The scent of old paper, ink, and dust was a familiar comfort to Elara. It was the scent of her life. Here, in the vast scriptorium of the Southern Kingdom's royal library, she was invisible, and she preferred it that way. Her world was one of neatly transcribed lines and the gentle scrape of her quill, a far cry from the glittering, treacherous world of the court above.
It was this very invisibility that made her the perfect pawn.
The door to the scriptorium burst open, shattering the peaceful silence. Not with the soft steps of a scholar, but with the heavy, armored tread of the Royal Guard. Elara and the other scribes froze, their heads bowing instinctively. She kept her eyes fixed on the grain of the wooden desk, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs.
"The one called Elara," a voice, cold and impersonal, echoed in the vaulted room. "Step forward."
Her blood ran cold. She had done nothing. She was nobody. This could not be good.
Forcing her trembling legs to obey, she stood and curtsied low. "I am Elara, my lord."
The guard captain didn't even look at her face. "By order of the Queen, you are summoned. Come."
The walk through the palace was a blur of gilded corridors and judging stares. They did not lead her to the throne room, but to the Queen's private solar. The air here was thick with the cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine and fear.
Queen Isolde of Veridia was a woman carved from ice and ambition. Her gaze, as it fell upon Elara, was dissecting. "Look at me, girl."
Elara lifted her head, meeting the Queen's sharp blue eyes. A flicker of surprise, quickly masked, passed over the Queen's face. "The resemblance is… uncanny. With the right gown, the right posture… yes. You will do."
"Your Majesty?" Elara's voice was a mere whisper. "I do not understand."
"My daughter, the Crown Princess Seraphine, is… unwell," the Queen said, her tone leaving no room for question. "She has taken a sudden and severe chill. A marriage of great importance cannot be delayed. You will take her place."
Elara's world tilted. "Take her place? But… the marriage to the Dragon King?"
A slow, cruel smile touched the Queen's lips. "Precisely. The brute of the North has demanded a bride of True Blood. He expects my Sera. He will get you."
Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at Elara's throat. The Northern Kingdom was a land of myth and nightmare, a place rumored to be overrun with demons and monsters where humans were little more than cattle. The Dragon King himself was said to be a creature of pure fire and scale, a tyrant who devoured the hearts of those who displeased him.
"Your Majesty, I am but a common scribe! I cannot—"
"You can, and you will," the Queen interrupted, her voice dropping to a venomous hiss. "Your father, the stable master Loras, and your younger brother, the kitchen boy Finn, currently enjoy the crown's protection. Their continued health is entirely dependent on your success in this role. Do you understand?"
The threat was as clear as it was brutal. Her family, her only true treasures in this world, were the chains that bound her.
"What… what is expected of me?" Elara asked, her voice hollow.
"You will travel to the North. You will marry the beast. And you will make him fall in love with you." The Queen leaned forward. "By any means necessary. Secure his favor, his protection. Bind him to you so completely that when the truth is eventually revealed, his affection for you will override his rage. Succeed, and your family will be elevated to minor nobility. Fail…" She let the silence hang, a heavier sentence than any words.
Elara was given no time to protest further. She was stripped of her simple scribe's robes, scrubbed, perfumed, and laced into a gown of silver silk so heavy it felt like a shroud. Her ink-stained fingers were cleaned and polished, her simple braid undone and styled into an intricate crown of curls fit for a princess. As they led her to the gilded carriage that would carry her to her doom, she caught a final glimpse of the real Princess Seraphine.
The princess stood on a balcony, wrapped in a velvet cloak, her face pale but perfectly healthy. There was no chill, only a calculating coolness in her eyes as she watched her replacement be led away. And beside her, a man of impossible beauty with russet hair and a charming, fox-like smile. He whispered something in the princess's ear, and they shared a secret, intimate laugh. A memory, sharp and painful—a memory that did not belong to this life—flashed behind Elara's eyes: that same fox-like man, his eyes full of false love, leading her to a precipice, her stepsister's hand in his…
She shook her head, dispelling the phantom pain. It was just terror playing tricks on her mind.
The journey north was a passage from one world into another. The lush, green fields of Veridia gave way to stark, majestic mountains and forests of pine so dark they seemed to swallow the light. The air grew cold and thin, carrying the scent of snow and something else… something wild and ancient.
