
Arabella Zhang wakes with dust in her throat and a dead husband's apology on her lips — then finds herself one year earlier, before the marriage that ruined her life. This time she refuses the cold heir Camden Li, throws away the embroidered pouch of her love confession, and runs. To survive the court’s petty cruelties she trades a paper promise for a paper husband: a hulking, amnesiac protector drafted into her uncle’s house as a joke—until he proves to be Falcon Stephens, eldest son of a frontier general. When Falcon is sent to a preordained battle, Arabella follows, only to tumble into a pit and find him very much alive. Together they claw back the truth: Camden’s smiles hid letters to the enemy, Genevieve’s sweetness hid a poisoned cake, and the court’s etiquette hid a nest of vipers. Exposed, Camden goes from polished noble to hunted traitor, a face everyone once adored now pasted on wanted posters. But he is stubborn, and his last moves are poisonous. As Arabella learns to bargain with power and Falcon learns to remember who he is, they transform from a staged marriage into a pair who can strike a nation’s rot at its heart. Can a woman who died once take everything back — her honor, her future, the man who finally chooses her? Or will history demand another offering before peace settles?

11 Chapters