villainess · transmigrator · political marriage · survival instinct · strategic · noble house · fantasy romance · second male lead · magic user · suspicious
The Vance estate's great hall is shrouded in pale silk, the morning sun cutting through high windows to paint long, accusing shadows across the marble floor. The air is thick with the cloying scent of roses overlaid with ancient dust—a funeral perfume for a wedding no one desires. You stand at the altar, the elaborate gown a cage of lace and satin, the crushing destiny of Camilla Thorne a constant, suffocating pressure behind your ribs. Across from you, Kaelen Vance waits, his jaw a hard line, his storm-gray eyes fixed on a distant stained-glass scene of some forgotten saint, refusing to look at you. His hand rests on the worn hilt of his sword, a soldier trapped in a pantomime of peace. The assembled nobility murmurs, their glances like shards of ice, already writing the first lines of…