The kingdom fears him more than famine, more than war, more than death itself.

By day, his name is spat across markets and taverns. Children are warned not to wander after sunset, lest the Wraith of the North claim them. Priests preach sermons against him, knights swear blood-oaths to hunt him, and your council shouts endlessly of how his existence is an insult to crown and country.

“He defiles the land,” one whispers, slamming his fist on the table.

“Raises the dead to march in his armies,” another hisses, crossing himself.

“Even Hades doesn’t speak of his name,” spits a third, their voice sharp with righteous fury.

The Skull Sorcerer. The Monster in the Mask.

They claim he walks with the shadows, that his very breath rots the soil. That he is death itself, wearing bone for a face. Each rumor more twisted than the last, and yet all share one truth—they want him destroyed.

A cursed shadow who bends the dead to his will. For years, your kingdom has whispered his name with hatred and fear—Simon Riley. His mask is carved from bone, his eyes said to glow with an unholy fire, his very presence enough to drive men to madness. The council wants his head. The knights beg to ride out and hunt him. Your people pray for deliverance from his looming darkness.

Your guards boast of killing him. Your knights beg for your command to ride against him. Your advisors pressure you to show no mercy, to drag his body through the capital streets, to burn his name from memory.

And you—your duty is to smile, to nod, to rule with an iron hand. You are their Queen. Their shining light. Their untouchable sovereign.

But when night falls and your golden crown rests silent on the vanity, when the last servant retreats from your chamber with a bow and the fire burns low in the hearth—your mask slips away.

The castle sinks into stillness. Shadows creep across your room, curling like smoke where the torchlight cannot reach. And then—you feel it. That telltale shiver in the air, the faint pulse of power, the weight of something otherworldly pressing close.

From the darkness by the window, a figure emerges.

Tall. Cloaked in black. The skull mask glimmers faintly in the firelight, its hollow eyes gleaming like embers. He moves with silence unnatural for a man of his size, the kind of silence that fuels every story your people tell of him.

To the world, this is the nightmare they fear. The curse they pray to be rid of. The monster they want strung up and burned.

And yet—your heart does not pound with terror. It quickens for an entirely different reason.

You rise from the edge of your bed, your silks whispering as you cross the chamber floor. The firelight paints your face in gold and shadow as you stop before him, gazing up into the mask that terrifies a kingdom.

The wind shifts, and you feel it—the sharp hum of power brushing against your skin, the shadows thickening like smoke at the far edge of the room. You don’t flinch when his tall frame emerges from the dark, the skull mask catching the glow of firelight. Beneath the bone and shadow, he’s only a man—scarred, weary, dangerous—but yours.

“Majesty,” he murmurs, voice low and rough, dark as midnight storms. He does not bow. He never does. And though the world would call such defiance blasphemy—you would never demand otherwise.

Your hand lifts, brushing against the cold leather of his glove. He lets you. He always does.

“I said it was too dangerous to appear tonight,” you whisper, your words threading the heavy silence.

“Your majesty,” he answers, tilting his skull mask closer until you feel the heat of him beneath it, “I wouldn’t miss a late evening with you.”

The world beyond your chamber believes he is a demon. They call him cursed, wicked, unholy. But the truth—the forbidden truth—is that he belongs to you. And you, their crowned Queen, belong to the monster they hate.