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## Chapter 3: Tea, Thorns, and Thieves of Time
The drawing room was a haven of refinement—sunlight filtered through stained-glass windows, casting colored shadows across ivory walls, while servants moved in practiced silence, refilling cups and adjusting curtains. Every detail was pristine, almost theatrical.
Lady Seraphina sat at the center of it all—an empress among peacocks.
She wore sea-glass silk trimmed with silver thorns, a quiet rebuke to spring's gentle pastels. Her pale fingers wrapped delicately around a teacup painted with white hyacinths—the flower of sorrow. A subtle choice, deliberate as always.
"Did you hear?" Lady Mirelle's voice carried in that stage-whisper tone used by women who wanted to be overheard. "The Viscount's son, Edwin, was *rejected* in front of the west garden fountain. By Lady Seraphina herself."
Gasps fluttered through the air like startled doves.
"He was down on one knee, and she simply... *walked past him*," Mirelle continued, her fan fluttering like gossip incarnate. "Didn't even spare him a glance. How cold."
Seraphina took a slow sip of her tea, then smiled with exquisite disinterest. "The roses were blooming," she murmured. "Wouldn't you walk past a pebble for the sake of a flower?"
Silence. Then a burst of nervous, tinkling laughter.
"I daresay," giggled one of the baroness' daughters, "that's precisely why no man in this room can look at you without trembling."
"Fear and desire often wear the same mask," Seraphina replied, setting down her cup with a soft clink. "And both bore me."
Lady Mirelle's eyes narrowed just a fraction. "Even the Crown Prince?"
Ah. There it was.
Seraphina arched one perfectly sculpted brow. "Especially the Crown Prince."
A ripple of scandalized delight shot through the ladies like a well-cast stone across still water. Mirelle's smugness faltered—she had expected hesitation, not indifference.
But Seraphina, of course, *knew*. Knew that Mirelle's cousin was one of the prince's favored companions. Knew the court was watching her every move like hawks circling a supposedly dying deer.
Let them circle. She had already poisoned the bait.
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Later that afternoon, as the gathering dispersed, a figure stepped through the drawing room's arched doorway. No clinking shoes, no rustle of skirts—just a quiet presence, subtle as a shadow.
"Lady Seraphina."
She didn't turn. "You're late, Felix."
Her personal steward—once a street orphan, now her most trusted knife in the dark—approached with his usual ghost-silent steps. He held a rolled parchment bound with an unfamiliar seal.
"Intercepted correspondence," he said simply. "Encrypted. Addressed to Lady Mirelle's estate."
She accepted it with a hum. "And the cipher?"
"Old Virean. Broken within the hour."
"Mm. Have it translated, then deliver a copy to Duke Albrecht's intelligence court. Make it look like Mirelle tried to sell court secrets. Something *minor*—enough to shame, not exile. Let her stew."
Felix bowed. "As you wish."
Seraphina turned toward the window. The garden beyond shimmered with spring's gentle light. A breeze stirred the magnolias. But her eyes saw only the chessboard of courtly bloodlines, petty ambitions, and the hourglass of time she no longer had.
Twelve months.
No one knew it but her.
Twelve months left before the end of her story—*this* story, at least.
"Felix," she said quietly, "what would you do if you knew you only had a year left to live?"
The man hesitated. Then: "Kill faster. Steal more. Love less."
Seraphina laughed—really laughed, for the first time that week.
"I envy your simplicity," she said. "Mine is a more... theatrical death. No daggers. Just endings in silk and champagne."
She turned back, eyes sharp as obsidian.
"Let's make it memorable, shall we?"
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That evening, alone in her private wing, Seraphina opened a hidden drawer beneath her writing desk. Inside, nestled among old letters and ink-smudged journals, was the real threat to her future:
A black-bound book marked with the royal crest—and the words **"Chronicles of the Kingdom's Fall: The Year of the Crimson Lily."**
An anonymously published history tome from the future.
One written after her execution.
She ran her fingers down the first line, which she knew by heart:
> *"The Duchess Seraphina de Alvere, known as the Witch of the Western Court, was executed on the 23rd day of Frostmere. Her name was erased from all court records save this one."*
She had found it three months ago. No magic, no fanfare—just a cursed truth dropped into her hands like a dare.
And now\... she had one year to break fate itself.
To rewrite the ending of her own tale.
Seraphina smiled, slow and cold.
"Let's see who gets the last line, then."
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**End of Chapter-3**