diana, "My heir."
The woman—Diana—smiled politely, not kindly. "Welcome, dear. We've been expecting you."
Vivica nodded once, but she didn't return the smile.
Belle tilted her head, eyes curious. "Hey, are you really my sister?"
"Belle," Diana said lightly, but without rebuke. "That's not how we greet family."
Vivica said nothing.
The servants bowed to her and curtsied. No one met her eyes. Someone took her cloak, another offered her gloves. She kept her arms close, as if everything grand and golden might swallow her whole.
Inside the estate, it smelled like wax and roses and something faintly burnt.
Every corner glittered. Chandeliers spilled light like falling stars. Paintings stared from the walls. Carpets so thick they muffled her steps.
Her bedroom was bigger than the orphanage dining hall.
Everything was too soft. Too clean. Too quiet. Too… lavishly over the top.
She had dreamed of rooms like this before—a princess's bedroom, grand and beautiful. But even this splendor couldn't compare to the quiet comfort of the home she once shared with her mother.
There were beautiful dresses in her closet. Dolls lined the shelves. Books with gold-inked spines. A canopy bed with velvet curtains.
But it didn't feel like hers.
That night, as the snow kept falling outside her window, Vivica sat on the floor, knees to her chest, blanket wrapped tight around her.
Her mother's diary was tucked in her hands. Closely. Tightly. She had memorized every word by now.
"Father slapped and locked me up in the attic again today…"
"Everyone in court knows how precious I am to Father, but all I wanted to do is just to… disappear."
"Please… why can't Father love me? It hurts…"
"My wedding is final. I'm scared… I'm really scared… what if the northern duke is just like Father?"
"Damon wasn't anything like Father…"
"He said it was duty. But he never once asked me to stay."
"He brought his mistress home today…"
"He never smiled at me the way he smiled at her. No, he never smiled at me at all…"
"I loved him until I broke. I ran to save her. I ran to save myself."
Vivica let her fingers brush the pages once more before closing the book.
She knew who Damon truly was. Not the man who held Belle with quiet tenderness—but the one who let her mother cry alone, who remained in his stone palace while she hid in a forgotten cottage somewhere far from the empire.
The diary had told her everything.
Everything at all.
Her mother's past. Her mother's family. Her mother's love. Her mother's heartbreak.
And now, now the gold Damon had offered her meant nothing.
His castles, his title—they didn't matter.
Yes, she would stay.
She made a new resolve.
She would wear the gowns, master the dances, speak the language of nobility. She would learn their world, from the inside out.
But she would not forget.
And she would never, ever let him call her "daughter" like it meant something.
LATER THAT NIGHT
The fire crackled in the hearth, low and languid, its light casting golden waves across the silk-draped walls and ivory paneling. The flames danced like silent jesters, mocking her solitude with every flicker.
Shadows stretched long across the floor, draping the room in an opulent kind of melancholy.
Diana sat rigidly in her chair, framed like a portrait in the high-backed velvet, the deep burgundy gown clinging to her as if mourning with her. One hand cradled a half-finished glass of amber wine; the other clutched the carved lion armrest with fingers stiff from restraint. Her dinner lay untouched on the silver tray—quail, dates, sugared figs—all gone cold.
Her corset remained cinched tight, her pearl-dotted hair still pinned high in a coronet of cold elegance. No maid had dared approach her to help her undress. Not after she'd returned from the reception hall with that smile on her lips. That sharp, polished smile that said: Not now. Not tonight. Not ever.
Vivica.
The name moved through her mind like frost over a pond—thin, cold, cracking something beneath.
She hadn't expected her to be so… composed.
Not that child.
Not her.
Raven-black hair that gleamed like polished obsidian beneath the winter light. Emerald eyes that missed nothing, even if she spoke no words.
Silent. Stoic. Serene.
The child carried the full-blooded grace of generations—aristocracy carved into bone.
Even at just six years old, she had stood on the steps of the Devonshire estate like it belonged to her soul.
Of course she did. She was the Duke's legitimate daughter. The last Von Thesse on her mother's side. The Devonshire heir.
She bore both her parents in her face—Damon's severe jawline and Vivian's haunting feature.
She has everything, Diana thought. Blood. Title. Name.
Diana tilted back the glass and drained it in one bitter swallow.
She could still remember the day she heard the news...
A courier had arrived from the southern coast, trembling, soaked in snow and sweat. She had watched Damon take the letter from the man's hands, watched the color drain from his face as he read the words that changed everything. A woman—matching the Duchess's description—dead in a peasant village across the continent.
No burial. No body. Just ash and rumor.
He had not said a word.
He had risen from the table, set down his knife, and locked himself in the war room for three days. No food. No rest. No company.
Not even her.
Damon had never loved Vivian. Diana was sure of that. His affection was methodical, measured, built from necessity and duty. He'd married her for alliances. For legacy. For the child she could bear him.
Diana had been his true passion—his secret.
The gardener's daughter. The commoner girl. The mistress who warmed his winters. The woman he kept in velvet-shadowed townhouses, in blooming garden cottages just out of reach of gossip.
She had whispered his name in the dark when no one else was allowed to. She had loved him. Given him a daughter. Belle.
And yet, when Vivian vanished, when the empire whispered her name with prayers and scandal, Damon unraveled—not for a woman he loved, but for something else entirely.
Guilt, perhaps. Or pride. Or the fear of failing the empire. Of failing his name.
He scoured the entire continent in desperation, turning over every stone, chasing every whisper of her name—yet not a single trace remained. And from that moment on, something in him changed, as if the man he had been was buried alongside the silence she left behind.
But when word came of a child left behind… a daughter… a whisper of legitimacy in a forgotten orphanage… Damon moved with ruthless determination once more, sweeping across the continent like a storm, chasing every rumor and shadow with the fury of a man possessed—all for the child who bore his blood.
He hadn't even married Diana until a full year later. Quietly. Without fanfare.
Not for love. Not for her.
But for guilt.
Or convenience… perhaps.
Diana leaned her head back against the velvet cushion and laughed softly.
The laugh was bitter.
The nobility never accepted her, not really. They bowed, yes, but not with respect. They called her Lady Devonshire to her face, but whispered the gardener's girl behind her back.
No matter how fine her gowns. No matter how perfect her speech.
She would never be Duchess, not in their eyes.
Because that title had belonged to Vivian.
And now… it would belong to her child.
Not Belle.
Vivica.
Diana gripped the glass so tightly it cracked, wine seeping between her fingers like blood.
Belle had been so happy today, hugging Damon, chattering beside the girl. Oblivious to the quiet cold between them.
She was still too young to understand.
Too young to see that the moment Vivica stepped through the gates, Belle became less.
Less important. Less legitimate. Less protected.
Vivica had the name. The bloodline. The power.
And Belle had… Diana.
A woman with nothing but sharp smiles and softer threats. A woman who had clawed her way out of the dirt with nothing but beauty and desperation.
Diana stood and walked to the window, gazing down at the snowy courtyard where the statues loomed.
Vivica would grow up here, in this manor.
She would wear silks, ride fine horses, attend balls. She would have tutors and vassals and Damon's favor.
And Belle—her Belle—would always walk in her shadow.
Unless Diana did something about it.
Her jaw tightened.
She had spent years watching nobles smile with teeth.
She had learned their games. Their weapons weren't blades or poisons. They were whispers. Secrets. Appearances.
Diana knew how to play, now.
Vivica might be the heir.
But she was still just a child.
And children were so easy to mold.
Or ruin.