So WHY was I the only one built like I had a lifetime subscription to midnight snacks?!
Un. Fair.
I mean, fine, maybe those slim ladies out there were dying dramatically from starvation like tragic heroines in a telenovela…but at least I wasn't dying.
I was just… slowly losing weight. Elegantly. Gracefully.
Like Cinderella but with more body mass and less birds helping me get dressed.
Honestly? Fair enough.
But SERIOUSLY—
The author was out here writing me like she had a personal vendetta.
What do you MEAN "voluptuous despite the famine"?
What do you MEAN "soft around the edges"?
Girl. Pick a struggle.
If there's a famine, let me famine. If I'm thick, feed me.
At this point I'm convinced the universe is on crack, the moon goddess is trolling me, and the author is just sitting there typing like:
hehe chubby main character go brrrrr
Unbelievable.
Anyway, I don't remember a SERAPHINE in the story, I mean, surely, if she was a background character, I'll remember it. After all,"Crown of Thorns and Honey." was one of my favourite slow burn romance fantasy dramas.
Maybe I wasn't one of the main characters. Maybe I was… a background tragedy. Or maybe not even a background character.
Wonderful.
We finally reached the dining hall—a vast, crumbling room that might've once hosted grand feasts but now looked like a place where hope went to die.
The chandeliers above flickered weakly with candle stubs. The curtains, dull and patched, barely kept the wind from seeping in.
And the table… oh, the table.
For a family of dukes, the spread was tragic:
A bowl of cloudy, meatless clear soup.
Boiled potatoes and carrots that looked more like apology vegetables than actual food.
And one plate of dry, gray fish that could double as a weapon.
At the far end sat the Duke—my supposed father.
A tall man with a bearded face carved by exhaustion. His once-proud silver hair was streaked with white, his noble clothes worn and frayed.
He looked at me with tired eyes—eyes that still held a flicker of worry.
"What happened to you these past three days?" he asked, voice rough like gravel. "The maid said you were sick."
So. He cared, at least. That was something.
I smiled weakly. "Yes, Father. I was ill. I… lost part of my memories because of the fever."
His spoon froze midair. "Your memories?"
"Yes," I said quickly. "Nothing serious, just—foggy. I still remember you, of course."
(Total lie. I didn't even know his name.)
He sighed, long and weary. "You shouldn't push yourself, Seraphine. The gods have taken too much already. Rest when you can."
The gods? Oh boy. This world had religion too.
Wait…what does it mean, taken too much already?
He meant the rest of his family? Hmm. I have to ask the maid later.
"Yes, father." I nodded obediently while my stomach growled in protest at the sight of the sad soup.
As I forced down the watery broth, I decided two things:
One—this house needed food. Real food. Or maybe even MSG or pepper. Because the broth? It tastes like poverty and emptiness.
Two—I needed to find out exactly where I was, who this "Duke" family was, and how far we were from the events of the novel's main plot. Because If I want to live like a diva here, I need information and maybe gold.
If I was lucky, I could stay out of trouble.
If I wasn't… well, I'd probably die again.
But as I met my "father's" eyes, I felt something stir in the pit of my stomach—
A faint hum of warmth beneath my skin, like the same energy that flickered from the mark on my collarbone earlier.
Something told me my arrival wasn't an accident.
And that this famine-ridden kingdom held secrets buried deep beneath the rot.
But who cares now? All I needed was to lose weight. Earn gold and be rich.
When the meal ended (or more accurately, when I gave up trying to chew the world's driest fish), I excused myself and hurried back to my room.
The hallway groaned with every step I took, the old wooden floor whining like it had opinions about my existence.
As soon as I shut the door behind me, I leaned against it and exhaled.
"Okay, brain," I muttered. "Time to connect the dots before this world decides to kill me too."
Because I knew this setting.
Oh, I knew it too well.
That famine.
That fever spreading across villages.
The desperate nobles praying to gods that stopped listening.
This was exactly the opening arc of— "Crown of Thorns and Honey."
A tragic yet swoon-worthy romance-medical fantasy that had me sobbing at 2 a.m.
And the main character?
