Chapter One

Valor. A place of peace, love, and happiness. And the tiniest hint of darkness. A darkness that could take the form of something bigger. Something that could destroy the world as everyone knew it.

I waved the maid off, too tired and bored with getting dressed by someone who was not Ally. Ally had been on vacation, as her sister just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and she begged me to go and see her new niece. And being the nice girl I am, I decided to let her go. She deserved it too. She was always so nice and friendly to me. And so I gave her two weeks off.

Finally after debating on which dress I would choose, my choices were my light pink knee length dress or my dark blue ankle length dress. I ended up choosing my light pink dress.

"Would you like to eat here or with your family?" the maid I just dismissed asks.

"Here, father is never there, mother is always having a tea party at this time, and my brother is always escorting some girl around the estate every other day," I calmly answer her.

"Great, Miss! I'll send for a cart of breakfast immediately!" the girl cheerfully bounced out of the room.

"Hey wait, what was your name!" I call after the young maid.

"My name is Josephine, Young Miss," she said back as she continued down the hall.

Half an hour later Josephine came back with a cart of tea, biscuits, gravy, and french toast. It looked devine I didn't want to eat anything. I just wanted to savor every little bite. After what seemed like 5 minutes of staring at the delicious looking food, Josephine persuaded me to take a bite. It was all too delicious. The biscuit fell apart in my mouth and the french toast was just heavenly!

"Josephine! This is magnificent!" She smiled at my comment.

"Thank you Miss, but you should really be thanking the cooks!" She chuckled.

An hour later I decided to get ready for work. My father would be expecting me to oversee his meeting in place of my brother, who has a date for the second time today. I may not be his heir, but my father seems to favor me over my brother more often than not.

My older brother, Randall, is what is known as a "skirt chaser", meaning he is just a dang womanizer. I just personally hate how he brings home a different woman every day and night. One woman in the day, and another one in the night, both never hear from again. It makes me worry about the girl. Only sometimes though. I don't really care for them either way.

My mother seems to favor my brother, but only for that reason. She just wants a daughter-in-law. In my opinion, she must not like me because I refuse to be married off to some no-good, idiotic, old noble man of lower status than me. The only people of the male gender I talk to are my brother and my father. But, I've been invited to the palace a couple of times due to the crown prince's unhealthy obsession with me. And every one of those time's he's tried to take my hand in marriage, and everytime I refuse him coldly. I don't need a prince, no less a man, to tell me how to live my life!

After touching up my makeup, smoothing out my dress, I walked out of my room, my head held high. The staff greeted me with half hearted hello's and good morning's. After two months, I've realized that the staff didn't take a liking to me. In their minds, I was like a tyrant, just like my father. My father may not be a tyrant king, but he is a tyrant that is in charge of his province and the people in his village, in this part of the kingdom along with his job of being one of the king's right hand men, along with the Royal Advisor, Sir. Mason Gilbert. The social hierarchy goes like this: First comes the king and his family, then comes the Grand Duke (my father) and his family, net comes the duke, and then comes other lords of lesser importance, then it's the knights, and lastly peasants/serfs and commoners.

And, since I am the Grand Duke's daughter, I do get some appreciation. But yet again, the people prefer my brother more. As always. It's always Randall when things come down to it. My father thinks I will make a great heir to the Vermont Duchy, but no one else does. And so to keep the people in line, father made Randall the heir.

As much as I hate to admit it, Randall might just make the better heir. I think I'd be just as good, but considering that one must marry by their 21 birthday to become Grand Duke, I'd think I'd pass.

I'd forgotten how big and long these hallways are. The mansion itself is big too. And so is the estate. The mansion is about 8,000-square-foot (740 m2). And the estate is like 100 acres big.

The people always think that we have it all here at the Vermont Estate. Thinking we live life to the highest, dancing and partying all night. But they're all wrong. See, my family has a very dark secret.

Wanna know the reason as to why my brother is a skirt chaser, or the real reason as to why my mother mostly despises me, or as to why my father thinks of me as the favorite? Or why I mysteriously died on the night of my 16th birthday?

Those secrets will be revealed in time. For now, the only thing you need to know is, I, Sakura Ryu am dead, inside the body of Eleonore Vermont, the sister of the villain in a BL Otome game that everyone loved.

I knocked on the door to my father office. As I waited for him to answer my call to be let in, I smoothed out my dress, while focusing on my breathing. I knew what waited for me beyond these doors. And I dreaded every second of waiting.

"Come in," my fathers cold, deep voice called out from the other side of the door.

Gulping, I took a step back and breathed. Pushing open the doors, to see a room, filled with noblemen, as still as wind, and as silent as a mouse staring me down.

Hi!~

Thanks for checking this out!

Yes, yes, you may be happy that finally after like, I don't know, 6+ months that I've finally rewritten this sh*t of a story. Also, I'm working on trying not to curse, so curse word WILL be censored.

Secondly, if you didn't check my updated Bio, I advise you do it now because I said some things that have to do with my stories and such, like: NO hate comments to me, regarding my story, or any other Wattpaders reading this book. If you have something personal with me, please DM me.

Lastly, updates might not me very frequent. Maybe once every two weeks. BUT my family and I are going to Los Angeles to visit family for Passover in like a week, actually we're leaving this Friday, so I might update earlier because I'll be on vacation so yeah!

Thanks~

And see you soon!