Chapter 1

"Duke Everdale" Bloodshot irises looked up from the desk where papers were jumbled and arranged haphazardly. The Duke was in his late forties and had handsome features thus when the butler saw him as such he could not help but sigh and feel sorrow. Their mansion was once an impenetrable castle where not even a bird could enter without the permission of the Duke and two young masters but now it was all a shell made up of nothing but empty hallways.

"Master Princess-"

"Is Laylah back?! I-I must go out at once and receive her!"

"No! No master.....Princess Marianna has called you out to eat." The childish excitement was gone and was soon covered under the dust of frosty blue irises as something that was not even alive was awarded death again and the duke refused to acknowledge his agony.

"I will be downstairs in a moment." The scene of a small little child with beautiful pink hair, stuttering shyly before presenting her cake to him came in front of his eyes.

The duke along with his two sons and a daughter were soon settled in the dining room as he ordered a cherry cake. Maybe this time if he ate the cake that she used to make..maybe it will make her come back and forgive him.

"MASTER! MASTER! Lady Layla has been found!"

--------

Dirty greyish locks did not resemble their previous glory, in a way personifying the woman that was so young as twenty-five but looked worn and tired enough to surpass someone in their late thirties.

Layla Everdale, once considered the most beautiful flower of the empire was now almost unrecognizable as she coughed blood in front of the magnificent marble statue that she was kneeling before- Sun god Narairis.

She had been infected with the same disease that her mother had when she gave birth to twins- Layla and Marianna.

One was loved while the other was discarded.

Marianna that was weak since childhood was pampered by their cold-blooded father, Layla was taught not to cry and endure the responsibilities of a lady.

Marianna was loved by their two elder brothers when they barely gave much attention to her.

Marianna was a Rose blooming in the greenhouse,

Layla was a weed that was uprooted with such force that she had at the end no home at all.

After the rejection from Duke Valentine her fiance, she ran away to a monastery, exhausted by her so-called family but even here she could not live peacefully as she had to go through a horrendous disease with pain and wounds littering her body.

"What I have done so terrible as to have nowhere to belong, why did I not receive an ounce of love? Why was I never loved.........." even before those words could have been completed her eyes dulled and the woman fell.

It was how the princess of Everdale whose eyes shone brilliantly like galaxies and whose glazed locks resembled hues of the sun dipped in pink honey died at the end.

A day passed before a worker of the monastery discovered a corpse in the temple and informed the local authorities. A battalion of knights was dispatched to see whether it was a murder or a natural catastrophe of an individual.

Yes, at last she was found but in such a way that there was no place for guilt, remorse, regret and love.

She was dead only to be revived once again because maybe even after being discarded by the world she was still loved by someone twisted.

And just maybe for someone far away she wasn't a weed.

Because she was his obsession that shall serve him with her body till the very end.