Princess Milabuella Nothingwood—beautiful, brave, elegant, with waist-length hair that smelled like jasmine and destiny.
I remembered how she wasn't the usual spoiled royal; she actually cared about her people. She snuck out of her castle in disguise, visited plague-ridden villages, and tried to treat the sick herself.
Ugh. She was perfect. A walking, blushing halo.
Then there was the male lead.
Sir Alex Canva.
Tall. Broad shoulders. A knight so loyal he'd stab a demon and write poetry about it after.
He guarded her on those trips, of course. They met under the rain—because romance law says love must bloom under dramatic weather—and that moment?
Legendary.
The line that broke the internet:
"If the rain must fall, then let it wash away my sins as I protect you, Your Highness."
I used to squeal at that.
Now? I wanted to scream for entirely different reasons.
Because if my theory was right…
Then this place—this crumbling mansion, this famine-stricken land—was within the Nothingwood Kingdom.
And I wasn't the princess.
Or the love interest.
Or even a background healer with a tragic backstory.
Nope.
I was the daughter of Duke Tayler Agro?
The villain.
But…
I DON'T REMEMBER READING ABOUT A DAUGHTER THOUGH.
I dropped onto my stiff bed, staring blankly at the cracked ceiling.
"Of course," I groaned. "Of course I'd end up in the body of the future evil side character."
I remembered him vividly.
Duke Tayler Agro—the head of the royal council. The man everyone pretended to respect but secretly feared.
In the novel, he started out as a respected noble who wanted to "save" the kingdom using forbidden alchemy and dark sorcery.
Spoiler alert: He went full Voldemort by mid-story.
He caused the famine to strengthen his magic. He experimented on commoners. He even tried to kidnap the princess to harness her healing powers. Used dark magic and monsters.
Eventually, his entire household was executed for treason.
So, yeah.
I was living in the prequel to a public beheading.
I groaned again and threw my pillow at the wall. It made a sad poof sound, which somehow made everything worse.
"Seriously? Out of all the characters in all the novels, I had to transmigrate into the daughter of that guy?" But he doesn't look villainy to me at all, my father looks so kind and frail.
Indeed. Odd.
I got up and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror.
Silver hair. Silver eyes.
Same features as the Duke.
Same cursed bloodline.
"What the hell," I whispered, clutching my head like it was about to explode.
I sat bolt upright on the bed, the blanket half-falling off, heart pounding so loud I could hear it echo in my skull.
Because, hold on. Wait a minute there.
In the story—the one I'd read twice and cried over like an idiot—the Duke, Tayler Agro, was bald, and with eye patch because once upon a time his eyes were destroyed by his summoning ritual, yet the father of Seraphine was not bald…wait…wait a minute, the villain did have a twin brother. I remember reading it.
Silver hair. Same cursed bloodline. But the twin was not as powerful as Duke Tyler, moved to the far borders of the kingdom after some family feud. He was known as the "Silver Wolf of the West."
A mysterious noble who lived quietly with his daughter and rarely appeared at court.
And that daughter—
That was me?
Holy freaking plot twist.
I froze, staring at the ceiling like the universe owed me an explanation.
"So… I'm not the daughter of the villain?" I asked out loud to the moth fluttering near the candlelight.
No response, obviously.
"Right. Great. I'm talking to insects now."
Okay. Deep breath.
If my father was the Duke Tyler's twin brother, that meant I wasn't directly tied to the bad guy—at least not by that much blood.
It also explained why the mansion looked like a decaying relic in the middle of nowhere. The Duke Tyler lived near the capital, where all the action happened, while his twin's estate—this one—was the forgotten western branch of the family.
No influence. No power.
And judging by the soup at dinner—no money either.
But still…
If this was true, then I wasn't doomed to die for my father's crimes.
At least, not immediately.
Progress!
I got up and began pacing the creaky floor.
"Okay, okay," I muttered. "Let's put this together: Duke Tayler Agro—evil sorcerer, future villain. His twin—aloof hermit, semi-retired noble who doesn't give two coins about politics. I'm his daughter. Which means I'm the niece of the princess's future enemy."