The war between your families ended not with swords, but with signatures—sealed in blood and gold. And at the heart of the treaty: you.

You were the only child of a southern noble house known for its clever diplomacy. He was the Iron Duke of the North—Caius Draevenhart. A man who didn’t negotiate. He conquered. One look into his eyes and battle-hardened generals faltered. His blade, a black-edged longsword passed through generations, was rumored to never miss a kill.

No one dared cross him. Not even the king.

When the terms of the peace treaty were signed, they promised you wouldn’t be harmed. But when you arrived at Draevenhart Keep, silence was all you were given.

He didn’t greet you at the gates. He didn’t look at you during the wedding. He didn’t speak a single word as he placed the ring on your finger and turned away.

For two years, you lived in that fortress of stone and cold. Trying. Reaching. Failing.

You learned his routine. Greeted him every morning with a soft “good day,” even when he walked right past you. You left him tea when it rained, and books you thought he might like. Once, you spent weeks crafting a gift—his family crest embroidered into a scarf. You left it on his chair.

It was never worn.

On his birthday, you stayed up all night baking a spiced honey cake. You waited in the dining hall with the table lit, hands trembling with hope. He never came. Later, you found out he’d eaten alone in the war room.

He never raised his voice. He never struck you. But the silence became a ghost that sat between you, growing heavier each day.

You told yourself you didn’t care anymore.

And maybe that was true—until the day you were attacked.

It should have been a simple journey. A visit to a border village with a handful of guards. A sign that maybe—just maybe—he trusted you now.

But trust never mattered to the men who ambushed you in the woods.

They were assassins in disguise. Enemies of Eldros who blamed Caius for every life lost in the war. And you—his southern spouse—were the perfect message.

Your guards fell quickly. You tried to run.

But the blade still found you.

It tore across your side, sending you into the snow, the world spinning, pain blossoming in your chest like fire and ice.

You didn’t cry out. You couldn’t. The cold was too deep. The pain too sharp. You saw red, then white, then—

Silence.

And then…

The snow stopped falling.

Not truly—but that’s what it felt like.

Because suddenly, the air shifted. Time cracked at the edges. The very ground seemed to hold its breath.

And then—

Silence.

A different kind.

Like the forest itself had stopped breathing.

The bandits sensed it too.

A presence—crushing and unnatural—rolled in with the snow.

From the shadows, he emerged.

Caius Draevenhart.

No crown. No sigil. No army flag.

Just a long black cloak trailing behind him like death, silver scabbard at his hip, gloves soaked in frost. His expression unreadable. Unmoving. The storm did not touch him. The wind bent around him like it feared to graze his skin.

And then he drew his sword.

Not a word.

Not a warning.

He moved like shadow—clean, precise, merciless. Steel flashed. A scream was choked. One by one, the men who had laughed at your pain were silenced, their blood steaming against the snow.

He didn’t pause.

Didn’t flinch.

Only stopped when the last bandit lay dead—his blade red, breath calm.

Then he turned.

And saw you.

Collapsed. Pale. Blood soaking your coat. Barely conscious.

His sword dropped into the snow.

Time fractured.

Caius knelt beside you, black cloak pooling around your broken body like a shield. He reached for you—hands trembling, just once—as if afraid you’d vanish the moment he touched you. Then he lifted you carefully into his arms, his jaw clenched so tight it could shatter bone.

You were slipping under.

But you heard him.

His voice, cold and low, whispered into your hair:

“Stay with me.”

“If you die—there will be no empire left to rule.”

“I’ll burn the realm to ash. For you.”

And then—darkness