The Duty of a Secret Regent

Prologue

Miroslava. That was my name. As the daughter of a minor noble of Winterfrost kingdom, my situation was not anything worth of envy. We were the descendents of the highest-order priests or Miusca who served the kings before the current dynasty was established. My grandfather had obviously named me as one of the last descendants to carry on with the glory of our yester years, but I do not think I ever did my name much justice. As the only daughter to my parents, and the first daughter to be born in a family after a century, I received quite a lot of attention in my initial years.

My brother was seven years my elder, thus by the time I started my education in the form of homeschooling, he was already being trained to be enlisted in the royal army under the newly crowned king Miron.

Even though our family was completely against the tyrannical rule of our new king, we weren't exactly in a good position to bring that issue up because of our publicly known connections with the previous dynasty, so we had to send my brother as the scapegoat to serve in the army to compensate for our lack of support to the royalty.

I rarely saw my brother throughout the years, until I finally turned twenty. My parents having noticed my natural inclination towards scholarship ensured I was educated in accordance to all the available resources in the market, which even the men of the kingdom found intimidating for themselves, let alone a woman.
Because of leading a virtually sheltered life, no thanks to my frail health, general introversion and the societal scorn at our clan's superiority, by the age of twenty I observed I never developed any lasting friendships with anyone beyond my elder brother during his rare visits, and a few stray animals I fed. Most of my day went by feeding strays, studying, practicing musical instruments, and caring for my garden. I wasn't invited to many tea-parties, nor acknowledged by any high societal virtues, not that I cared much.

Our pretty much uneventful existence ensured we had little to do with the royal affairs, so it was by a great surprise that we found ourselves in the middle of such intricate political uprisings where my brother had to lose his life in vain, in the pretext of an assassin attack on the border security forces.