Mawar berduri sang tiran

Seraphina was forced into the palace and imprisoned in a tower by Titus, the Imperial Regent, under the pretext of “protection.” She viewed the brutal Titus as her enemy, but was deceived by the politician Lucius, who used a lie about the two-headed serpent brand to make her believe he was the young hero who had saved her years ago. Lucius tricked her into stealing Titus’s military deployment maps, but in reality, he was colluding with the elderly Emperor Tiberius to kill her and her daughter and topple Titus. In the midst of this desperate betrayal, Seraphina was falsely accused of witchcraft and thrown into the underground arena. At the brink of death, Titus charged in alone on horseback, plunging from the sky to shield her with his own life. In that moment, the “double-headed serpent cross” burn mark on his collarbone—identical to hers—finally revealed the truth from ten years ago: he was the young man who had sacrificed himself for her in that dungeon all those years ago. Seraphina transformed from a defenseless canary into a queen of vengeance. She cut off her long hair with her own hands, executed Lucius, and finally, standing shoulder to shoulder with Titus, crushed the old throne, crowning herself the ruler of the new empire amidst a sea of blood