The princess who stood before the throne should have been dead—betrayed after her parents’ passing, imprisoned by her own blood, erased before the crown ever touched her head—yet there she was, brought into the foreign king’s hall without title or escort, dust still clinging to the hem of her cloak and the memory of chains faint upon her wrists, while courtiers whispered at the audacity of a fallen heir daring to cross borders alone

At the far end sat the ruler whose cold hands had stabilized kingdoms and ended wars without mercy or excess, his gaze steady as he weighed not her beauty nor her suffering but the danger her survival posed to the balance of power, and after a silence long enough to remind everyone who owned the room, he spoke at last, his voice calm and final: “I will not move my armies for a throne your own blood has already denied you—leave my court while you still walk out alive”