The Banished Heiress Became Queen

Synopsis

Isolde Thornwood was the eldest legitimate daughter of Baron Thornwood, blessed with the rare silver-white healing magic of her mother's bloodline and a head of snow-white hair from birth. At the grand banquet of the Harvest Festival, she looked forward with all her heart to publicly announcing her engagement to Kaiel, the man she had loved for two years. But Kaiel chose instead to wed her stepsister, Lenora. Before the assembled guests, Lenora mocked and trampled Isolde's dignity without mercy, while her own father, Baron Alden, looked on coldly and silently condoned the public humiliation. As the feast drew to a close, her stepmother Morana sent out guards with orders to murder Isolde in a desolate forest, disguising the deed as a bandit attack. Odric, the Crown Prince of Valdris, who had disguised himself as a wandering mercenary to investigate evidence of noble tax evasion and private armies plotting rebellion, happened to be on the scene. He rescued Isolde from the brink of death. The two brought their captured assassin back to the castle to confront the conspirators face to face — but Morana killed the assassin on the spot with black magic, destroying the witness. Morana then twisted the truth, accusing Isolde of adultery with the mercenary and of plotting against her own family. Baron Alden stripped Isolde of her entire inheritance and cast both her and Odric into the dungeon beneath the East Tower. In the dungeon, Morana appeared in person, unleashing her forbidden black magic to strike them down. At the critical moment, Sir Damon, the Knight-Commander of the kingdom, led his forces to the dungeon and rescued the two. To her astonishment, Isolde learned that Damon was her mother's long-lost maternal uncle, and at last she was reunited with her blood kin. Morana's black-magic conspiracy was shattered, yet the vital ledger recording the evidence of the Thornwood and Ashford families' rebellion was seized by black sorcery during transport, fleeing toward the royal capital. Odric no longer concealed his identity as Crown Prince, and Isolde lawfully inherited the lordship of Thornwood. With the storm temporarily at rest, Odric knelt on one knee before Isolde, offering her an engagement ring, and the two were betrothed. The next day, the company set out for the royal capital, where Isolde was to enter the Royal Academy of Magic, built upon a floating isle, to learn to master the healing magic she was born with. Upon arrival, they were received by the waiting Queen. The tale pauses at the moment Isolde is about to step into the floating Academy of Magic, while the dark threat that seized the ledger lurks in the distance — a new crisis brewing.