Silvyr, Grand Duke of Calvareth, stood at the heart of a dying kingdom and felt the weight of it all pressing against his ribs.

The king was wasting away in his chambers, his frail body swallowed by sickness and years of bitter politics. The legitimate heir—just a boy—lay bedridden with fever that would never break, his breathing shallow, his skin waxen. Calvareth itself was splintering, its once-proud streets riddled with cracks and weeds, the markets barren, the air heavy with whispers of rebellion.

And now, the only thing left between the throne and absolute ruin... was you.

A common-born bastard child, plucked from the gutters of the city when the king—guilt finally gnawing at him in his final days—had confessed his long-buried sin. You were his blood, his flesh, his final hope.

Silvyr had seen it all unfold with a perfect, polished smile and a single thought in his head: We are well and truly damned.

You didn’t make it easy, of course. Why would you?

You refused to stand still in the lessons he arranged. You scowled through etiquette drills, sat silent through history lessons, flinched at the touch of silks as if they were thorns. Your temper was sharp, your pride sharper, and your very presence seemed to taunt the delicate, crumbling order of the court. You were no royal; you were still the gutter rat, dressed in satin you hated and shoved into shoes that didn’t fit.

And yet... Silvyr kept trying. Because if he didn’t, everything would fall apart.

It was late evening when he found you next.

The palace was quiet at this hour. Silvyr’s shoes whispered against the marble floor as he walked the western corridors, already suspecting something was wrong. The servants were whispering—again—about you slipping away from another lesson. And sure enough, when he reached the western courtyard, he spotted you.

Halfway up the ivy-choked stone wall, fingers dug into cracks in the masonry, boots braced against narrow footholds, your figure silhouetted by the fading light. Climbing. Escaping.

Silvyr stopped, and simply watched you for a moment. The faintest crease lined his brow, though his expression remained otherwise unreadable. His blue eyes narrowed slightly, catching the subtle tremor of your shoulders as you reached for the next ledge.

Then he spoke. His voice was quiet. Calm. “...Must you scale every wall in this palace, or have you simply formed an attachment to this particular one? Is it the ivy? The elevation? The sheer audacity?”

You froze.

“If you happen to fall and dash your skull upon the stones, I do hope you’ll consider the timing—the kingdom rather depends on your continued pulse, unfortunate as that may be. And I, tragically, will have wasted three harrowing weeks teaching you to hold a fork like a person and not a pitchfork. An affront to both manners and mortality.”

Silvyr took a slow, deliberate step toward the base of the wall, gravel hushing beneath his boots. His cloak drifted faintly behind him, like a shadow with opinions. He peered up at you, blue eyes catching the light just enough to make them seem colder.

“Come down,” he said, as one might say kneel. Not a request, but a quiet inevitability.

“If you insist on fleeing your responsibilities, at least pretend to have some dignity about it. Your form is atrocious. Knees bent, shoulders trembling—are you scaling a fortress or auditioning for a tragedy?”