On the day the Crown Prince exposed me as a woman before the entire royal court, I fell from the most revered Royal Tutor in the kingdom to the lowest of royal harlots. The System declared my mission an utter failure. I’d had four targets. Each was a man of immense power and prestige, yet each came to despise me, to hate me to the bone, all because of my stepsister. Fortunately, the System offered a reprieve: if I could bear the child of any of my four targets, I would be spared the punishment of annihilation. So, I cast aside my pride. I schemed and seduced. And on the final day of my deadline, I was with child. But as I lay in labor, all four of them hunted me down. The Prince, my former student, bound my hands and feet. The Master Healer, my own brother, forced a labor-inducing potion down my throat. The Lord Marshal, my childhood love, sliced open my belly with his longsword. And the Lord Chancellor, my husband, personally carved the heart from my newborn’s chest—all to use my child’s heart’s blood as a cure for my stepsister. And later, as they gazed upon my cold, stiffening corpse, these men who had wished for my death… they shattered. … I sat on a rough wooden cot in a dirt-floored hovel, stitching a tiny garment for my unborn child, when the door was kicked open. Crown Prince Kaelen strode in. His eyes fell upon my swollen belly, and his face became a mask of thunder. “Lady Seraphina,” he spat, the title a mockery. “You truly are with child? Whose is it?” I looked up at him. The timid boy who once hid behind my skirts, weeping, was gone. In his place stood an ungrateful viper I had raised myself. I set down my needle and thread, my face a placid lake. “Your Highness, Seraphina is no longer the Royal Tutor. I am a common whore. Whose child do you imagine I would carry? Another man’s whelp may be disloyal, but this child, no matter the father, will know only its mother.” One of my words must have struck a nerve, because Kaelen’s face flushed a deep, furious crimson. “Filth! This bastard cannot be allowed to live!” I wrapped my arms protectively around my stomach, my eyes fixed on him. Kaelen’s mother had died in the venomous games of court politics. He’d had his tendons cut and was left to die in the castle’s forgotten dungeons. All who passed by averted their eyes. Only I had stopped. I carried him back to my small quarters. I sought healers, spent every last System point I had to mend his broken body. I taught him to read, to wield a sword, even disguised myself as a man to enter the court and fight for him. I poured half my life into him, lifting him step by step to the position of Crown Prince. I remember the day he was named heir. We celebrated in his new palace apartments, his young eyes glittering like a constellation. “Sera,” he had said, his voice full of earnest devotion, “when I am king, I will change the laws. Women will be allowed to serve in the court, and you will never have to hide who you are again.” And yet, it was this same Kaelen who, before the entire assembly, ripped the official robes from my body and denounced me as a woman, a blight upon the kingdom. “You venomous snake, Seraphina!” he had roared. “My sweet Vivia is a paragon of kindness, yet you schemed to have her virtue stolen! How dare you stand in a position of power, enjoying wealth and glory? You will suffer a hundred times what she has endured!” My identity was exposed, and I was cast into a royal pleasure house. The System judged my final mission a failure. But it amended the task: if I could give birth to this child, this life connected to me by blood, my slate with these men would be wiped clean. Kaelen clearly saw me and my child as a stain. “Rest assured, Your Highness,” I said quickly, “once the child is born, I will take him far away. We will never trouble your sight again.” His expression only grew fouler. He suddenly lunged, using a restraining technique I myself had taught him, pinning me to the cot. He ordered his guards to bring rope, and he bound my hands and feet himself. My body, heavy with child, was slow and clumsy. I was helpless. “Kaelen, you treacherous dog!” I screamed, my voice cracking with fury. “You betray your own mentor, your own master!” He sneered. “Vivia is ill, Seraphina. She requires the heart’s blood of your unborn child to be cured. It’s just a bastard, after all. To die saving Vivia is a worthy end for it.” My eyes widened in horror. I shook my head frantically. Without this child, the System would erase me. I would truly die. Just then, another figure appeared in the doorway, both familiar and terrifyingly strange. It was the man I considered my dearest kin in this world: my brother, the Master Healer Theron. Forgetting everything else, I stared at him, my eyes pleading. “Brother… save me…” In my original world, I was an orphan, my body ravaged by illness. I had never known the warmth of family. On my deathbed, the System found me and offered me a new life, transmigrated into this body from birth. It gave me four targets: a brother connected by blood, a childhood love, a passionate suitor, and a student I would raise myself. If I could win the absolute favor of just one, I would be granted health and a true life. I had been bedridden for so long; I cherished this chance, and I cherished these new bonds. But every single one of them had fallen for the lies of this world’s protagonist, my stepsister, Vivia. They all believed I was a venomous witch. My brother had cast me out. My betrothed had broken our engagement. My lover had severed all ties. My student had thrown me into the abyss. All my missions failed. Even the System took pity on me, using its own accumulated points to change my final task. Just give birth to this child, and you can live. Now, to save my child, to save myself, I had to gamble on the last vestiges of Theron’s love for me. But he only stared coldly