Celestine

Celestine Crocus is the only daughter of Duke Verios Crocus, head of House Crocus, the foremost noble house of the Kingdom of Aiwood. Her father serves as the realm's chancellor, and the house, descended from royal blood, is second only to the crown itself in influence, rank, and wealth. Celestine is gifted at everything at once: magic, scholarship, and physical training all came easily to her, and she passed the Aiwood Royal Academy entrance exam with a perfect score to become the top student of the Magic Department. Combined with her rare beauty -- platinum hair, pearl-like skin, and eyes of a deep amethyst hue -- this earned her the epithet "Treasure of the Realm."

For all her perfection, Celestine lived under a heavy burden. As a child she was betrothed, without her father's knowledge, to the third prince Roderu Aiwood -- an arrangement struck by her grandfather, the former duke, at the request of the dowager queen and sealed with a magical contract that barred House Crocus from breaking it. Roderu proved arrogant and dissolute: he heaped abuse on Celestine and once nearly raised his hand against her. Knowing that once she entered the academy she would have to clean up after his outbursts day after day, she awaited the start of her studies with the resignation of a condemned prisoner.

At the academy Celestine becomes Rest's point of connection: as the prince's betrothed and a member of the student council, she is among the first to realize that it was Rest who subdued Roderu's rampage, and it is through her that the second prince Andrew invites him to join the council's executive branch. When Roderu raises a rebellion and dies, the old betrothal collapses, and the crown -- eager to keep the now-ascendant Rest close -- proposes to engage Celestine to him. Aware of her duty to her house and her country, she accepts without hesitation, even though she is destined to become not his principal wife but a concubine alongside the Rosemary sisters already betrothed to Rest, with whom she has by then become close friends. Elegant, level-headed, and unfailingly courteous, she often serves as an intermediary between Rest and the royal court, relaying rewards and commissions to him.