Chapter 1

Josiah's POV

While Harry Johnston was parading my royal seal around the ladies' garden party, I was back in the palace practicing my calligraphy.

People in the palace loved fawning over the powerful and kicking those who were down, so life for a fallen male consort was easy to imagine.

Furious on my behalf, my personal attendant, Collin Todd, went to demand justice, only to be met with a barrage of mockery.

"Your master is about to be deposed anyway. Who are you putting on this loyal show for? Everyone in the palace knows the chancellor's son is Her Majesty's true love. You people are just shamelessly clinging on. Otherwise, they would have been together long ago!"

"Please, his seal is gone, so what's he still putting on airs for? He's nothing but an empty shell now. If I were him, I'd rather bash my head against a wall than stay here and be a laughingstock!"

There were plenty of even nastier comments. Collin was shaking with rage as he repeated them to me.

But I remained completely unfazed. "How do you think my calligraphy looks?"

What they didn't know was that I had handed the seal to Harry with my own hands.

The empress, Bella Barrett, had always felt guilty about not giving Harry the position of empress consort.

She kept nitpicking and dropping hints that I should pass the royal seal to someone more deserving.

If this had happened in the past, I definitely would have fought her on it. "How can there be an empress consort without a royal seal? You're deliberately trying to humiliate me!"

But now, knowing that I was finally leaving this miserable place and going back to where I belonged, I felt a profound sense of relief.

I had smiled and pulled out the seal. "Harry is refined and sensible. He is indeed better suited to keep the seal."

Bella probably hadn't expected me to be so compliant. She looked surprised, but she quickly recovered her composure. "Now that's the grace expected of an empress consort. Don't be so bitter and petty like you used to be."

I didn't argue. I knew.

In her eyes, nothing I did could ever measure up to Harry. It was better to accept reality than to put up a desperate, futile fight.

Word got out that Harry had "accidentally" dropped the royal seal from his robes at the party, sending everyone in the courtyard to their knees in respect.

Even though he explained I had merely given it to him for safekeeping, every guest knew exactly what it meant.

It was the prelude to a new empress consort.

The next day, Jindale was buzzing with rumors.

The threshold of Johnston Manor was nearly broken by the sheer volume of visitors rushing to flatter the future empress consort.

Upon finding out, Bella skipped the morning court session and went straight to Johnston Manor to share a meal with Harry just to make him look good.

By doing so, she was utterly trampling my dignity into the dirt.

Everyone around me was furious on my behalf, but I was busy figuring out which treasures to take back with me.

Though this was an alternate-history dynasty, the jewels in my treasury were top-tier.

If I could take just a few pieces back, I could pay for Mom's heart surgery.

I wouldn't have to brave the freezing wind every day to scavenge for extra cash anymore.

And I wouldn't have been hit by a speeding truck on my commute, ending up in this godforsaken place to endure all this misery.

Thank goodness. Thank goodness it was all coming to an end.

I was finally going home.