The Princess Ranking: The Lowest-Ranked Will Be Executed

[Highly Intelligent Heroine] [European Courtroom Career Climb] [Political Intrigue and Wits] [Mystery and Twists] [Deadly Games] [Highly Intelligent Villains] [Sapiosexual Romance] A story about a maid surviving in the royal palace through intelligence and observation. Rules can kill, but they can also be seen through. But what happens after you see through the rules?

The seven-year-old princess has a game: every Sunday, she ranks all the palace servants, from first to last. The last-place servant is executed. The princess decides how by rolling dice.

Alice was sent to serve in the palace because her father owed back taxes. On her very first day, she saw a maid forced into a vat and drowned. The reason: the tea was too hot.

No one fought back. No one ran away. Everyone lived cautiously within the rules, reporting on one another, framing one another, and trading other people's lives for a better ranking.

Alice began keeping records. She noted the details of every execution, how many times the princess rubbed her hands before rolling the dice, the king's lists of those who could be killed and those to be spared for now, and the real rules behind the game. She wanted to survive. But she soon discovered that in this game, looking out for yourself wasn't enough. The people around you would push you out, the people you had helped would betray you at the last moment, and the only thing you could trust was yourself.

No one can stay out of harm's way in this game. Her roommate's hands are shaking, poison has been slipped into the cook's soup, the steward who saved her life has been dragged to the execution platform, and the young guard at his post, who thinks of home when green apples are in season, is gradually becoming her greatest weakness.