at my struggles, ignoring my desperate plea. He turned to Kaelen. “Your Highness, there is no time. Vivia is fading. We don’t need to drag her back. We’ll do it here.” I stared in disbelief. He was my first target. But my longing for a family was so deep, I never saw him as just a mission. I nurtured our sibling bond with all my heart, giving him everything, even risking my own life for him time and again. When Theron studied the forbidden arts of healing, I used my System points to gift him knowledge from my modern world: Caesarean sections, cranial surgery, things this world considered blasphemy. No one believed in his abilities. So I became his test subject, his guinea pig, helping him build a reputation as the realm’s peerless Master Healer. Once, he miscalculated a dosage, and I suffered a violent allergic reaction. Terrified, he knelt in the family chapel for days, praying, swearing he would renounce his arts if it would grant my safety. He wanted to be a healer, yes, but he swore his sister was the most important thing to him. I used my own points to save myself and salvage his reputation. I had thought I finally had a home, a brother. But that seemingly unbreakable bond crumbled under Vivia’s relentless machinations. She staged her own abduction, crying that I was the one who had orchestrated it. Theron, holding the feigning Vivia, called me a viper and cast me, still a young girl, out of our home. Now, watching him expertly brew the potion and sterilize his blades, a chilling despair washed over me. “Brother, Vivia being abducted and losing her purity had nothing to do with me! She isn’t sick! Please, let me go! Let my child live! He is your nephew!” Theron’s hand paused. His gaze was devoid of any emotion. “Empty words. Do you think I would believe you? Vivia is good and kind. Would she sacrifice her own virtue and health just to frame her sister? The assault left her with a deep-seated malady, one that can only be cured by the heart’s blood of an infant born from a close blood relative. It’s the life of a worthless bastard. This is a debt you owe her!” He forced the entire potion down my throat. A searing pain ripped through my abdomen. The child inside me kicked violently. Kaelen held my limbs fast. I could only writhe, trying to knock Theron’s sterilized instruments into the dirt on the floor with my head. Theron slapped me across the face, hard. Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. “What do you think you’re doing?” I knew he was a meticulous healer; his tools had to be perfectly sterile. But I was out of options. If they cut the baby out, I was dead. I had to delay, to buy even a second more of life for me and my child. Seeing my resistance, Theron had Kaelen hold me down while he prepared a new set of instruments. “No!” I screamed, my voice raw with desperation. “I’ll die without my child!” This time, Theron didn’t hesitate. He let out a cold laugh. “Are you questioning the skill of the realm’s Master Healer? Relax. I’m just taking the child and stitching you back up. My hand is swift. A scourge like you won’t die so easily.” Suddenly, a commotion erupted outside. The youngest Lord Marshal in the kingdom’s history, Rhys, burst in, covered in dust from the road, his sword in hand. “Am I too late?” My despairing heart flickered with a new flame of hope. Rhys was my second target. We grew up together, inseparable, our bond deeper than any other. His family was a fallen line of knights, and Rhys himself had no talent for the blade. My heart ached for him, so I used my points to unleash his dormant martial potential. I trained with him for years, sparring with sword and staff. I encouraged him when he wanted to give up, and I watched over him silently from horseback when he tasted his first victories. He would lean against my back, watching the moon. “Sera, you’re so good to me. When I return a Lord Marshal, you will be my lady. Imagine how grand that will be!” “Sera, where do you want to live? We could go to the northern plains, or the western frontier. I’ll let the sun darken your skin, so no one else will try to steal you from me.” I had believed, truly believed, that when he returned from war, I would be his wife. But when he returned, perched on his warhorse was not me, but my stepsister Vivia, covered in blood. Rhys had grabbed me by the throat, his voice a furious whisper. “Why? Why would you harm Vivia? She’s not like you; she’s a delicate flower! How could someone so wicked ever be my wife? Seraphina, our engagement is void!” Cast out by my brother, then rejected by my fiancé, I became the capital’s greatest joke. Years had passed. The boyish charm was gone, replaced by the chilling aura of a seasoned killer. Theron waved a hand. “You’re not too late. She dirtied my blade. We haven’t started.” Rhys’s handsome brows furrowed. “What are you waiting for? Vivia can’t hold on much longer. Do you want her to die?” Before I could react, Rhys raised his sword—the very blade I had commissioned for him from a master smith—and sliced through my clothes. Then, with a single, brutal stroke, he cut open my belly. A geyser of blood erupted. A raw, guttural cry tore from my throat as tears streamed down my face. “No!” Theron quickly extracted the baby. I saw him—a full-term boy, small and wrinkled, but alive. He let out a wail, a powerful testament to his vibrant life. Forgetting the searing pain as Theron began to stitch my wound, I tried to snatch my child back. “Don’t hurt my baby! Do you even know who his father is? He would never allow this!” A soft chuckle came from the doorway. The Lord Chancellor, Alistair, stepped inside. “Still so cunning, Lady Seraphina. What new tale are you spinning to deceive us? It doesn’t matter who the father is. Having a mother like you is his greatest sin.” Alistair was my third target.
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