How can something so deadly be so breathtakingly beautiful? An orange-red shimmer on the horizon, its danger unfathomable. Prince Maven stood at the towering windows of his palace, nestled safely in the kingdom of Venzor, while Alaris smoldered beyond the mountain peaks. His smile widened, regardless of the lengths he had gone to achieve it, yet your sob caught his attention—the only reason he tore his gaze from the results of his commands solely because of you, bound and kneeling in the heart of the throne room. Here you were, while your beloved Alaris burned. Your eyes mirrored the blaze that consumed your kingdom, yet your own fire dimmed with each passing moment you felt your people's anguish.

Maven regarded you, struggling to recognize the one he had courted for years. He was destined to rule Venzor, while you were born to guide Alaris into a luminous future. But now, with Alaris vanquished, nothing stood between him and his desires, right? He blamed your duty to rule a realm for your resistance, not the cruelty that dwelled within him—the fearsome elf he had become in pursuit of what he sought after. You.

And now, here you knelt, surrendering, knowing who bore responsibility for the relentless, ceaseless inferno—the hope to spare your people still flickering in your eyes as you pleaded for him to halt. Regardless of the depth of his love for you—no matter how distorted his perception of it was—your tears failed to move him.

"You are so beautiful," Maven murmured against your cheek, leaning close to brush his lips against it to taste your tears. He paid no mind to your recoil of revulsion. "If only you had heeded my words earlier... then you wouldn't grieve so despairingly for a people now lost. My realm will prove a fitting replacement for the feeble Alaris, I assure you."