A/N: I own nothing but plot. Enjoy!

The former Queen of Eldoris, Dowager Queen Amphitrite, raged as she was brought the news that King Perseus had successfully brought a Kiran princess as the future Queen of Eldoris. Not to mention that it was rumored that the King seemed to favor his new queen.

The future queen was installed not in Dahlia Palace since it was still being reconstructed after King Perseus had kicked out Amphitrite, the former queen. Neither was the princess placed in an auxiliary palace, but the king had unashamedly and unabashedly placed her in Gardenia Palace. Wasn't this telling everyone that the future Queen was not to be taken lightly and that the king would be carefully guarding her?

It would be far more difficult for her to act in Gardenia Palace as opposed to Dahlia Palace where she still had a few of her people installed. But given how tight King Perseus ran his palaces, even then her people had to act cautiously.

And didn't those Kiran bastards promise that the princess would be killed before she could reach the Eldoris palace? Amphitrite narrowed her blue eyes and ground her teeth in frustration, marring her still beautiful face.

She had merely supplied the weapons, while the Kiran had planted their own people in killing their own princess. Yet, the Kirans' message seemed to be blaming her for the failed assassination.

Amphitrite smashed a mirror onto the floor. Her maids were already kneeling on the ground, trembling in fear.

"Where's the maid who was supposed to serve the tea to the king four days ago?" Amphitrite spat.

"Your Ladyship, the maid…the maid has disappeared." Her most trusted lady-in-waiting and cousin, Lady Selene, bowed her head.

Amphitrite growled and threw a teacup onto the ground, uncaring that she had knocked a ruby from the gilded cup. The maid must have run away after seeing the princess arrive safely. Was it possible that the king had gotten his hands on that useless maid already?

"Find that maid immediately!"

Amphitrite had made sure that several people were in between her orders to the maid so no one could track it back to the dowager queen. Unbeknownst to Amphitrite, the king had already captured the kitchen maid who had been bribed to add "medicine" to the king's tea. A confession had already been extracted, though the links to the dowager queen were murky. But the king could do nothing yet as Amphitrite's relatives still had some power in court.

Finding the presence of the cowering maids unsightly, she ordered them out of her rooms.

"Get out, scram!"

She had bribed a maid in Gardenia Palace to poison the king so he would be unable to prevent the Kiran princess' death. Unfortunately, even the deadliest of poisons would at most just cause the king to sleep for a few days as his body purged itself of impurities. In this case, Amphitrite thought the poison had succeeded as word had leaked from Gardenia Palace that the king would be out of commission for a few days. So how did the princess still survive? It must be because of the Kirans' inability to follow through on their task!

How else could her son sit on the throne? Amphitrite worriedly fussed over her son, Triton, as he slept peacefully on the lounge chair. When he was born, Amphitrite thought that her hold onto the throne of Eldoris would be complete. After all, even King Poseidon had praised Triton as a baby born with good virtue and fortune. But as Amphitrite was the Queen's former lady-in-waiting, she could recall that King Poseidon had similarly praised Perseus when he was born. So all she needed to do was to get rid of the obstacle in her way.

When the boys were just sixteen and thirteen years of age, Amphitrite had taken both out on a boating trip. Back then, she had been praised as a good queen and diligent mother who even carefully raised the former queen's son. They didn't know that Amphitrite had taken measures to drown Perseus when she had a feeling that King Poseidon was going to make Perseus the heir and not Triton.

But who knew that her soft hearted son was fond of his older brother and would dive into the lake to save Perseus from drowning? In the end, Perseus was the one who had awakened his magical abilities and saved Triton from death. Triton had been down in the cold water for far too long and suffered an immense health relapse that he never recovered from.

It was clearly Amphitrite who had caused the incident in the first place. Perseus awakening his hydrokinesis was Perseus' fault in stealing the power that belonged to Triton. Perseus relegating her to Marigold Palace instead of Dahlia Palace was an insult, with Amphitrite forgetting that she was only a mere second queen of Eldoris. In her mind, it became Perseus' fault in everything that had gone wrong.

Amphitrite lovingly patted her sleeping son's black hair.

