Ophelia Ashvale's POV
She didn't sleep.
Ophelia sat on the edge of the bed in her locked room, staring at nothing, her mind replaying her father's words over and over like a prayer that had become a curse. Three weeks. Dead. Just like his last six brides.
The numbers kept multiplying in her head. Six dead girls. Six families who'd sent daughters to the fortress expecting them to return as duchesses. Six young women who never came home.
And now she would be the seventh.
A soft knock came at her door around midnight. Ophelia's heart jumped, hoping for mercy, hoping for her father to come back and say it was all a terrible joke.
It wasn't her father.
Isolde slipped inside, her nightgown trailing behind her like a ghost. She locked the door and moved to sit beside Ophelia, and there was something almost tender in the gesture—almost friendly.
That made it worse.
"I wanted to come earlier," Isolde said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "But Mama said I should let you have time to process. Isn't that kind of her?"
Ophelia couldn't speak. Couldn't move.
"You want to know the truth?" Isolde continued, and her eyes gleamed with cruel delight. "The real truth? Papa didn't just invent this marriage out of nowhere. The Emperor himself ordered it. Personally. Because you're a Lysander."
The name meant nothing to Ophelia. She opened her mouth, but Isolde kept talking, savoring every word like poison candy.
"The Lysander dynasty ruled the empire until eighteen years ago. Then the Emperor had them all killed. Slaughtered them. Every single one. Or so he thought." Isolde leaned closer, and Ophelia could smell the wine on her breath. "But somehow, your mother survived. Somehow, she had you. And somehow, that makes you the most dangerous person in the empire."
"I don't understand—"
"Of course you don't. You're just a bastard from the slums." Isolde smiled, and it was the cruelest smile Ophelia had ever seen. "The Emperor can't execute you openly—it would make you a martyr. But he can give you to Duke Nocturne. And the Duke will kill you quietly. In private. And no one will ever know you existed."
Isolde stood, smoothing her nightgown. "Papa was right. You were worth something. Just not for the reasons you hoped."
She left, locking the door behind her, and Ophelia was alone again with the terrible weight of the truth.
Royal blood. She had royal blood.
It meant nothing. It meant everything. It meant she was worth more dead than alive.
She tried the door. It was locked from the outside. She tried the windows—barred. She tried screaming, and servants came but didn't unlock anything. They just stared at her with pity and left.
As the night deepened, Ophelia's panic became action.
She had to try. Had to try to make her father listen. Had to make him understand that she was a person, not a tool. That she had dreams and a future and a reason to live.
When the servants brought breakfast the next morning, she asked to see the Baron.
They made her wait three hours.
When she finally stood in his study again, he didn't even look up from his work. He just waved his hand dismissively.
"Father, please," she said, and her voice was steady even though her hands were shaking. "Please don't do this. I don't care about royal blood or emperors or any of it. I just want to go home. Let me go back to Marta. Let me—"
"Marta?" He laughed. Actually laughed. "That old woman means nothing. She'll be dead within the year anyway. They all die. Useless people with useless lives. You should be grateful I'm giving you something more."
"You're giving me death!"
"I'm giving you purpose." He finally looked at her, and his eyes were completely empty. "Do you think I care about your dreams of a seamstress shop? Do you think your small, pathetic hopes matter to me?"
Each word was a stone thrown at her heart.
"You're a tool, Ophelia. Nothing more. You were a tool when I pulled you from that shop, and you're a tool now. The only difference is that you're finally beginning to understand your value."
She tried to reach across the desk toward him. "I'm your daughter—"
"No," he said coldly. "You're my bastard. The product of a moment I regretted the second it happened. Your mother died, and I forgot you existed until an informant told me who you were. That's the only reason you matter. That's the only reason you've ever mattered."
Ophelia's knees buckled. She caught herself against the desk, staring at the man who'd held her hand in the carriage, who'd kissed her forehead, who'd told her she was special.
All lies. All of it, lies wrapped in silk and soft words.
"Guards," he called out, not looking at her anymore, already returning to his papers. "Take her to her room. Make sure she's dressed for travel by noon."
They dressed her in a fine traveling gown—gray, like ash, like a funeral shroud. They brushed her hair and gave her a cloak and put her in a carriage before the sun had fully risen.
Through the small window, Ophelia watched Ashvale Manor disappear behind them. She pressed her face against the glass, searching desperately for any sign of escape, any chance at freedom.
The carriage moved through the city streets, heading toward the northern road that led to the fortress in the mountains. The fortress where the Phantom Duke waited.
The fortress where she would die.
She didn't cry. She'd run out of tears somewhere during the night. She just sat very still, watching the world pass, wondering if anyone in the city cared that a girl was being driven to her death. Wondering if anyone would even notice she was gone.
Then the carriage slowed.
A crowd had gathered in the street—people watching the carriages pass, the way they always did when nobility traveled. Ophelia pressed harder against the window, hoping for nothing, expecting nothing.
And then she saw her.
Marta.
The old seamstress stood in the crowd, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with recognition. Their eyes met for just a second—a moment so brief it might have been imaginary.
Marta mouthed something. Two words.
I'll find you.
Then she pressed her hand to her heart, and the carriage moved forward, and Marta disappeared into the crowd.
Ophelia twisted in her seat, trying to see her one more time, but the carriage was moving faster now. The street was getting emptier. The city was falling away behind her.
She was being taken toward mountains she'd never seen, toward a man she'd never met, toward a death she couldn't prevent.
But Marta knew. Marta knew where she'd gone.
Marta would come.
Ophelia held onto that thought like a drowning person holding onto driftwood—fragile, desperate, and probably impossible.
Because as the carriage left the city behind and began climbing into misty terrain, the mountains loomed larger and darker with every passing hour.
And somewhere in those mountains, behind stone walls and locked doors, something was waiting for her.
Something the entire empire feared.
The carriage turned a corner, and in the distance, silhouetted against the darkening sky, Ophelia saw it.
A fortress.
Black as a curse. Massive as a mountain. Surrounded by cliffs that dropped into darkness so deep it looked like the edge of the world.
The carriage climbed higher.
And in the courtyard of that terrible fortress, a figure in silver stood waiting.