Chapter 1
1326 Words
“You’ll do it tonight.”
Juliana’s voice was sharp, cold — like the click of heels on marble. She stood with her arms crossed, chin high, her elegance disguising the venom in her words. “You’ll wear her perfume. Her jewelry. You’ll go into his bed… and leave before daybreak.”
Amira stared at the older woman in horror, the weight of the command tightening her chest. “That’s deceit. Royal deceit.”
Juliana’s lips curled into a smile that never reached her eyes. “No, dear. It’s survival. Unless, of course, you’d rather your mother run out of medicine tomorrow?”
Behind her, Elina let out a mock sigh. She looked radiant — smug in her designer robe, her hair swept up, a diamond necklace twinkling around her neck like stolen stars. “Just lie there and keep quiet,” she said, inspecting her freshly polished nails. “After tonight, he’ll be mine forever.”
The world tilted under Amira’s feet.
Her mother. Her sweet, fading mother, who barely had the strength to lift a spoon that morning. The same woman whose breath had grown shallow because Juliana — in her cruelty — had rationed the very medication meant to keep her alive.
Amira remembered it too clearly: two days ago, she had run into the kitchen, clutching the new prescription the doctor had scribbled after another frightening collapse. Juliana took it from her hand with exaggerated grace.
“I’ll have it filled,” she’d said. And she had — except what came back was half the dosage and in broken strips.
“You don’t get to make demands,” Juliana told her then. “Be grateful I bothered at all.”
Amira had swallowed her rage because she had no choice. She had scrubbed the marble tiles with raw knuckles, smiled through pain, and prayed in silence. But now… now they were asking for something she could not give.
Her body. Her dignity. Her soul.
Her gaze dropped to the necklace Elina flaunted with such arrogance — a rare Zandrian heirloom passed down to the woman chosen to be queen. A matching cheque rested on the table nearby: one million dollars, signed by Prince Michael himself.
Payment. Proof. Praise.
For a lie.
Amira’s voice trembled. “He thinks she’s… pure.”
Juliana’s eyes glittered. “And he’ll never know otherwise — not if you do as you’re told.”
The words fell like poison into her ears. Amira could barely breathe.
She turned away, eyes landing on the small window. Outside, the sun dipped behind the spires of the royal palace — its silhouette etched in gold against the velvet sky. Zandria. A kingdom forged centuries ago on the southern rim of Africa, where old-world customs danced with modern riches. A place where tradition was not suggestion, but law.
And no tradition was more sacred than The Covenant of the Crown — a divine law passed down from the first ruler, King Thabiso I, nearly six centuries ago.
According to legend, the founding king of Zandria was guided by a celestial vision during his coronation. On the eve of his wedding, a seer approached the palace gates, barefoot and cloaked in starlight. She warned him: “As the bride is pure, so shall the land be prosperous. But when the crown joins with deceit, the kingdom will crumble from within.”
Moved by this prophecy, Thabiso pledged that every heir to the Zandrian throne must marry a virgin — one chosen not by the whims of nobility or beauty, but by divine confirmation through ancient counsel, sacred rites, and signs revealed only to the High Priests of the Zandrian Temple.
This covenant wasn’t mere tradition. It was law. Sacred. Immutable.
Those who kept it were blessed beyond imagination. Zandria flourished for generations — its mines sparkled with gold, its trade routes expanded across oceans, and its people thrived under the Zuberi line.
But those who defied the covenant paid dearly.
The story of Prince Jabari, heir to King Samora III, was the first stain on the royal line. Bold and arrogant, Jabari dismissed the old ways as “superstitious shackles.” He fell in love with a noblewoman from a distant province and married her in secret, refusing the ceremonial virginity test, and skipping the divine rites entirely.
Three weeks after his coronation, plague swept through the royal city.
Livestock perished. The rivers dried prematurely. A once-thriving harvest turned to ash under a blazing sun. The Queen, his bride, died suddenly of a mysterious fever. And within months, Jabari himself was assassinated by palace guards — an internal coup said to be orchestrated by the very priests whose warnings he ignored.
His name was erased from Zandrian records. His reign, though short, was taught in every royal academy as The Year of Silence.
Since then, no prince has dared dishonor the Covenant.
Except one.
Prince Darius, nearly a century later, tried to cheat the prophecy. Desperate to claim the throne before his younger brother — a favorite among the council — he bribed temple officials to falsify the virginity rites of his chosen bride. The High Priest who conducted the ceremonial anointing had been paid handsomely in foreign diamonds.
The coronation went forward.
For a time, all seemed well. But during the seventh moon, just as the Queen was to announce her pregnancy, lightning struck the palace tower — shattering it during a royal banquet. The flames that followed took the lives of fifty nobles, including the pregnant queen.
That night, Darius confessed everything at the foot of the altar in the Great Temple. And by morning, he was gone.
Some say he fled into exile. Others believe the gods took him.
Since then, every prince has approached the Covenant with fear and reverence.
Which is why now — in this moment — Prince Michael Zuberi, beloved heir and youngest son of King Zuberi IV, had followed every ancient instruction. From the fasts to the sacred retreats in the temple caves, he had done it all.
He did not merely want a crown — he wanted righteousness. Order. Truth.
He believed Elina Markos was the chosen one. The vision matched her likeness. The omens aligned. And her mother, Juliana, had woven the perfect image — flawless, pious, untouched.
And Elina Markos was not.
But Amira… Amira still was.
That was why she stood here now — being asked to step into another woman’s shoes, to lie beside a man who would never know her name.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them back. And in the silence, memory returned like a ghost.
She saw her father again — once tall, once proud. His smile could light a room. He had worked with his hands, carving joy into wood, creating tables, chairs, and cradles with names burned gently into the surface. His little shop had been his pride. Until betrayal came — a cousin’s bad debt signed under his name. The bank came with papers. Took everything. He fought. He begged.
No one came to help.
Not Juliana. Not the woman now standing before her, wielding wealth like a sword.
She’d arrived after the damage was done — not with comfort, but with a cage wrapped in gold. She took them in, yes. And slowly made them servants in the shadows of her mansion. Her father died with a broken heart. Her mother never recovered. And Amira — Amira was left to clean floors and press Elina’s silks as if she did not matter.
And now… she was being asked to give the last thing she had left.
Her silence.
Her innocence.
Herself.
Amira’s heart pounded. She looked at Juliana. Then at Elina. Then at the door — behind which lay a gown, a vial of perfume, and a destiny she did not choose.
The crown was just weeks away from being placed on the wrong head.
And no one knew.
Except her.
- Writer
