He ChoseThe Wrong Daughter

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: The Cursed Princess and the Storm

The palace didn’t just echo with Mother’s voice; it trembled.

"Where is she?" Yarovirah Nythera Seraphi Vhaelor’s hiss carried down the marble corridor like a physical blade. "You are her older siblings. It is your blood-duty to ensure she is safe!"

I pressed my back against the freezing stone wall outside my bedroom window, my lungs burning as I fought back a laugh. Below me, a three-hundred-foot drop into the jagged palace flowers bed waited for a single slip.

Inside the room, my sister Aiyolistra let out a groan that sounded like death.

"Mother," she said, her voice dry as parchment. "Ryophlira is eighteen. She isn’t a child, and we aren’t her keepers. "

A muffled thwack followed. I could picture it perfectly: Riegthar elbowing her in the ribs while mouthing ’Shut up’ with wide, panicked eyes.

Then came the silence.

Mother’s silence was a death sentence. I could practically feel her violet eyes glowing with draconic fury from through the wall.

Good, I thought, a wicked grin tugging at my lips. At least I’m not the only one suffering tonight.

I hoisted myself over the ledge, slipping through the narrow bathroom window with the grace of a cat. The second my boots hit the tile, Ari, my lady-in-waiting, nearly tackled me.

"Hurry!" she hissed, frantically peeling the soaked, mud-stained cloak from my shoulders. "If the King finds out you snuck out to the lower districts again, I’m not dying for you. I’ll tell him it was your idea."

"You’re so dramatic, Ari."

"You climbed across the western spires during a lightning storm!"

"That was once."

"It was three times this week!"

She shoved me behind the silk divider into the steaming bath. I sank into the water, the heat biting into my chilled skin. For a heartbeat, I closed my eyes and let the "Princess" mask fall.

I wasn’t Ryophlira Aidiriel Vhaelor, the cursed daughter of the West. I wasn’t the girl who accidentally leveled half a city district when my powers first manifested at ten years old.

I was just a girl who liked the smell of street vendor honey pastries. I was a girl who just wanted to breathe.

"You smell like smoke," Ari muttered, scrubbing grit from my arms.

"Fire dancer," I murmured, smiling. "She was art."

"She breathed flames. You are flames. There’s a difference."

The truth was, I remembered very little of the day the city burned. Just flashes of red, the roar of my mother’s dragon-cry, and the way the nobles looked at me afterward.

The palace wasn’t a home; it was a gilded cage. I was the West’s greatest liability.

The East wanted me dead. The South wanted me as a weapon. The North wanted leverage.

And my father? He wanted peace. And in our world, peace was bought with daughters.

"You look beautiful," Ari whispered as she cinched my corset. She tightened the laces until my ribs groaned and breathing became a luxury I couldn’t afford.

I stared at my reflection. My hair was a chaotic spill of white curls shot through with strands of blood-red. My eyes one gold, one glowing blue betrayed the mess of bloodlines inside me.

"Ryophlira Aidiriel Vhaelor!"

My father’s voice shook the floorboards. The King was done waiting.

"If you are not at the grand staircase by the count of ten, there will be hell to pay!" freewebnøvel.com

Ari turned pale. "Oh, we are definitely dead."

I didn’t wait. I snatched my heels, hitched up my pink silk skirts, and bolted. freēwebnovel.com

I skidded to the top of the grand staircase just as the massive front doors began to groan open.

My family was already lined up like statues. Mother was a vision of terrifying grace, her elongated dragon ears twitching in irritation. Father stood beside her, his silver-white hair catching the light, radiating a pressure so heavy it made it hard to stand.

I was too late to walk down properly.

Screw it.

I threw my shoes toward the landing, grabbed the golden banister, and vaulted over the side.

"Ryophlira!" Ari’s scream echoed from the hallway.

I didn’t fly not really but for a moment, the wind caught my skirts. I slid down the polished rail in a blur of silk and launched myself into the air at the bottom. I landed with a silent tap on the marble, just as the doors hit the walls.

A blast of sub-zero wind swept into the hall.

The King of the North entered, draped in midnight-black furs. But it wasn’t the old King who caught my breath.

It was the man beside him.

Prince Yue-Senn Kageyama.

He was a mountain of a man, easily 6’8", with hair as dark as a raven’s wing. His dark green eyes weren’t looking at my father. They weren’t looking at the decor.

They were fixed on me. And they were glowing.