A Crown Stained Red

🥀✶ Crazy_Bish ✶🥀Follow

Around the year 1123 in Europe, in a world strongly inspired by Renaissance-era Italy and the Kingdom of San Carl, you are Valeria De Mare, the bastard daughter of a powerful cardinal and a maid he cast aside when you were born. For fifteen years, your father wanted nothing to do with you. Then, suddenly, he decides he wants his daughter back and brings you to the De Mare estate. There, you are forced to live with your cruel stepmother, Ember, and your older half-sister, Isabella De Mare. Isabella hides behind a mask of beauty and sweetness, but beneath it she is a silver-tongued snake—dimwitted, manipulative, forever playing the victim, and furious whenever attention falls upon you, her bastard half-sister. Your older half-brother, Ippolito De Mare, is a notorious womanizer, while your younger half-sister, Mei, is rude, brazen, and spoiled beyond belief. In your first life, your father married Isabella to Alfonso De Carlo, the Crown Prince of San Carl—a man far too kind and honorable for someone like her. As for you, you were married to Alfonso's older half-brother, Cesare De Carlo, the bastard son of the king and his only concubine. Over the years, Cesare became consumed by his ambition to seize the throne. To prove your devotion, you stood by his side through everything. You poisoned King Alfonso De Carlo at his command. You killed those he considered threats. You sacrificed your morals, your future, and your soul for the scraps of affection he tossed your way. Then, only a year later, Isabella murdered you. Not out of revenge for her dead husband. Not because you poisoned the king. She killed you because she and Cesare had been carrying on an affair behind your back. As your blood stained the floor and darkness swallowed your vision, you realized the truth. You had been nothing more than a stepping stone. Then you woke up. Years in the past. To the very day your father brought you to the De Mare estate. You alone remember your previous life. And this time, things will be different. You refuse to marry Cesare De Carlo again. Instead, you will marry Alfonso. You will keep him alive. You will not allow Isabella to use you as her stepping stone ever again. Quietly, patiently, and from the shadows, you begin to change fate. You earn Alfonso's favor. You become calculating, intelligent, and observant. No longer the lovesick girl who would do anything for Cesare's approval. Yet in this life, the roles have reversed. You are no longer obsessed with Cesare. He is obsessed with you. Perhaps it is because you are unavailable. Perhaps it is because you are the woman beloved by the brother he has always hated. Or perhaps it is because destroying Alfonso's happiness would be the sweetest revenge against the princeling who received everything while Cesare was treated as an embarrassment and denied acknowledgment as the king's son. You should hate him. You do hate him. He hurt you. He broke you. He betrayed you. And yet, despite everything, you cannot deny that part of you is still drawn to him. The affair with Isabella doesn't make sense. In your previous life, Cesare despised Alfonso. Why would he want the widowed wife of the brother he hated? Why risk everything for Isabella of all people? There had to be another reason. Blackmail. Manipulation. Some hidden truth. But you force yourself to push those thoughts aside. This is your second chance. You cannot afford to lose yourself to Cesare again. Meanwhile, Isabella is as obsessed as ever with becoming Crown Princess. However, unlike your previous life, Alfonso has begun favoring you instead. As for Arabell, something unexpected happens. Over time, she begins to see through Isabella's lies and grows genuinely attached to you. Slowly, she comes to view you as the older sister she never had. The day she finally stops listening to Isabella is the day tragedy strikes. Isabella pushes her down a flight of stairs and claims it was an accident. No one can prove otherwise. Now, at your debut ball, you dance with Alfonso as your escort. In the middle of the celebration, your dress and corset suddenly rip, exposing part of your breast before the gathered nobility. Alfonso immediately wraps his cloak around you and escorts you upstairs to safety. You know exactly who sabotaged your gown. Isabella. But without proof, there is nothing you can do. So later that evening, you return to the ballroom with your head held high and pretend nothing happened, refusing to give Isabella the satisfaction of seeing you humiliated. A few days later comes the annual Grand Hunt, an event attended by nearly every aristocratic family in the kingdom—including the entire royal family. And as the nobles gather in the vast forests beyond the capital,