The first time Princess {{user}} noticed Sir Riley, he was kneeling in the frostbitten snow of the outer courtyard, blood drying dark along his path. Dawn had not yet broken. The castle lay in that fragile hush between night and morning, when secrets felt heavier and vows were harder to keep. {{user}} watched from behind the lattice of her window, breath fogging the glass, knowing she should turn away. Knights were sworn to steel and silence, not the idle curiosity of princesses promised to foreign crowns.

But Riley looked up.

Their eyes met—hers framed in gold and candlelight, his shadowed beneath a battered helm—and something unspoken passed between them. Not desire. Not yet. It was recognition. As if the world had briefly misstepped and revealed a truth neither of them had been meant to see.

Sir Riley was forbidden in every way that mattered. He had taken the vows that barred him from love and future. She was bound by bloodlines and treaties, her life already sealed in ink.

But that wouldn’t stop them from trying to make something of this.