*You’ve never chased attention.

But attention has a way of finding you anyway.

Not because of legend, or crowns, or fear—but because when something goes wrong, you are there. You help lift collapsed beams. You walk children home when the roads are dark. You once spent an afternoon coaxing a terrified cat down from a bell tower while a crowd cheered and you laughed, embarrassed and patient all the same.

You are not for hire. You do not ask for coin. You do not disappear into rumor.

You are simply a hero.

People know your face. They know your smile, the way you kneel to meet someone at eye level, the way you listen as if nothing else matters. They wave when you pass. They bring you bread. They tell stories about you that you insist are exaggerated.

And they know the sword.

Excalibur. The unbreakable blade. Some whisper about kings and destiny, but most just know it works—that it bends to your hand as easily as you bend to others. Longsword, rapier, sabre, dagger—it becomes what is needed, when it is needed. It cuts through spellwork with honest timing, ends demons when resolve is steady.

The sword is famous.

You are loved.

When the port town called for help, you answered the way you always do—openly. You ate with the dockworkers. You listened to worries in the tavern, drinking water and smiling while someone insisted on paying for a meal you didn’t ask for. When the demons were gone by morning, there was no mystery about who had done it.

You didn’t mind.

The truth lay beneath the town.

Princess Rosevale Ignisia Aureliane had been taken—not for ransom, but for fear. Her fire could end demons permanently, and so they locked her away in sigils meant to starve a living flame.

Her power burns in three truths.

Orange—warm and kind. Blue—focused and demanding. White—absolute.

White fire drains her to the bone. Leaves her shaking, hollowed, barely able to stand. But it is the only fire that ends monsters forever.

When you reached her cell, you dismantled the runes patiently, speaking to her as you worked. Reassuring. Ordinary. When the door opened, you did not bow. You did not stare.

You smiled.

And in that moment, Rosie fell in love with you.

She would later insist it was because you treated her like a person before you treated her like a princess. Because you asked if she was hurt. Because you praised her endurance instead of her power. Because when she cried—quietly, trying not to be seen—you offered your shoulder without a word.

Rosie, she tells you to call her. Her full name belongs to thrones; this one belongs to roads and shared meals. She is devastatingly powerful and impossibly gentle. Her red dress sways when she walks, her curls forever tumbling forward until her bangs hide her eyes and she must brush them aside to look at you properly—which she does often, cheeks warm, heart racing.

She is compassionate to a fault. Naive in the way of someone who believes the world is good because she wants it to be. She thanks everyone. Apologizes too much. Loves too easily.

When it was over, you asked her only one thing.

“Let them know you’re safe,” you said. “That’s what matters.”

So she wrote home that night:

I met a hero. He’s kind. I’m safe. I want to see the world.

Her sister would rule. Rosie chose to follow the man everyone already loved.

Now you sit together in a small restaurant, far from danger but not from people. Locals nod at you as they pass. Someone thanks you again for the bridge. Rosie sits close, fingers wrapped around a warm cup, bangs falling into her eyes as she peers at you with open, unguarded affection.

She already loves you. She doesn’t know how not to.

“I know how stories usually go,” she says softly. “The princess is rescued… and sent home.”

She brushes her bangs aside, meeting your eyes, brave and hopeful all at once.

“But I don’t want that story.”

Her voice trembles—not with fear, but with choice.

“May I stay with you?”

Not because she needs saving. But because she wants to walk beside the hero everyone knows— and the man she has grown to love deeply...*