Chapter 1: The Final Script
The scent of ink and old paper was a perfume more familiar to Elara than her own reflection. As a top editor for a major publishing house, she lived and breathed stories. Right now, the story she was breathing was trash.
She tossed the manuscript onto her desk with a sigh. "Another one. 'The Duke's Contract Bride.' It's the same plot, the same simpering heroine, the same brooding duke. Doesn't anyone have an original idea anymore?"
Her assistant, Mia, peeked over the cubicle wall. "The market loves it, Elara. Safe bets sell."
"Safe bets are boring," Elara muttered, massaging her temples. A wave of dizziness washed over her, a consequence of another late night fueled by coffee and critique. She reached for her mug, her vision blurring at the edges. The last thing she saw was the manuscript's title page, the words swimming before her eyes.
Then, nothing.
---
Consciousness returned not with a jolt, but with the sound of silk rustling and a voice laced with venom.
"...a disgrace to the Vane family name. To think you would throw yourself at the Crown Prince so brazenly. You've ruined us."
Elara's eyes flew open. She was no longer in her modern office. She was in a lavishly decorated bedroom, lying on a four-poster bed. A stern-looking woman in a gown worthy of a royal portrait stood over her, her face a mask of contempt.
Memories that were not her own flooded Elara's mind in a painful, disorienting rush.
She was Lady Elara Vane, the villainess of a novel she had just rejected.
She had publicly confessed her love to Crown Prince Kael, the male lead.
He had humiliated her in front of the entire court.
In the original story, this character was exiled, her family disgraced, and she would eventually meet a grisly end at the hands of the story's true heroine.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through her confusion. This wasn't just any novel; this was "The Crimson Crown," a story notorious for its brutally predictable plot and the utterly pathetic fate of its villainess.
"Did you hear me, girl?" the woman—her new "mother," the Duchess—hissed. "Your father is barely containing his fury. The King is displeased. Our only hope is if you accept Lord Brimsby's proposal and disappear to his country estate at once."
Lord Brimsby. A lecherous old man twice her age. In the story, this was the "solution" the family forced on the original Elara.
The old Elara would have wept. The new Elara, the editor who had dissected a thousand tropes, felt a different emotion ignite in her chest: sheer, unadulterated fury.
She pushed herself up, her body feeling foreign and weak. But her voice, when she spoke, was steady and cold. "No."
The Duchess blinked, taken aback. "What did you say?"
"I said, no." Elara met the woman's gaze, her editor's mind already racing, analyzing the plot, the characters, the weaknesses. "I will not be married off to a disgrace like Brimsby to clean up a mess I didn't create."
"The mess you did create!" the Duchess snapped.
"Did I?" Elara asked, a slow, calculated smile touching her lips. It was a dangerous expression, one that didn't belong on the face of the known simpering fool. "Or was I set up? The Prince has been sending me… ambiguous signals for months. Perhaps he wished to see how far I would go for his amusement. Or perhaps," she let her voice drop to a whisper, "he needs a scandal to divert attention from his own… extracurricular activities."
It was a complete bluff. But as an editor, she knew power wasn't just about strength; it was about perception, leverage, and controlling the narrative. The Prince was untouchable, but no one was without secrets. The mere suggestion, coming from the mouth of the "hysterical" girl he had just rejected, would be a pebble in his shoe. A small, irritating uncertainty.
The Duchess stared at her, a flicker of something new in her eyes—not just anger, but confusion, and a sliver of calculation. This was not her daughter.
Just then, the bedroom door swung open with a force that rattled the portraits on the wall. Duke Kael Voldran, the most feared man in the empire and the story's infamous Dark Duke, stood in the doorway. He was taller than she had imagined, his presence sucking the air from the room. His eyes, the color of a stormy sky, swept over the scene before landing on Elara.
He was the story's main antagonist, a man who moved against the Crown Prince from the shadows. He was also, in the original plot, utterly indifferent to the villainess's fate.
"Well," his voice was a low, dangerous rumble that seemed to vibrate in Elara's very bones. "It seems the little songbird has found her fangs."
He took a step into the room, his gaze pinning Elara to the spot. He wasn't looking at a pathetic creature to be pitied or dismissed. He was looking at a potential variable. An anomaly.
"And they are surprisingly sharp," he mused, a predatory interest gleaming in his eyes. "Tell me, Lady Elara. What else does that pretty head of yours concoct?"
Elara's heart hammered against her ribs. This was the dramatic opening event, the inciting incident. Her knowledge was her power. The original romance was a dead end. But the Dark Duke… he was a wild card. A man of immense power and conflicting interests with the Male Lead.
The romantic conflict was no longer about winning a prince's love. It was about a dangerous alliance with a man who could destroy her as easily as protect her. The suspense was immediate: Could she use her meta-knowledge to change her script? And what would this unpredictable, powerful man want in return for his… favor?
She met the Duke's stormy gaze, her own filled with a newfound, desperate resolve.
"The question, Your Grace," she said, her voice not trembling in the slightest, "is whether you're willing to hear it.