NikitaKhusrov
In the kingdom of Valerith, where power is inherited through blood and secrets are buried beneath crowns, the return of Prince Dominic Kaelis Valerius threatens to awaken ghosts the monarchy worked desperately to silence.
Five years ago, he left the capital of Caelthrone without explanation.
Five years ago, Lady Vivenne Rae D'Aurelle now the one and only Dutchess of the country lost everything.
Once, they had been inseparable rivals within the imperial academy. Brilliant, ruthless, and endlessly at war with one another, their rivalry became the scandal of noble society. Yet beneath sharpened words and stolen victories bloomed something far more dangerous.
Love.
But on the very night their feelings were finally confessed, a death within the palace shattered everything between them.
Now Dominic has returned no longer as the reckless prince Ithara once knew, but as a man cloaked in rumours, political shadows, and unanswered sins.
And Vivenne, now the only Duchess in Valerith, has spent years relentlessly searching for the truth behind her father's death, uncovering fragments of a secret the Crown has fought desperately to bury.
A secret that somehow leads back to Dominic.
As court alliances fracture, buried truths begin clawing their way to the surface, and old feelings refuse to remain forgotten, the prince and duchess are forced back into each other's lives where hatred feels dangerously similar to longing, and every answer threatens to destroy the kingdom itself.
Because in Valerith, love is never gentle.
And the crown always demands blood.