The frost on the stone path didn’t just look cold; it bit into the bone like the northern winds of the borderlands.
Inside the Monroe estate, twenty-four-year-old Ramona stood before the tall mirror, her expression a mask of absolute disdain as she unclasped the stiff, bone-reinforced bodice she had been forced to wear for the imperial court's morning assembly. Each rigid stay of the garment was a vanity demanded by Emperor William’s idle praise of Lady Evelyn Lin’s impossibly narrow waist. To Ramona, who had spent a decade commanding regiments through blood and mud, it felt like an insult.
“My lady, you shouldn't discard the corset so quickly,” Nanny Wilson fretted, wringing her hands near the door. “The court gossips are already saying you lack the delicate grace of the capital’s elite. If you don't secure a match soon—”
“Let them talk,” Ramona interrupted, her voice cutting through the room with the effortless authority of a seasoned officer.
She inhaled deeply, feeling the heavy velvet of her gown shift against ribs that had once been wrapped in combat armor.
In an instant, the velvet vanished. The silk chamber dissolved. The floor became a rain-drenched jungle clearing in Da Nang. Gunfire tore through the canopy, shredding leaves and snapping branches with deafening violence. Smoke and cordite choked her throat, burning away the phantom peacetime of Kai.
She was twenty-eight. She was the Iron Rose.
Mud soaked her boots, heavy and foul with the copper scent of fresh blood. A young soldier—seventeen, with unseasoned eyes and terror stamped across his face—collapsed into the sludge beside her. An arrow had punched straight through his throat.
“Daniel,” she whispered, dropping to her knees. Her hands flew to the wound, pressing down with desperate, futile force. Blood bubbled between her fingers, hot and slick. He tried to speak, his mouth working silently before his eyes glazed over, staring up at the gray sky as his helmet rolled away into the mud.
There was no time to scream. There was never time.
Then came the hospital tent, the biting snow tapping against canvas, and Sarah’s thin, cold hand slipping out of hers as the last dose of medicine sat untouched. Then came the apocalypse—the sudden, brutal collapse of power grids, the screams in the dark, the ungodly predators that hunted by sound, and finally, her father’s broken body beneath the rubble, his fingers still fused to his combat knife after buying the refugees precious minutes to flee.
And finally, her own end. The Da Nang Defensive Line. The weight of the horde crashing against the barricade, the tearing of claws through her armor, the hot agony in her abdomen, and the bitter, crushing peace of watching the evacuation convoy slip safely into the smoke before darkness swallowed her whole.
Ramona's eyes snapped open.
The jungle was gone. The smell of copper and rot was replaced by the faint scent of lavender and cedar. Nanny Wilson stared down at her, blinking in confusion as Ramona clutched the edge of the mahogany vanity table.
“My lady? Are you unwell? Shall I summon Doctor Jackson?”
Ramona ignored her, her gaze locking onto the heavy silver bells resting on the corner of the desk. Her father had given them to her years ago before departing for the northern frontier.
A heavy, measured knock sounded at the door.
“Ramona?”
She froze. Princess Eleanor Monroe—her mother, who should have died years ago beneath the falling ash of a burning city—pushed the door open, her expression lined with maternal concern.
Ramona didn’t hesitate. Stepping past the startled maid, she closed the distance and buried her face against her mother’s shoulder, clinging to her with a desperate, crushing force that left Eleanor breathless. She breathed in the scent of her mother—soap, linen, and life.
“Ramona? Good heavens, what has happened?” Eleanor whispered, stroking her hair in bewilderment.
The words nearly shattered the iron wall Ramona had built around her soul. She memorized the steady, heavy thud of her mother’s heartbeat. It was real. She had a second chance.
When Eleanor stepped back, gently gripping her arms, Ramona’s grief hardened instantly into cold, unyielding resolve.
“Mom,” Ramona said, her tone devoid of any aristocratic playfulness. “Where is Father?”
“He is commanding the northern garrison, as always. Why such urgency? Has word come from the border?”
Ramona shook her head, turning slowly toward the window to look out over the peaceful, bustling streets of Kai. Merchants hawked their wares; carriages rolled past manicured gardens; banners fluttered lazily in the morning breeze. To the capital's nobles, the empire was eternal.
To Ramona, the world had an expiration date, and the countdown had just begun. Four years. Four years before the sky tore open, before the dead walked, before the abominations crawled from the earth to devour humanity.
She wasn't a debutante worried about court gossip or courtly waistlines anymore. She was a veteran commander. She was the Iron Rose.
Her fingers curled tightly into the wooden frame of the windowsill. At twenty-four, she already held enough social standing and estate influence to begin moving the pieces. She would fortify the Monroe borders. She would stockpile grain, sulfur, antibiotics, and steel. She would hunt down the officers who could be trusted and weed out the corrupt officials before they betrayed the realm.
This time, the monsters would break against her walls. This time, her family would live.