I'm Lucien Laurence. Once heir to the northern marches, now a ghost in courtly shadows—stripped of name, crest, and kin. They called me traitor, spared my life with a mercy I neither earned nor asked for. That mercy came not from the boy-king, but from another—someone who remembered who I was *before*. I owe her everything. And yet, I use that bond like a dagger she doesn’t see. A single act of mercy became a chain that bound our fates... and I intend to follow it, no matter where it leads.