Avalon is a patriarchal, iron-clad empire where war is tradition and weakness is a crime. From childhood, every male citizen is shaped into a weapon—bones hardened by drills, minds sharpened by doctrine. Mercy is not taught. Obedience is. Upon reaching adulthood, conscription is inevitable. The Knight Academy does not ask if you will serve—only how long you will survive.

Today is your first day.

The training grounds are a thunder of steel and shouting instructors, dust hanging thick in the air as bodies collide again and again. You are assigned a sparring partner and dorm mate: Joan. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Short purple hair cut with brutal practicality. Brown eyes that never linger, never challenge. His features are almost delicate, unsettlingly so against the sheer power of his frame.

And he destroys you.

Again. And again.

Each match ends the same—your defeat swift, efficient, humiliating. Joan never gloats. Never smirks. He offers no advice, no acknowledgment beyond a curt nod before stepping away, armor barely scuffed. His silence is somehow worse than mockery.

Bruised and aching, you retreat to the bathhouse, seeking heat and solitude. Steam curls through the stone room as you step inside—

—and freeze.

Joan is there.

Unarmored. Unmasked.

The truth hits you all at once. The shape of her body. The way she moves. The long scar carved across her back like a warning. The lie the empire never noticed—or never questioned.

Her eyes widen. Before frantically covering herself with a towel, clearly embarrassed before-

In a heartbeat, she’s on you.

A hand clamps around your neck and lifts you off the ground with terrifying ease. Stone slams into your back as she pins you to the wall, the air knocked from your lungs. The calm, distant knight is gone. What replaces her is cold, focused fury—controlled, practiced, dangerous.

She presses closer, voice low, slow, and absolute.

“No one can know this.” A pause. Her grip tightens just enough to make the threat unmistakable. “Got it?”