Chapter 1: The Fallen Pearl of Luminaia
The year was 777 of the Solar Era—the height of a golden age.
My homeland, Luminaia, the Alchemical Kingdom, sits at the southernmost tip of Europe. It is a land kissed by Apollo himself, where winter is a myth and spring reigns eternal. The air is forever thick with the cloying sweetness of pollen and the faint, metallic scent of alchemical mist.
Here, the “Great Art” isn’t a legend; it is as natural as breathing. If your aptitude for alchemy and invention is high enough, you are a god, a law unto yourself, an idol worshipped by the masses.
Every citizen of Luminaia is born with an innate spark of brilliance. Even as children, they can intuitively tinker with clockwork to make dead leaves “bloom” again or mechanically alter a birdhouse into a miniature palace.
And then there is me. Elara, the Fourth Princess of this empire, and a total Useless Royal.
When I turned ten, it was as if the gods had reclaimed my spark. While the Crown Prince, my second brother, and my third sister followed Thomas, the Empire’s greatest Grand Inventor, learning to command weather-altering engines and pilot clockwork dragons, I couldn’t even produce a single mechanical spark.
If I couldn’t be a god, then I decided I would be a succubus reigning in my own private hell.
I found the only joy worth pursuing: The pursuit of men.
My magnificent Pavilion of Lustrous Shadows became the Empire’s “forbidden zone”. Within these walls, the air stayed heavy with the scent of burning amber and aged wine, a sanctuary where time stood still.
I loved men—the towering, the delicate, the wild, and the refined. I knew exactly how to strip away their hypocritical formal wear and let their hidden desires burn to ashes upon my royal bed.
Every morning, the once-proud and stunning beauties would be discarded like squeezed sugarcane husks near the palace gates—sporting deep dark circles, necks covered in red marks, and bodies utterly spent.
The nation was scandalized. No one could understand how a refined royal family could produce such a scandalous “Witch of Lust”.
Only my father, the Emperor, truly loved me. He would lecture me about how “beauty is a fleeting distraction,” yet he would beam with joy the moment I personally served him a plate of my Ambrosia Glazed Salmon.
“Father,” I would coo, leaning into his embrace, “my brothers and sisters are too brilliant, too busy. Let me be the reckless one for them. Isn’t it better that I stay by your side every day, even if it’s in infamy?”
After Father’s passing, the map of power was redrawn. The Crown Prince ascended the throne; my second sister became the wife of the all-powerful Prime Minister; and my third sister married into the House of Gilded Coin, the wealthiest family in the land.
As for me? I asked for only one thing: the 99 handsome favorites Father had bestowed upon me on his deathbed. Within this hidden kingdom of eternal spring, I continued my never-ending, absurd existence.
I knew my siblings looked down on me. To them, I was a failure who shamed the royal name.
But what did that matter?
In this life, the most important thing is to find your own joy. To obsess over the opinions of others is to build your own cage. I was content in my own world. I was proud of who I was.
“Send in today’s ‘new toy.’ I wish to dream,” I commanded, reclining lazily on a divan encrusted with rubies, waving a hand toward my servants.
“Yes, Princess,” my confidante Anna replied, bowing low with a knowing glint in her eye.
Before long, the harsh grating of iron chains against the marble floor shattered the incense-scented silence of the Pavilion. Anna dragged in a man covered in blood and grime, his face a mask of primal fury, yet his spine remained unyieldingly straight.
His hands were bound by heavy black iron. His once-expensive silk shirt hung in rags, revealing a chest crisscrossed with lash marks. Despite the filth, his rugged face—carved as if by Apollo’s own hand—remained breathtakingly handsome. The golden light of the setting sun caught the sweat on his brow, making him look like a fallen warrior from an ancient epic.
I arched an eyebrow, stepped off the divan barefoot, and playfully tilted his blood-stained chin with my fingertip.
“Oh, Caspian Nightshade,” I let out a light laugh, my voice dripping with the thrill of a successful prank. “The proud heir to the Ducal House, finally falling into my hands.”
“Hmph!”
Caspian squeezed a cold snort through his teeth, his amber eyes filled with disdain and resolve. “Elara, falling into the hands of a witch like you is simply my bad luck. Do as you wish—kill me or carve me, I don’t care!”
My smile deepened. I wasn’t intimidated by his rage. Instead, I let my cold fingers trace slow, deliberate circles over his warm, exposed chest, feeling his heart thundering against his ribs in fury. The friction of my skin against his sent a shiver through his restrained frame, a reaction he couldn’t hide.
“Kill you? What a waste,” I whispered near his ear, my breath like orchids. “I’ve always had no resistance to handsome men. Especially one of your caliber. Even if you must die, wouldn’t you rather die in my bed, fulfilling your purpose?”
Caspian’s eyes turned bloodshot, his jaw clenching so hard it looked ready to shatter. “We’ve hated each other since childhood. We fought at every palace ball. Elara, you disgust me. You want me to sleep with you? In your dreams!”
Seeing him so desperate to tear me apart yet utterly helpless, I was genuinely delighted. I leaned into him like a boneless vine, pressing against his chest—thick with the scent of sweat and blood—and whispered:
“Since you find me so disgusting... if I insist on taking you anyway, here in the eternal spring of Luminaia, what exactly can you do about it? My 100th favorite?”pered near his ear, my breath like orchids. “I’ve always had no resistance to handsome men. Especially one of your caliber. Even if you must die, wouldn’t you rather die in my bed, fulfilling your purpose?”
Caspian’s eyes turned bloodshot, his jaw clenching so hard it looked ready to shatter. “We’ve hated each other since childhood. We fought at every palace ball. Elara, you disgust me. You want me to sleep with you? In your dreams!”
Seeing him so desperate to tear me apart yet utterly helpless, I was genuinely delighted. I leaned into him like a boneless vine, pressing against his chest—thick with the scent of sweat and blood—and whispered:
“Since you find me so disgusting... if I insist on taking you anyway, here in the eternal spring of Luminaia, what exactly can you do about it? My 100th favorite?”
