Chapter 5: Once Upon a Time (And Other Schemes of Survival)

  Once upon a time…

  (And by that, I mean less than twenty years ago—not some fairy tale crap, just recent enough for people to still remember it.)

  There was a wise king.

  Loved his people. Loved his kids. Very wholesome. Very Hallmark.

  He had four children. Four sons, specifically. And being the enlightened patriarch that he was, he didn’t want his boys to rip each other apart for the throne when he eventually kicked the bucket.

  Admirable sentiment… if you ignore the small detail that he himself murdered his own siblings to get the throne in the first place.

  Irony? Never heard of her.

  Anyway, Daddy the Wise had a plan.

  Instead of handing over one crown and letting them go Game of Thrones on each other, he gave each son a title—along with real power. Four options: Count. Earl. Duke. King.

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  Seems unfair, right? I mean—obviously King is the best. But wait for it.

  He gave the Count total control over the kingdom’s finances, including the Merchant Association.

  The Earl got complete authority over magic research and the Mage Association.

  The Duke was handed military control—basically, the army, weapons, and all things stabby.

  And finally, the King got the crown, the throne, and all the ceremonial stress of ruling a kingdom filled with three brothers who secretly think they could do it better.

  So instead of a single ruler, they co-ruled—each in their domain. A very “power-sharing” model. Very civilized. Very... tense.

  Okay. History class over.

  What does this have to do with me, you ask?

  Well, as some of you brilliant people might have already guessed, one of those brothers ended up becoming my new father.

  Yep.

  My ex-meal-turned-bestie?

  The Count.

  I know. Technically the lowest rank on the list. But come on—finances? Money? Literally everyone needs him to function.

  Magic research? Needs funding.

  Military? Needs gear, weapons, paychecks.

  Even the King? Can’t run a palace without someone footing the bill.

  So yeah. Do the math.

  As a little thank-you for not eating him alive, and possibly out of lingering fear that I could still decide to snack on his liver, he pulled a PR stunt of royal proportions.

  He announced to the public that I wasn’t some mysterious outsider. Nope.

  I was his long-lost daughter.

  Not adopted, mind you—too many bureaucratic questions.

  No, apparently, I was his “frail child sent to a temple for healing at birth,” kept secret for her own safety and now miraculously returned home.

  Cue the tears. The drama. The noble ladies dabbing their eyes with lace handkerchiefs at court.

  And just like that, I was reborn.

  Not as a demon queen. Not as a human girl lost in the underworld.

  But as Lady Reina Veylor, daughter of Count Veylor, heiress to half the kingdom’s wealth, and a noble girl with “a mysterious past and delicate health”—which, let’s be honest, is just a polite way of saying “probably cursed but rich enough to ignore it.”

  Anyway.

  That’s how I got here.

  Still not sure how I was supposed to act like a proper noble girl—especially one who may or may not have demon fangs and trauma—but I did my best.

  Fake it till you make it, right?

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