Chapter 1: The Day I Was Replaced

I was the one sent in place of the senator’s daughter to Northland for a marriage alliance—fifteen years old, hands shaking, chest tight as my father signed the papers and the President’s aides talked stakes and peace polls like my life was just another lever to pull.

It wasn’t until five years later, when the Southern Republic army broke through Silver Hollow—a border fortress city whose sirens screamed as smoke rolled over shattered rooftops, news helicopters thumped the air, and the ground shook with the rumble of tanks—that I finally returned home.

But I discovered someone had taken my place and stolen everything from me—the first hint a glossy family photo on the mantel with her in the center, a neighbor’s whisper at the gate, a headline that used my name under her face.

My parents became her parents; my home became her home—my parents treated her like their own; my house turned into hers. Her white sneakers lined the mudroom rack where mine used to sit, and monogrammed AS towels hung where my initials once did.

Even the childhood friend who once had a promise to marry me fell in love with her—Marcus Lane, who once promised to marry me, now stood at her side like he’d never known me at all.

Because I went to Northland in place of the senator’s daughter, because of my achievements, she became a regular guest at the Executive Residence—favored by the elite, ushered into rooms I bled for, praised in speeches that should have been mine.

After I returned, she poisoned my tea—chamomile in a delicate blue-and-white porcelain cup in the sunroom, the afternoon light warm on my wrist as the first bitter-sweet sip curdled in my throat.

I endured the agony burning through my body—like acid flooding my veins—and saw her hiding behind my childhood friend, Marcus, her lips pressed to hide a laugh, eyes bright with triumph.

I grabbed a guard’s pistol and fired at them—wrenching the sidearm off a distracted security officer with an earpiece and a lapel pin; the recoil jolted my shoulder, gunpowder stung my nose, and my ears rang as if the world had cracked in two.

No one deserved to live; let’s all go to hell together—my last split-second thought a tangle of faces and a savage, shame-laced wish that Marcus would turn back to me, even as I damned myself for wanting it.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the Southern Republic army broke through Silver Hollow—April 19, just past dawn, the radio crackling with the code name for the assault and the distant boom of artillery—this time with a vow like steel in my mouth: I will take back everything she stole.