Married to a Dying Prince
She was born with nothing. Raised by grief. Hardened by silence. And sentenced to die for a crime she never committed. Sera has spent her entire life in the eastern fields....
She was born with nothing. Raised by grief. Hardened by silence. And sentenced to die for a crime she never committed. Sera has spent her entire life in the eastern fields of Valdros — working ground that was never hers, serving a family that was never kind, and surviving a world that never once looked her way. She is nobody. She has always been nobody. Until the morning she walks out of the tall grass and saves a nobleman's life with her bare hands. Lord Edric of House Roland does not forget a debt. He comes back. And his return lights a fire that her cruel stepmother Delma uses to burn everything Sera has left to the ground. Framed for stealing from royalty — the most dangerous crime in the empire — Sera is paraded through the streets she grew up on and brought to the place of execution with no one to speak for her and nothing left to lose. But Sera has never been the kind of woman who goes quietly. At the edge of her own death she remembers a decree that the entire empire has been ignoring. Prince Dorian — heir to the throne of Valdros — is dying. His body is failing in ways no physician can explain. His voice is gone. His strength is gone. And the king desperate for an heir has promised half his kingdom and a crown to any woman willing to marry his son and bear him a child. Nobody has answered. Because nobody believes it is possible. Sera answers. Not out of love. Not out of ambition. Out of the only thing she has ever truly owned. Pure defiance. She walks into the palace of Valdros rough and unpolished and completely unafraid. She sits beside a prince the whole empire has given up on and she starts paying attention. To the patterns. To the visits. To the doctor who comes to heal and leaves his patient worse every single time. To the smiling faces in the corridors that do not match the coldness behind their eyes. Prince Dorian is not dying from illness. He is being murdered. Slowly. Deliberately. By people standing close enough to hold his hand while they do it. His own uncle Duke Roland and the corrupt physician Doctor Maren have been bleeding the life out of the heir to the throne one careful dose at a time — all to clear the path for Roland's son Lord Edric to take the crown. The same Lord Edric whose life Sera saved in the fields. The same Lord Edric who came back and whose visits gave Delma everything she needed to destroy her. The web goes deeper than Sera imagined. And the deeper she pulls at its threads the more dangerous every breath becomes. But something else is happening inside those palace walls. Prince Dorian — silent, still, reduced to communicating through careful words written on parchment — is watching her. Really watching her. Not the way people have always watched Sera, like a problem to be managed or a girl to be used. He watches her the way a man watches something that reminds him he is still alive. And Sera, who has never had anyone truly see her, does not know what to do with that. She does not have time to figure it out. Not yet. Because the conspiracy surrounding them is moving faster than she anticipated and the people who want Dorian dead are beginning to notice that his new bride is far more dangerous than she looks. Sera will have to outthink a duke. Outmaneuver a corrupt physician. Navigate a palace full of enemies wearing friendly faces. And do it all while keeping alive a man everyone else has already buried — a man whose eyes on hers make something stir in her chest that she absolutely cannot afford right now. She forces the truth out of the darkness. She fights for the antidote. She brings Prince Dorian back from the edge of death and watches him rise from what they tried to make his grave. But surviving the poison is only the beginning. Because when a prince returns from the dead the people who tried to kill him do not simply surrender. They regroup. They retaliate. They come for everything Sera has built and everyone she has come to protect. Including the child growing inside her.
Disclaimer: This show may contain expletives, strong language, and mature content for adult listeners, including sexually explicit content and themes of violence. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real persons, businesses, places or events is coincidental. This show is not intended to offend or defame any individual, entity, caste, community, race, religion or to denigrate any institution or person, living or dead. Listener's discretion is advised.
