"What are my ten years of devotion worth?" Clara asked as Arthur ruthlessly tore the silver iris brooch, her mother’s relic, from her chest. To secure royal funding through his marriage to Eleanor, the man she secretly loved stripped her of her chief maid duties and banished her to wash the stables. Dragging her whip-scarred body, Clara pried open the old Marquis's secret vault. Taking the Archbishop's decree, which proved Arthur was a fake bastard and she was the legal heir, meant an irreversible escape. She must permanently sever a decade of affection, transforming her lover into an unforgivable enemy to embrace a lonely throne. Now, locked in an iron cage above the coronation hall, Clara watches Arthur reach for the Marquis coronet. As the heavy oak doors violently rattle, the false lord smiles at her, completely unaware of who is standing outside.