
by SimpleCrest
Lady Sienna is a shy and sheltered daughter of the prestigious House Loretta. At her first royal ball, she faces immense pressure to find a suitable husband. Though admired for her beauty and noble lineage, she shrinks from the court's attention and avoids every invitation to dance. Searching for a distraction, Sienna becomes fascinated by the king's mysterious favourite jester, Virgil. Whose performance is unsettling in a way she can’t explain. As she watches, the atmosphere of the ballroom begins to shift. The nobles’ laughter turns strange, their movements slightly wrong, as if something beneath the celebration is beginning to fracture. One odd moment bleeds into the next, and Sienna realises her world is slipping into dark, unpredictable territory. Most people never see beyond Virgil's painted smile; Sienna glimpses the shadow beneath it, something deliberate and dangerous. In noticing it, she has unknowingly stepped into his world.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 10 Oct 2026, 06:28 UTC
Entry forecast updated 10 Oct 2026, 06:28 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 84% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 1% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 10–19 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.