A gentle breeze stirred the leaves of the centuries-old oak tree, under which Micheal von Shelb sat. His broad shoulders slumped, and his striking blue eyes were distant and unfocused, absentmindedly trailing his fingers through the grass.
To an onlooker, it might have appeared tranquil, but Micheal's mind was anything but peaceful. Thoughts swirled chaotically as he wrestled with the weight of his reality.
Micheal was no stranger to being underestimated. As the youngest son of Duke von Shelb, he was often dismissed as eccentric and idle. His sharp intellect was overshadowed by the military achievements of his renowned elder brothers, who had become the pride of the family.
Yet, Micheal had quietly built the family's financial empire in the shadows. He had worked tirelessly, content to let others bask in the glory while he ensured the Shelb name prospered through his ingenuity and business acumen.
As he sat beneath the oak tree, Micheal tried recalling his dream. The fragmented images stirred uneasily in his mind until he was once again in the same library, with an inadvertent thought, he summoned the book that had thrust itself upon him in the dream.
Unlike before, Micheal was prepared this time. He observed the cover of the mysterious book and read its name before daring to touch it.
The moment his fingers made contact with the book, a surge of memories that were not his own flooded his mind. This time, Micheal resisted the urge to push them away. Instead, he allowed the memories to unfold, letting them reveal whatever truth they held.
The book was a novel titled: Fake Rose Better Than the Real.
In this story, Flora, the Emperor's adopted daughter, was the shining protagonist destined to rise to greatness. She was the heroine of a tale woven with triumph and admiration.
Micheal, however, was nothing more than a footnote—a third-tier character whose wealth was drained by his father to fund Flora's ascent. His tireless efforts went unnoticed, his sacrifices unacknowledged. The story painted a grim picture of Micheal's life, ending in obscurity, a tragic afterthought to Flora's success.
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The novel began as a tale of friendship between two childhood companions, Livya Featherfield and Celeste Valenhart.
Livya was a noblewoman celebrated for her beauty and wit, she fell in love and married a wealthy countryside noble, Steffan Featherfield. Celeste, on the other hand, captured the Emperor's heart and ascended to become the Empress.
Both women discovered they were pregnant at nearly the same time. However, their children couldn't have chosen a worse time to be born.
A pandemic ravaged the Empire, forcing the Empress and Emperor to hold extended court sessions or search for answers at the mage tower. Despite her pregnancy, the diligent Celeste continued to care for her people, causing her health to deteriorate.
Meanwhile, Steffan's business suffered devastating losses due to the pandemic, threatening the Featherfield estate with bankruptcy.
The Emperor heard of the Featherfield's crisis from Celeste. Believing that Celeste would benefit from the company of a fellow expectant mother, he asked Livya to stay with her. In return, he promised to pay off the Featherfield's debts.
Soon, Livya found herself by her best friend's side. Together, they shared gossip and moments of joy, even amidst the bleakness. But Celeste's health worsened daily. She began experiencing episodes of breathlessness and brief comas.
The imperial doctors attributed her condition to mana depletion, caused by her overuse of magic during pregnancy.
During these episodes, Livya witnessed a chilling side of the Emperor.
A devoted and wise monarch when Celeste was awake, he became an impatient and tyrannical figure during her comas. This left Livya questioning whether he would honor his promise if Celeste died during childbirth.
Livya's heart ached for her best friend, but her loyalty lay with her husband and unborn child. She made a difficult decision, procuring a forbidden potion to induce labor as a fallback plan. She prayed it would never come to use.
Fate, however, had other plans. On the day Celeste's labor began, complications arose. By evening, there was still no sign of the child, and the Empress had begun to bleed heavily. Rumors of her impending death swept through the palace, accompanied by the Emperor's growing madness, driving the caretakers into a frenzy.
The imperial midwives knew that Celeste had expended so much mana that her child was at risk of being stillborn.
In the chaos, Livya approached one of the midwives with a daring proposition. She suggested swapping her child for the Empress's if the latter proved too weak to survive. To sway the midwife, Livya offered a sacred family heirloom capable of curing mana-based illnesses.
In the confusion and fear gripping the caretakers, the midwives agreed. Livya, convinced Celeste's baby wouldn't survive, drank the potion and gave birth to a healthy baby girl with the help of two midwives.
Meanwhile, Celeste's daughter was born weak and frail. With her last ounce of strength, the Empress kissed her child and named her Magda, symbolizing strength in adversity. She passed away shortly after.
Livya named her own daughter Flora, wishing her a bright future, and the midwives carried out the swap. Livya returned home with Magda, while Flora was placed as the Emperor's child.
Livya's logic had been simple, albeit cruel: if the Empress died, her daughter would be raised as a princess under the Emperor's care. And if the Emperor truly intended to keep his word to support the Featherfield family, the Emperor's own daughter would also have a good life.
However, Livya and the midwives overlooked a crucial detail—the children's appearances. While both infants were bald and had dark eyes at birth, they grew up to look vastly different from their supposed parents.
Flora's blonde hair and green eyes starkly contrasted the Emperor's black hair and crimson eyes, and the Empress's silver hair and golden eyes.
The Emperor, consumed by grief, became a workaholic. By the time he could face Flora properly, she was three years old. A single glance confirmed she wasn't the child he and Celeste had expected, but the records left no room for doubt.
