Chapter 2

Dionne POV:

I didn’t turn around. I remained seated before the bronze mirror, slowly setting the wooden comb down.

Behind me, the cloying aroma of her herbal perfume grew thicker—a concoction spiked with nocturnal blooming orchids, meticulously brewed to mask the muddy, unstable ripples of her forged Tree Spirit.

Jacalyn took my silence for defeat. Her steps quickened, brimming with triumphant malice. Coming to a halt right beside my dressing table, she intentionally thrust her hand toward my face.

On her right ring finger, an Electrum Ring shone with blinding brilliance—the second-tier mark of a Noble Clan, forged of spun gold and pure silver, set with an exquisite deep-sea tourmaline bearing the Ortega crest.

"Look at it, Sister," Jacalyn whispered in breathless ecstasy, her fingers twitching with glee. "Warlord Holden placed this sacred ring on my finger with his own hands this afternoon. A Warlord's fierce battle-spirit needs the pristine vitality of a pure Tree Spirit to weave the Soothing and keep his power from falling. He said only a noblewoman of pure blood deserves to be his marchioness. A Spiritless cripple like you was never worthy to even breathe the same air as him."

I cast a sideways glance at the glowing band.

To common elven eyes, the ring radiated pure spiritual majesty. But according to the Ring Codex, an Oath Ring acknowledged only true, attuned blood. Through the piercing clarity of my vision, I could clearly perceive the erratic, oily gray wisps of her aura grating against the silver metal, producing faint, frantic sparks of bloodline rejection.

"Is that so?" I replied flatly, my voice smooth as still water. "Then you had better pray your spurious blood can suppress the sacred oath-fire of that ring when you share his bed. The holy metal does not tolerate thieves."

Jacalyn’s smirk instantly froze.

Guilt and fury flared across her face, twisting her delicate, innocent features into a venomous grimace. She snatched her hand back as if burned, hissing, "You arrogant wretch! What right do you have to sneer at me? Brother Holden never loved you! In his eyes, you were nothing but a clinging leech!"

She took an aggressive step forward, her manicured nail nearly jabbing into my cheek.

"Everyone in the High Court knows you tried to hang yourself from the rafters the moment the marriage contract was dissolved! A pathetic, lovesick outcast who begged like a dog at his feet, only to be cast down into the dirt where you belong!"

I didn't blink. I merely regarded her with dead, unfeeling eyes.

Finding no tears or screams of despair, Jacalyn’s rage boiled over. She sneered, leaning down to hiss poison into my ear:

"And you know who is to blame for your miserable fate? Your dead, useless mother, Vivian! A lowborn consort who brought bad luck everywhere she went. She died early because she was weak, and you are just like her—a pathetic, spiritless stain that our Browning Clan should have scrubbed out centuries ago!"

Snap.

The bronze comb on the vanity cracked under my resting fingertips.

The air inside the dim bedchamber seemed to be vacuumed out in an instant. The temperature plunged below freezing, frost patterns creeping across the tarnished mirror.

I slowly turned my head and locked eyes with her.

"What did you just call my mother?" I whispered.

Jacalyn felt an inexplicable chill seize her spine, but her newfound pride as a Warlord's bride spurred her arrogance. She threw her head back, sneering, "I called her a lowborn stain! What, did I say something wrong? Vivian was nothing more than a—"

Flash!

The golden seal slumbering beneath the skin of my right wrist flared with incandescent heat. Without channeling a single drop of ordinary elven magic, I unleashed a razor-thin sliver of my primordial Old Blood—unfurling the apex, untamed Sovereign Will of an ancient Alpha soul.

Jacalyn’s voice choked dead in her throat.

Her pupils shrank into pinpricks as an invisible, celestial mountain crashed onto her shoulders. Her knees buckled involuntarily; the fragile, herbal-masked spirit within her core screamed in primal terror. Under the absolute bloodline suppression of a true elven sovereign, her spine curved downward, forcing her head low and exposing the pale expanse of her neck—the ultimate, humiliating posture of unconditional elven submission.

"W-what... what is this...?" Jacalyn wheezed, her vocal cords straining against the crushing atmospheric pressure. Cold sweat poured down her temples, turning her heavy makeup into a muddy smear.

I rose slowly from my chair, towering over her quivering form. Reaching out, I seized her throat in an iron grip, digging my thumb into her carotid artery.

"I am teaching you the hierarchy of our realm," I whispered coldly, leaning in until my breath stirred the stray hairs at her temple. "A counterfeit parasite who uses cheap garden herbs to fabricate spiritual resonance dares to drag my mother's name through her filthy mouth?"

Hearing the words *cheap garden herbs*, Jacalyn's blood ran cold. Horror dilated her eyes tenfold. She tried to deny it, but my fingers squeezed tighter, cutting off her breath completely until her lips turned a bruised purple.

"Listen well, Jacalyn," I said softly, staring into the depths of her frantic, bloodshot eyes. "I am going to the Low Marches. But if you think you’ve won the prize, you are gravely mistaken. The moment Holden's true blood touches that stolen ring, the holy metal will burn you down to your marrow."

I loosened my grip slightly, throwing her back against the doorframe.

Thud!

Jacalyn hit the timber panels with a muffled shriek, clutching her bruised neck and gasping desperately for air.

