They called it the Fidelius Empire—an empire built on blood-oaths, old magic, and the rise of three great families. For over a century, the Empire stood unshaken, ruled by an Emperor whose crown was forged not by birthright, but by loyalty bought in war.
The Adler, Verlice, and Hayes families—once heroes of the Empire's ascension—now walk its marbled halls as its hidden rulers, their children raised not as heirs, but as weapons in velvet. Behind every feast lies a silence thick with secrets. Behind every smile, a blade.
And when the crown begins to crack, it's not the soldiers who bleed first. It's the roses—frosted, silent, and armed with thorns.
Greetings, My name is Levi Rose Adler.
They call me Adler's Iceflower. A name dressed in elegance, as if it hides the thorns underneath.
My boss thinks he owns me.
He doesn't.
He calls it guidance, protection—opportunity. I call it a leash dressed in silk. He trained me to be useful, not free. I give him results. He gives me reasons not to walk away. It's a game. We both know who wins if I stop playing.
My uncles, Maximus Adler, Jake Adler, and Lockwood Adler, are the only men who ever raised me like a person, not a piece. They taught me how to read lies before I could read books. They're the quiet force behind my survival—stern, tired, and loyal in the way most people forget how to be.
My father, The Grand Duke Henry Adler, is a name more than a man. Present in every room, absent in every way that matters. He believes legacy is enough to be called a parent. He gave me a last name and left the rest to cold dinners and colder silences.
Izara Winderson Adler—my younger sister—is fire wrapped in silk. Too good, too hopeful. She believes people can be better. That I can be better. I envy that. I resent it. I protect it like a weapon I never got to carry myself.
George Adams Adler, my brother, is what my father wishes I had been—easier to control, louder in the wrong rooms, forever trying to catch a crown that was never meant to be his. He doesn't understand me, and I don't blame him. We're both playing roles neither of us auditioned for.
My mother? Irrelevant. The kind of woman who loves status more than stories. The kind who looks at me and sees an accessory out of place.
To them, I am a means to an end.
To me? I'm still figuring that out.
But one thing I know for certain—
I'd rather be hated for being difficult than loved for being easy to break.
Evie Blaze Ford is chaos and comfort in the same breath.
She talks too much, cares too loudly, and never leaves—even when I want her to. She's the only person who sees the cracks and doesn't try to fill them—just stands there, holding the pieces with me.
She's not just my best friend.
She's my anchor in a world that keeps trying to pull me under.
And then there's Winter Swann Verlice.
He's everything I should hate—controlled, cold, impossibly composed. We don't speak unless we must. When we do, we bruise each other in words sharp enough to cut.
They say we'll be bound by name and empire.
But if I must stand beside him—
It will be as his equal,
Or not at all.