When the Northern capital, Aethelgard, came into view, Elara's breath caught. It was not a city of delicate spires and white stone, but a fortress carved into the very bones of the mountains. Towers clawed at the sky like talons, and the architecture was raw, powerful, and intimidating. And everywhere, she saw them.
Beastmen.
A lion-headed guard with a magnificent mane patrolled the walls, his tail swishing. A woman with the graceful horns and liquid eyes of a deer sold trinkets in a market stall. A hulking bear of a man hauled a cart laden with goods. They were not the monsters of fairy tales, but people. A vibrant, breathing society she had never believed truly existed.
The carriage rolled to a stop in a vast courtyard of black stone. The air hummed with a primal energy that made her skin prickle. The grand doors of the fortress-palace opened, and her new life began.
The court of the Dragon King was a sea of watching eyes, each pair glowing with the inner light of predator or prey. They parted, and he emerged.
King Kaelen.
He was not a monster of scale and fire, but a man of formidable, breathtaking presence. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his frame muscular and powerful beneath dark, impeccably tailored robes trimmed with silver. His hair was the color of polished obsidian, falling to his shoulders. His face was all sharp angles and stern lines, handsome in a way that was both severe and utterly captivating. But it was his eyes that held her frozen. They were the color of molten gold, slitted like a cat's, and they regarded her with an intensity that felt like a physical weight.
This was no mere beastman. This was the dragon.
He walked toward her, each step measured and silent, the crowd holding its breath. He stopped before her, so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body, a warmth like a banked forge.
"Princess Seraphine," he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated deep in her bones. It was not a question, but a statement laden with unspoken scrutiny.
Elara dipped into the deepest curtsy she could manage, her heart hammering against her ribs. Remember your training. You are a princess. You are proud. You are not afraid.
"King Kaelen," she replied, forcing her voice to remain steady. "I am honored to be here."
He offered his hand, not with gentleness, but with command. His fingers were warm, his grip firm, and where his skin touched hers, a strange, electric jolt shot up her arm. It was not unpleasant, merely… overwhelming. A spark of something wild and unknown.
As she rose, her gaze flickered over his shoulder and landed on another man standing just behind the King. He was almost as tall as Kaelen, with a warrior's lean build, his hair the color of winter ash. And his eyes—a sharp, piercing silver—were fixed on her with a look of pure, undiluted hatred. A look she knew.
Her breath hitched.
It was him. Lord Theron, her insufferable, nitpicking, work-obsessed boss from her old life—the life she remembered before she was reborn into this one. The man who had made her days a misery in a sleek, modern office building that felt a universe away. He was here, in this world of claws and magic, wearing the armor and insignia of the Dragon King's Guard.
Recognition flashed in his silver eyes, followed by a dawning, furious understanding. He knew her. Not as Princess Seraphine, but as Elara, the lowly scribe who had dared to argue with him over quarterly reports. The woman who had, in a moment of chaotic fate in that past life, stumbled and kissed him in his office, causing a pair of silvery wolf ears and a tail to sprout from his impeccably suited body.
The secret was out. But now, the tables were turned. She held a secret far greater than his.
Kaelen's grip on her hand tightened slightly, his slitted golden eyes narrowing as he glanced between her and his captain. "You know my Beta, Captain Theron of the Frostfang Clan?"
Elara's mind raced, the Queen's threat and her family's safety a mantra in her head. She offered Theron a small, polite, utterly false smile, the smile of a princess acknowledging a subordinate.
"I do not believe we have had the pleasure," she said, her voice the picture of regal detachment. "But I am sure we will become well acquainted."
Theron's jaw tightened, a low, almost imperceptible growl rumbling in his chest. The sound was pure predator, a promise of future conflict.
Kaelen watched the exchange, his expression unreadable. The heat from his hand seemed to seep deeper into her skin, a brand of a destiny she had never asked for.
The game was set. The commoner stood in the dragon's den, hunted by a wolf from her past, and tasked with an impossible love. And as the first snow of the North began to fall, dusting the black stone of the courtyard in white, Elara knew one thing for certain: to save her family, she would have to tame the dragon, outwit the wolf, and wear a crown of lies that grew heavier with every beat of her traitorous heart.