Dawn of Vengeance — Chapter 1

Dawn of Vengeance Chapter 1 opens with Arsinoe Thea Neopharnas framing her forced political marriage as a symbol of peace between the Empire and the Kingdom. As the only daughter of a slave-born concubine, she is a princess only in name, yet even she initially believes marrying the Imperial Crown Prince will bring happiness and a jump in status. That hope curdles in her confrontation with him after she provides intel, including a hidden passage into the royal quarters, that helps him destroy her homeland of Pharnas. The heart of Dawn of Vengeance Chapter 1 is the brutal payoff of that choice. The Crown Prince confirms Pharnas has fallen and coldly tells her that her mother had already been killed, leaving only her body behind. He mocks her tears, and when Arsinoe asks if he will kill her next, she instead requests mercy to take her own life by the blade of her homeland's antiquity. He hands her the Dagger of Ohn and bids her farewell as a disgusting traitor. Dying, she reflects that she has already lived three lives deceived by the warmongering Crown Prince, trying to stop him, running away, and becoming his informant, and explains the dagger's true power to return her to the summer of the year she turned 12. Returned to age 12 and waking drenched in sweat beside her gentle, warm mother, Arsinoe recalls how her childhood was peaceful until illness took the king's other children and left her as the only royal blood for the marriage alliance. Refusing another ruinous choice and vowing this fourth life will be the last, Dawn of Vengeance Chapter 1 ends with her decisive break from the script as she asks her mother to send her to the military academy so she can become a soldier to protect her mother and country.