Chapter 1

The story begins at the grand palace of House Valen and the Rohen Court. Lady Elara Valen is the daughter of this house and resides there with her Father, Lord Cedric Valen who is currently the Chief Advisor and Administrator. She is from a respected and honourable family with her father being a figure of high importance.

Aside from this, Elara is also greatly admired for her great beauty, intelligence and grace. She always interacts with other nobles and searvants with respect and kindness. Although, not many people take her cleverness to account in addition to her other good qualities. Due to her physical appearance and her life style, people aspire to be like her, and many younger nobles look up to her.

Lady Selena Carrow, Elara’s Lady-in-Wating who also happens to be Elara’s closest friend is by her side as usual. Selena always wore a polite smile as she normally does, acting as if she is the ‘perfect’ friend. Elara had never seemed to have even the slightest of suspicion of Selena and she trusts her completely. But little does she know, she isn’t exactly the person she appears to be.

Every time Elara is complimented by others, Selena’s seemingly sincere expression, turns cold. Yet her expression quickly changes back to her regular expression of content. Her cold expression was fleetinging yet Elara failed to notice anything unusual.

Selena also tends to whisperer things to other nobles. However, when Elara asks what they’re talking about, she pretends that she was simply concerned about Elara. She often used excuses such as being worried that Elara is not eating properly or is not sleeping well.

Besides that, many courtiers gossip about Elara’s supposed perfection and how close Selena and Elara. Their relationship is frequently described as those of sisters. Their relationship is envied by many others, wishing they were this close to their real sister. Although, this is just how their relationship seemed to be like to the human eye.

Before Elara knew it, there were made up rumours about her questionable schemes that were entirely not true at all. The nobles start doubting how genuine Elara really is. Nobles began to talk to her less and less. Everyone started distancing themselveslves from her.

Elara began to get a growing suspicion of Selena that was never presented before this. But she refuses to believe that Selena would ever do such a thing to her. So she brushes of every growing suspicion of Selena, thinking it must not have been Selena who did it. But her suspicion of her, deep inside, only kept growing more and more.

At some point, this led to her humiliation in front of all of the royal court. Nobles had began to doubt her loyalty to the kingdom and the royal family. She tries to defend herself but it only causes her to outnumbered and undrminded. Elara realises that her life is slipping out of her control.

Selena turns out to be extremely jealous of Elara and she was the one who made rumours about her and ruined her life. She successfully succeeds in orchestrating Elara’s downfall, leaving her isolated and betrayed. She felt nothing but vulnerability and heplesness.

A tea was presented to her, as she sipped it in order to try to calm down, the tea tasted strange. Not like it usually tasted like. But when she realised it was drugged, she was too late. One sip secured her fate…

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