by Wren Morgan
She tried to kill him. He's taken her prisoner. The fate of the realm rests in her hands. Valerie Crescent once had a promising future. In the land of Maskamere, blessed by the magic of the silvertrees, she was ready to begin her training as a priestess. Then the Drakonian Empire invaded, and Valerie lost everything. Two years later, Maskamere is a vassal of the Empire. Dressmaker by day, rebel by night, Valerie embarks on a mission to restore the silvertrees and free her country. But when an assassination plot goes wrong and her magical powers are revealed, Valerie is captured by the very man she tried to kill. What to expect • Political fantasy and court intrigue• An ambitious, morally ambiguous heroine who tricks and schemes to survive• Conflict between a patriarchal empire and a magic-based matriarchy• A gradually revealed world of magical secrets and ancient sorcery• Dark romance featuring slowburn enemies to lovers Content warnings: Mature themes, violence (including torture and assault), references to slavery. See the first chapter for a more complete list. Book 1 | Treacherous Witch | Complete Book 2 | The Patriarch's Court | Complete Book 3 | Man of Truth | Weekly updates
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 02:38 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 02:38 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.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
2%
Two or more lists
1%
Likely threshold order: Psychological → Drama → Romance → Fantasy → Main.
Leading bundle: Psychological (1%).
Estimated from one fitted shared story path; category probabilities are not multiplied as if lists were independent.
Separate entry forecast; this probability does not enter the ranking score.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#8265 of 12,418 · 8215 below RS #50
By genre
beats 49% of similar stories
beats 45% of similar stories
beats 71% of similar stories
Mid-pack, room on both levers
Traffic and conversion both sit mid-field for a story this size. Growth here compounds from consistency: steady cadence feeds traffic, and a sharper hook lifts what each view is worth.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
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