The Cheerful Scapegoat
By @john1208
Otylia's perfectly good morning pastry is rudely interrupted when her frantic, reborn half-sister Sabina bursts in to demand a fiancé swap. Sabina wants Captain Radovan, the dashing military officer destined for supreme command, and shoves Vasek - a scandalous playboy on the verge of ruin - onto Otylia. To everyone's horror, Otylia flashes a sunny, airheaded smile and agrees. What Sabina doesn't know is that Otylia is far from a bubbleheaded socialite. She knows Radovan's glorious 'destiny' is actually a deadly political snare that requires bottomless wealth to survive - wealth Sabina will soon squander on terrible aether-loom investments. Meanwhile, Otylia cheerfully 'stumbles' into stopping Vasek from making the catastrophic wager that ruined his past life. With a few seemingly clueless suggestions and endless smiles, she steers the hedonist into building a wildly lucrative silk monopoly. As Vasek unexpectedly blossoms into a fiercely devoted magnate, Sabina's stolen marriage collapses under crushing debt and treason charges. But when the looming political purge finally strikes the capital, will Otylia's newfound empire be enough to shield her loved ones from the deadly fallout?
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