CHAPTER 1

"Anastasia!" My father screamed and banged his desk as I was about to storm out of the Ducal palace. "A marriage alliance with the imperial family is part of your duty as the daughter of the Duke. Anna sweetheart, marrying the crown prince is for the greater good for the Duchy, your gift for dark magic and the prince's light magic is a good combination for a powerful heir in the imperial palace. Please stop this tantrum and be mature enough to take responsibility." Tears filled up my eyes, father knows that I'm in love with the princess, but he chose to ignore it. I've always been attracted to girls, or to be particular the Crown princess, my darling Rosetta. However in this society it is considered taboo to even feel this way toward someone of the same sex.

I've always been a girl that felt like a boy, in my younger days the prince and I were best friends and people assumed it would blossom to love. As we turned 16, the prince confessed his love to me knowing full well that I was in love with his sister. He even told me that he sometimes thought that he was a sodomer just by falling in love with me because it felt like he was in love with one of the "guys", by the time we were 21 he stopped pursuing me, he never thought of me as a woman even during our friendship.

"Father, you are well aware of my unwillingness, yet you'd rather sacrifice your daughter's happiness over something so trivial." I cried as I stuttered more jibberish. "I'm pretty sure you get along well with the crown prince. You are very selfish Anna, I'm disappointed, you are dismissed."

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I stormed out of my father's sight, and ran with tear-filled eyes, my butler offered to a call out a carriage for me but I rejected the offer. I needed to clear my head without being followed. I walked out the Ducal palace and noticed that the streets were lively, seeing the cheerfulness of commoners brought a smile to my face. I sighed and thought how lucky commoners must be, not having to be forced in marriages of convenience and I wished I could live in such cheer. It's not my fault that I fell in love with the princess instead of the prince, why must love be measured in terms of biology, as I crossed the street buried in thought and self-pity, I wished that I had been born in a much more free society or better yet I wished I was a man so that I could be with my Rosetta, even though my love for her is one-sided. Suddenly as I looked to my left, a horse drawn carriage lost control and the chauffeur couldn't stop in time henceforth I couldn't react in time. A loud bang! followed and I had been knocked by the carriage and I could feel my body getting cold by the second yet my blood was warm. Is this how I'm going to die? I didn't tell Rosetta that I love her. I wasn't able to make my dream come true and elope to the countryside with Rosetta, shit what a fucked up way to die and I'm only 23.