When Celeste's father, the wise and loyal old Duke Valenhart, came to see his grandchild, the sight of Flora stirred a whirlwind of emotions. That very night, the Duke passed away, sparking court gossip that he had died upon realizing Celeste had been unfaithful. Flora's reputation as the cause of her grandfather's death haunted her in the court.
The Emperor, unable to accept Flora as his daughter, further isolated himself from her and buried himself deeper in the responsibilities of the Empire.
The Emperor knew he had to investigate the mystery behind Flora, but he felt too weak to face the truth.
Instead, he kept her by his side, like a festering wound he didn't dare to look at or treat. For all he knew, Flora was the last connection he had to the late Empress.
He gave her access to the best resources for growth and study, perhaps hoping that, as she grew older, the problem would resolve itself.
At the age of eight, Flora, like all noble children, was tested for her aptitude in mana and aura—the different forms of life energy in their world.
Flora shocked everyone by displaying mana and aura levels akin to those of an ordinary person. This revelation was horrifying because the Emperor was the most powerful archmage of his generation, and the Empress had been a healer whose single touch could cure hundreds.
Rumors of the Empress's alleged infidelity spread through the palace like wildfire.
In an attempt to curb the rumors, the Emperor distanced himself even further from Flora. However, this backfired spectacularly, as the whispers only grew louder. Even Flora became aware of them, deepening her isolation.
As the supposedly illegitimate princess, the children of prominent noble families ignored Flora. She had no friends her age.
Her only support in these trying times was Duke Louis von Shelb of the Southwestern Duchy of Shelb. The Duke, the Emperor's childhood companion and trusted friend, often advised the Emperor to spend time with Flora.
While the Emperor couldn't bring himself to follow this advice, he respected the Duke enough to allow him to act as a father figure to her.
From an early age, Flora learned that her presence in the palace was tolerated, not celebrated. She grew up in an environment that demanded perfection while constantly reminding her of her inadequacies. Her days were dictated by a strict regimen of lessons designed to mold her into the perfect princess.
Her childhood was far from the warmth and joy Livya had imagined for her. Instead, it became a constant battle for favor and survival in a world ruled by wits.
Flora's only escape from the suffocating expectations of court life was the palace gardens.
At the age of twelve, while avoiding her nanny, she stumbled upon a secluded rose garden. There, she found a young man tending to the flowers. He looked and dressed like a gardener.
Over the following days, Flora often saw him tending the roses. Intrigued, she struck up conversations with him.
The young man, named Fredrick, proved to be a kindred soul. He shared with her the pain of losing his beloved brother a year prior and caring for his paralyzed mother. But one day, Fredrick disappeared without a word. Flora was devastated, crying her heart out over the loss of her only friend.
Years later, when she was sixteen, she met him again. He was no longer a gardener but Duke Fredrick Valenhart of the Northern Duchy of Altona.
Back then, Fredrick was the only surviving child of the Duke of the North. His father, a strict and unyielding man hardened by years of battle, had sent Fredrick to the capital to learn courtly manners. Working in the gardens had been his father's idea of teaching him humility.
For Fredrick, the lonely girl who had spoken to him with unexpected warmth became a curious mystery. She treated him with kindness untainted by the politics of court life.
Their chance meeting planted the seeds of a connection that would later shape both their futures.
As Flora grew older, she developed a charm and resilience that disarmed even her harshest critics. Yet beneath the polished exterior was a girl who yearned for genuine connection, carrying the weight of secrets she did not yet understand.
Her childhood shaped her into a complex figure—one who would later become the heart of Fake Rose Better Than the Real, the tragic story Micheal von Shelb now knew with painful clarity.
When Flora turned fifteen, the Emperor made a rare declaration, one that would mark her as even more of an outsider. The announcement heralded a historic change to the royal succession process.
Instead of following the time-honored custom of passing the throne to the next of kin, he introduced a competition—the Race for the Throne.
"All descendants of the royal bloodline under the age of twenty-five," the Emperor's proclamation read, "shall have the opportunity to prove their worth. The one who demonstrates the most all-rounded excellence, wisdom, and strength shall ascend as the next crown prince or princess."
While some viewed the Emperor's decision as a meritocratic step forward, others saw it as an unspoken condemnation of Flora. Why else would he disregard his only child as the presumptive heir unless he doubted her legitimacy?
The Emperor had his reasons for this unprecedented decision. Though Flora's presence reminded him of the Empress he had lost, he could not fully see her as his own daughter. The whispers of her illegitimacy, her lack of resemblance to either him or the Empress, and her absence of magical abilities had long plagued his mind.
In his heart, he harbored doubts he refused to confront. Yet, he could not bring himself to exile her or strip her of her title entirely. Flora remained a tie to the woman he had loved, and for that alone, he allowed her to stay.
The Race for the Throne was his way of ensuring the empire's future. He loved his empire, seeing it as his first child with the late Empress, more so than Flora could ever be in his mind. The late Empress had worked tirelessly for the Empire until her final days.
The Emperor believed that by allowing all eligible royal descendants to compete, the strongest and most capable candidate would emerge. The competition, he reasoned, would unite the empire under a worthy leader, free from the constraints of tradition.
For Flora, it was yet another blow to her already fragile identity. While other royal descendants saw the announcement as an opportunity, she viewed it as a dismissal of her very existence.
Her place in the palace, already tenuous, became even more uncertain.