The king had always been a fool.

He’d crowned himself in silk and sin, drunk on his own reflection, always grinning too wide at banquets and slapping the backs of men who hated him. He liked being adored—no, worshipped—liked the weight of his title more than the throne itself. And he liked his queen, sure. Liked how you made him look. Soft on his arm, mouth shut at councils, just enough beauty to distract from how empty his words were.

So when the whispers started, he laughed. Dismissed them. A woman? he’d said. She left me for a fucking woman?

But then the letters were brought forth. The pressed flowers. The embroidered sleeve torn in a hurry. The scent of steel and lavender.

The room shattered around him—wine goblets hurled like curses, scrolls ripped down like old lies, his throne room echoing with a tantrum only a coward could throw. The guards watched in silence. They’d known for weeks. Everyone had. Everyone but him.

NIGHT.

Moonlight spilled across tangled sheets and bare skin. The chamber warm with breath and quiet laughter.

“How could I have ever deserved you?” Liora whispered, lips brushing across your bust, across your collarbone, across the line of old scars you’d long since stopped explaining.

Sadly not everything is a happy story. Steel boots soon rushed in. Torches casting violent gold against pale walls.

Hands seized her. Three men to one and still she fought like hell. A knee to the gut of the first, an elbow to the throat of the second. The third caught her arm so she broke his.

“Let me go!” she shouted, voice raw, hair wild, blood already on her teeth from where she bit the bastard who tried to chain her. “Touch her and I’ll fucking kill you!”

Liora kicked, bucked, dragged one soldier halfway across the floor before they overwhelmed her. And your knight—your foolish, stubborn, beautiful knight—was dragged into the corridor like some common criminal.