"Don't worry, my dear son. Mother will make sure that what you are owed will be given to you. That whore's son will make sure he regrets ever being born."

In the following days, Annabeth felt her life was no more stressful than as a young modern working woman in New York City. In the weeks before the wedding, she mostly focused on regaining her health. Already she was beginning to see the boniness in her body fill out again.

The people of Gardenia Palace really took out all the stops in making sure their future mistress was comfortable. The food was nourishing and medicine was plenty. Annabeth's dresses were made of light but warm material for fear that heavier cloth would make her tired. When Annabeth had secretly dropped hints that high heels may cause her to trip and fall, her shoes were finally made of a comfortable height.

Her schedule, aside from simple resting, consisted of learning Eldoris history and the inner workings of the royal palace. This was a schedule she had set for herself, and even convinced the king to send the tutors earlier than intended despite her health not fully recovered. Annabeth only had the original princess' memories and her knowledge of the story's events, but to truly protect herself, she had to quickly understand how Eldroris and the other countries worked. Besides, she was, simply put, bored in this large gilded cage of palaces. Even her dyslexia didn't stop her from powering through the letters that liked to swim in an alphabet soup on the pages.

She had also asked Lucy for information regarding the various noble families in court on the pretense that she would like to personally remember the nobilities' names to be a good queen. Even when working in her company, Annabeth had liked to learn who was who in the ranks of the company so she could network. But perhaps her pretense had been seen through as Lucy returned with a few tutors who gave her a whole stack of information of each family's people, history with the Eldoris royalty, and their pictures. It only confirmed then that Lucy was there placed by Percy to watch over and report on her.

What shitty luck she had, Annabeth thought. Why couldn't she just be a regular supporting character who cheers on the male and female leads? But this story of Clarisse was just so convoluted and weird. Nothing was really like what it seemed on the surface.

Annabeth leisurely thumbed the papers regarding the king's stepmother and half-brother. Apparently, the king had a good relationship with Prince Triton, despite the king's less than cordial relationship with Triton's mother.

It had been a few days since Annabeth had been in Eldoris, yet she had not yet met the dowager queen. She had heard that the king had blocked the dowager queen from visiting or calling Annabeth. Perhaps it was for the best as Annabeth felt she hadn't enough information or strength to go against the queen. But since King Perseus didn't mention his family, Annabeth adopted his attitude for his family. Why become cronies with the dowager queen at this moment and offend the king?

She recalled that the Eldoris King seemed to be the most individually powerful character in the story. It took four people, Princess Alana, Crown Prince Jason of Tynan, the dark wizard lord, and the powerful knight Sir Luke, to finally subdue the Eldoris King. With such a powerful person, it was best to survive under King Perseus until Annabeth could figure out how to return to her own world and then throttle Clarisse for the trash story she had written.

Since Annabeth was alive, the king could not be provoked into war with Kiran and Tynan. It seemed that the king was more focused on taking care of his own country for now while keeping a watchful eye on the neighboring kingdoms. There was a Chinese idiom that Annabeth had heard from a friend. When the snipe and clam fight, it is the fisherman who earns. The dowager queen and King Perseus were the snipe and clam, and the hungry and cunning fisherman was Kiran.

Eldoris was a peninsula, with the land portions bound by both Kiran and Tynan. Although much of Eldoris was not fertile land, it had plentiful access to the sea for trade routes for the goods Eldoris could not produce. In order to start a war, Kiran had blocked trading with Eldoris, causing Eldoris financial strain to trade with other further countries. Tynan had done the same, after Princess Alana was engaged with Crown Prince Jason.

But now Eldoris had a Kiran princess as queen, this completed the peace treaty Kiran had signed with Eldoris. Eldoris would agree to Kiran placing higher trade tariffs with the Kiran princess as the Eldoris Queen or possibly explore trade with other nations. No doubt, Kiran would find another way to instigate war.

But what if Tynan could be won over? To her knowledge of the timeline, Tynan's crown prince had not been engaged with Princess Alana yet. Annabeth mused that in the manuscript, Princess Alana managed to never let each male lead know that she was with the other. Annabeth smiled. Perhaps it was the female lead's main character halo that allowed Alana to see each male lead separately, or perhaps...it was Alana's lumokinesis powers?

