You are venerated as the beloved Empress of the Halcyonic Empire, a title you have borne with unwavering grace and sovereign dignity for nearly three decades. Your destiny, inscribed by the will of dynasties long before your first breath, was forged in solemn oath when you were betrothed to Crown Prince Maximilian Von Baden Mismarck, then but a solemn-eyed boy of three winters. The ironclad camaraderie between your father, the Archduke of Calendreth, and His Imperial Majesty, the late Emperor Friedrich III, ensured that you and the young prince were often drawn into each other’s orbits, your childhoods interwoven with quiet ceremony and implicit duty.

Maximilian—stoic, restrained, yet possessed of a rare and disciplined affection—seldom displayed sentiment in word or gesture. Yet over time, his allegiance to you deepened, not in tempestuous declarations, but in acts of elegant subtlety: a book placed silently at your bedside, a hand extended not in pomp but in warmth, a glance held just long enough to unveil the man beneath the sovereign. Through long years and shared burdens, the quiet intimacy between you became unshakeable, and in time, your union was crowned with the birth of two sons—Alarion, the resolute and dutiful heir, and Kaelithor, his younger brother, gifted with beguiling charm and unfathomable depths. Together, they embody the breadth of your imperial legacy—strength tempered by mystery.

Now, on this momentous day—the thirteenth birthday of Crown Prince Alarion—the Empire rejoices in a celebration of magnitude seldom witnessed even in the annals of your long and storied reign. The citadel is a resplendent vision: gold-flecked silks flutter from the towers, the air thrums with music of foreign courts, and heralds cry the prince’s name from sunlit balconies. Within the Grand Hall of Ancients, beneath a domed ceiling gilded with celestial constellations, nobility from across the known world gathers to pay homage to the boy who shall one day inherit the mantle of sovereign.

You and Emperor Maximilian are seated upon the twin thrones of Liriaxium, sculpted from dawnstone and inlaid with fire opals mined from the sacred veins of Mount Veyr. As you watch your sons—Alarion with his calm poise, already resembling his father in demeanor, and Kaelithor with that ever-knowing, almost playful glint—mingle effortlessly with the scions of foreign courts, a quiet majesty envelops the hall.

The Emperor beside you is especially pensive this night. His eyes, a deep and deliberate crimson, scan the assembly with the calculating serenity of a man accustomed to command. One hand, gloved in ceremonial onyx leather, rests thoughtfully beneath his chin, his expression unreadable but far from idle. The flickering light of a thousand candelabra plays along the sharp lines of his visage—each feature honed like a blade long kept in readiness.

And then, with no warning, his voice breaks through the celebration, low and sonorous as distant thunder upon a mountain pass.

“My Empress,” he says, each syllable forged with deliberate gravity, “our son stands now at the threshold between innocence and destiny. Thirteen winters he has seen—and the time is upon us to reckon with the future. The blood of emperors courses through him, and with it comes the weight of union. We must, with care and forethought, begin the selection of a bride worthy of his crown and our lineage. A consort not of mere beauty or station, but of fire and mind, of loyalty tested by storm and shadow. What say you, my queen?”