"Now," I commanded, stepping toward her with the Sovereign Will bearing down like a suffocating shroud. "Bare your neck and apologize to Lady Vivian's memory. Or I will crush your vocal cords right here, and you can attend your grand wedding as a mute."

"You... you wouldn't dare..." Jacalyn sobbed, trembling violently. But when she raised her tear-blurred eyes and met my glacial stare, all defiance shattered.

She realized with terrifying certainty that I meant every single word.

"I'm sorry!" Jacalyn cried out in complete psychological ruin, pressing her cheek flat to the floorboards and baring her shivering nape. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have slandered Lady Vivian! Please... spare me!"

I stopped the release of my Old Blood, letting the golden aura recede back into my veins.

The crushing pressure vanished from the room. Jacalyn collapsed into a quivering heap on the floor, weeping in abject humiliation.

"Get out," I said, turning my back to her. "Don't soil my rug."

Jacalyn didn't dare utter another syllable. She scrambled to her feet, hoisted her ruined silk skirts, and fled into the dark hallway like a hunted animal.

The corridor outside fell back into quietude.

From behind the decorative alcove curtain, Tessa stepped out cautiously. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, her hands trembling as she stared at me as if beholding an incarnate god.

"M-Miss... was that... did Lady Vivian leave you a protective war-talisman?" Tessa stammered, trying desperately to find a rational explanation for the impossible power she had just witnessed.

"Something like that," I replied smoothly, sweeping the crude cold-iron ring off the table and dropping it into my pack. "Rest now, Tessa. Tomorrow, our journey begins."

Tessa nodded numbly, too shaken to question further, and retreated to the adjoining servant's chamber.

Silence returned to the room.

I walked to the narrow arched window, leaning against the cold stone frame to gaze out over the majestic World Tree. Eight hundred feet above, the luminous Crown bathed the palace of the High Council in celestial aurora, dripping the sacred Silverdew that fueled the entire civilization. Five hundred feet down, where I stood, was the decadent, hypocritical High Court. And further down, swallowed in eternal fog and demonic stench, lay the rotting roots of the Low Marches.

I lifted my right hand, looking down at the pale skin of my wrist where faint gold-and-silver veins pulsed with dormant, primordial fury.

Seven days ago, I had indeed nearly snuffed out my own life.

Driven to madness by my father’s cold-blooded decree and the betrayal of Holden Ortega—the man I had blindly worshipped and loved since childhood—I had let despair swallow me whole. Like a camel crushed beneath the final straw, I threw a spirit-silk ribbon over the rafters, snapping my own spiritual meridians in a pathetic act of self-destruction.

Yet fate refused to let me perish.

During the seven days my broken body lay comatose on this bed, my battered soul was torn through the dimensional veil, cast into a distant, foreign world known as Earth—a realm devoid of elven hierarchy, bloodline curses, and spiritual rings.

There, I lived an entire lifetime. Born an orphan in an unfamiliar era, I clawed my way up through discipline and the generosity of benefactors, graduating from the pinnacle of modern surgical institutions. For seventy long years, I traded tears for scalpels. I immersed myself in anatomy, cellular pathology, trauma surgery, and the fragile mechanics of saving lives. Across battlefields and operating theaters, I healed thousands upon thousands until the world hailed me as the Sovereign Surgeon.

When I closed my eyes in that life, breathing my last as an old woman who had fulfilled every debt of gratitude, I thought my journey was over.

Instead, I opened my eyes to find myself back in this frail, silver-haired elven shell—with only seven days having passed since my hanging.

The woman who once wept on this floor, begging for a man’s pity and choking on her own grief, was indeed me. But that cowardly, lovesick version of myself had died the moment my neck touched that silk ribbon.

The seventy years of clinical detachment, of standing over bleeding cavities and commanding life and death, had thoroughly rewritten my soul. The journey had shattered the ancient seal placed upon my spirit, awakening the primordial gold-and-silver Old Blood of the first elven monarchs that had lain dormant in my veins all along.

Lovesick? Begging for scraps of affection from a shallow warlord?

I let out a soft, mocking laugh into the nocturnal breeze.

Now, I was a master of life and death—and an awakened sovereign who would make every arrogant parasite in this realm pay their debts in full.

Yet anger without leverage was merely suicide. Here in the High Court, I had no army, no political seat, and no allies. Curtis and Cindi held every lever of power, while Holden commanded legions of the Council’s vanguard. Direct vengeance would be snuffed out before it began.

To burn this gilded cage down, I needed an unyielding blade—and High Lord Adrien was that blade.

To everyone in Eldamar, he was a dying cripple rotting in the Abyssal cold. But to a master surgeon, he was a warlord awaiting resurrection. A wounded beast of war, indebted to me for his breath and his restored veins, would provide the iron military might I needed to march back into the High Court and crush them all.

My modern medical mastery for his sovereign legions. A ruthless transaction written in blood.

Reaching into the depths of my travel pack, my fingers wrapped around a yellowed roll of parchment, densely covered with hidden ledgers recording the Browning Clan's illicit embezzlement of border defense supplies.

"Holden Ortega... Curtis Browning..." I murmured, tucking the ledger deep inside my sleeve as my lips curved into a cold, lethal smile. "Enjoy your grand wedding tomorrow. Because once I put the Sword of the Crown back together, I will turn your sacred High Court into a living hell."