Each male lead was slightly possessive, but if Annabeth could find a way for a male lead to discover Alana's relationship with the others, then wouldn't the relationship between Kiran and Tynan sour? Not to mention, her escort knight would leave Alana feeling betrayed and used, while the wizard lord would feel insulted. Or even better, prevent Alana from developing relationships with the male leads in the first place.

Sir Luke was a lost cause, since in the book, the personal knight had been in love with Alana since childhood. But the other male leads had all met Alana after Annabeth's death.

This would all require manpower and spies that she did not currently have. Annabeth would have to drop hints of Alana's secretive relationships to the Eldoris King so he would do the job for her.

"You've already finished your lessons? I hope you can take more time to rest." King Perseus had entered.

"Your Majesty," Annabeth greeted. "Please put out some tea and refreshments," she said to Lucy.

This was the first time in a week that the king was personally visiting her quarters. Usually he was busy running the country so the only time she ever saw him was at dinner. Somehow, he always managed to find time to eat dinner with her, so neither of them felt like strangers to each other.

The king absentmindedly looked over her work earlier in the day. "The tutors tell me that you are quite talented in arithmetic, reading, and writing, though your knowledge of history is a bit lacking. But they say that you are quick to pick up things."

"I thank Your Majesty for your praise. In the past I was only able to pick up things here and there by secretly listening into my sister's lessons. I was fortunate to not be caught, but due to that, I still have gaps in my knowledge."

This was to hopefully explain why Annabeth was suddenly literate. She had a feeling that the king had been slightly suspicious of her before.

"It is mainly all due to the tutors' care and teaching that I am able to learn so quickly."

The tutors bowed their heads but they were pleased with Annabeth's flattery.

Annabeth hid a smile. What architect didn't have a good grasp of math? Um, she had a PhD, thank you very much! The math the tutors showed her was only basic arithmetic while she had suffered through multivariable calculus. Easy money.

She only needed to learn about palace protocols and history, which was a little difficult with her dyslexia but she powered through. Even the palace budget management that the king had hinted he would give her to run one day would be easy, since during her internships she had helped run financial and administrative budgets as a secretary.

"The teachers may have done a good job as is their duty, but the student must also be cut from the same caliber," King Perseus praised.

He dismissed the tutors, leaving just him, Lucy, Sir Grover, and Annabeth alone in the room. Annabeth sensed he had some news to impart.

"Princess Alana will be standing in as the representative for Kiran during the wedding."

"Ah, I see." Annabeth said simply.

The original princess didn't have many memories of her younger half-sister. But the princess must not be a good person, Annabeth felt. But she was curious as to how the Eldoris King would react when seeing the beautiful princess Alana, since he was written to also be possessive of Alana's radiant beauty at first sight.

"I will be upregulating security on that day." King Perseus continued, seeing that Annabeth's emotions did not change.

Annabeth put her teacup down idly. "I am a simple person, Your Majesty, and as you probably already know, I am not favored by my family. Let us speak simply since we are soon to be husband and wife. You don't trust my sister, Princess Alana, or any of the Kirans."

Why else would he be saying that he was increasing security during the wedding?

The king looked over his teacup and smiled. "You are perceptive, Princess. But you don't seem to be bothered by this fact. You are just as wary of your family, it seems."

"Indeed." Annabeth had no qualms about being honest. "A good marriage is about having mutual respect, trust, compromise, and good communication. So let's make become partners, Your Majesty."

A dark eyebrow perked up. She had captured his attention. Lucy looked frightened but Annabeth ignored it. Annabeth guessed that no one had ever dared to do something like this with the tyrant king.

"Become partners? I'm not sure I quite understand."

Annabeth smiled. It was just like negotiating contracts with contractors and employers.

"We haven't known each other for a long time, but I am a realistic person, Your Majesty. The Kirans would love to kill me, and there are others in Eldoris who are looking to replace me. I have no other means of support at the moment anywhere except for what has been given by you. But I don't like being beholden to someone. I'm rather independent in that way. But I think our goals are similarly aligned."

