Time To Show My "Dark" Side

Cadence has been Franklin's wife for three years, but the title never carried much weight. He is commander of the Holy Knights, a man sworn to justice, yet his loyalty at home belongs to his mistress Isabelle. When Isabelle stages a scene by the pool and claims Cadence pushed her into the water, Franklin's reaction is instant. He threatens divorce and demands an apology, his arm wrapped around Isabelle while Cadence stands there—soaked, silent, and still drowning in his indifference. Cadence knows the truth: she is terrified of water herself, and she sank straight to the bottom that night. But she doesn't argue. She walks out, smashes the sculpture Franklin once called the symbol of their "pure and unbreakable" marriage, and has formal divorce papers on his desk by eight the next morning.

Franklin assumes she is just throwing a tantrum to get his attention. He's wrong. Cadence has been living a double life he knows nothing about. In the shadows of the kingdom, she is the Ghost Healer—the first of her kind, a medical figure so elusive that no one has ever seen her true face. She retreats to an underground alchemist to erase a scar from her near-drowning, and when asked if word should be spread that she's back, she says, "Keep it quiet. I have a game to play first." The weak, pathetic Mrs. Muller is dead to her now.

The moment of public reckoning arrives at a royal charity gala. A wealthy merchant collapses, airway locked. The court healers panic—no sanctified field, no alchemical tools, a blind cut could kill him. Cadence steps forward with a scalpel and a single command: "Get the hell out of my way." She performs a flawless tracheotomy with nothing but her hands and her nerve, saving a man the professionals were about to lose. The attending physicians are stunned. Franklin watches from the crowd, finally seeing what she is capable of. He approaches her afterward, not to apologize, but to call off the divorce. He offers her more shares, a permanent family council seat—he tries to price her back into the marriage. Cadence doesn't blink. "You don't want me back because you love me," she tells him. "You want me back because your fragile male pride is terrified that I don't need you.”

By the end of the gala, the papers have already been filed. Franklin repeats his threat to destroy the Chase family, but Cadence has nothing left to bargain with—and nothing left to lose. She meets his final demand with two words: "Try me." Then she walks away. For the first time in three years, she is making her own choices. The adventure that follows belongs entirely to her.