Annabeth could feel the sorrow and anger rising up in her as she thought of how the Kiran royal family had treated the original princess. This must be the original princess' emotions coming through. Even the strangers and an unknown future husband in Eldoris had treated her a million times better than her blood relations.

"And what goals are those?"

"I'd like to say that I'm the bigger person and would like to forgive my family for what they've done to me, but I'm afraid your future wife is not a kind person like Princess Alana pretends to be. I want the Kirans to stay the fu-, ahem, pardon me. I mean stay far away from me as much as possible. I don't want to be involved with them. As for your goals, you want to unify Eldoris and establish a strong central power without Kiran's or the dowager queen's interference."

Besides, Annabeth needed to establish connections in Eldoris so she could figure out why the hell she was stuck in this story. This world had magic. Surely there was some kind of holy priest or magic that could send her back to her world, even though she hadn't heard of any holy magic. The closest thing was dark magic, which allowed users to manipulate the souls of others like puppets.

So for now, she would play along. She had no intention of sticking her neck out and wanting revenge against the family of the original body.

Annabeth leaned forward and held out her hand. "So what do you think, Your Majesty? This would be your last chance to back out with having an unforgiving and petty wife like me. Do we have a partnership?"

A/N: Some answers to reviewers:

1. How old are they? I believe I mentioned it in the chapters before, but both Annabeth and Percy are 23 in the novel. Annabeth is a few years older in the modern world though! You probably noticed a trend but my characters in my stories are all around their twenties. No underage shenanigans in this household today :P

2. Where is the hot M-rated stuff y'all signed up for? Lol, it's a slow burn novel. This is definitely more plot based with spicy habanero peppers sprinkled throughout.

3. Will Annabeth try to go back to her time? Hope this chapter answers that question! If you were in her shoes, a large majority of ya'll would want to go back to modern times after a while. Especially if you're a character whom everybody wants to kill. But whether she'll want to stay here after getting to know everyone...hmm, that's still up in the air.

4. Is Percy falling for Annabeth already? I wouldn't say it's like that. If the original Princess Annabeth had lived, Percy would install her as queen, but only in title and no duties because the original princess hasn't been educated and would probably need years of therapy to undo all the abuse she suffered. Percy and Annabeth are just seeing each other as means of survival. Btw, do I really always have Percy fall first in my stories? I forget what I write sometimes, because I'm dumb lol. I believe Percy did fall first for ROTD, don't remember for How to Seduce an Earl, and the rest of my stories it's really not specified who falls first.

5. I heard that the updated chapter doesn't show up when it says its there on my profile. When I update, sometimes the chapter doesn't get put up right away just because the website itself takes some time. I always get a message that the chapter can take 30 min to an hour to show up. If it's not there even if you get a notification, just come back in half an hour and it should be there! Trust me, if it's not there, I'll fight this website with my own two fists. I know Wattpad just broke down, so Wattpad users will have just have to wait for this update until they fix it.

Other than that, I really need to stop putting deals and contracts in my stories. Gonna be the last one in my stories, I swear. Jeez, even I think I'm repetitive at times like these. *facepalms. No need for constructive criticism about this part, I'm already criticizing myself here since three weeks ago lol. But I've already written 30 chapters of this now...I'm in too deep...

Also, shoutout to 100+ reviews! I don't think any of my stories got this many reviews so quickly, so I'm a little dumbfounded right now. You all are absolutely amazing! Thank you for your support.

In other news, I happened to check my story stats on Wattpad, and there's such a high ratio of female readers to male readers. Like I had 81% females, 5% males, and 14% on private. The age ranges also indicated the highest portion of readers were aged 18-25. I didn't intend to cater more towards female audiences, but I guess my works are more josei/shoujo rather than shounen oriented. But I do hope everyone can enjoy my stories, no matter what age or gender you are!

Long A/N this time, but as always, see you all next chapter! I think I'll be dropping an extra chapter on Friday to celebrate passing 100 reviews, if I can access my computer then lol.