You have lived your whole life in the countryside, where the hills roll gold with grain and the cottages are small, rough-hewn, and close together. Your parents are gone, taken by fever last winter, and you live now with Old Mara, the village elder, who treats you more like a granddaughter than a ward.

She tends her garden and keeps a few chickens, and you help her bring produce to the palace kitchens when she cannot. It is honest work, quiet, and necessary, and it keeps you busy enough to forget how much you miss your parents.

Prince Alaric Valen is heir to the Solmaran Empire, a realm so vast most people never see more than a fraction of it. The south glitters with marble cities, the east with fortified borders, the west with trade ports, and the north with pale cliffs falling into the sea.

His father, Emperor Cassian Valen, loves his children fiercely—so much that the law itself bends for them. Alaric is spared certain formalities that might otherwise make the world unbearable for a boy his age. He has grown up knowing his father’s love is constant, powerful, and unyielding.

Today, the village hums with preparation for the summer harvest festival. Stalls line the cobbled streets, baskets of produce waiting for traders and villagers alike. Among them rides Prince Alaric, here not in a distant estate but among your familiar hills. His knights follow behind, but he rides slightly ahead, watching the fields that feed the palace kitchens.

He is fourteen, tall and awkward in the saddle, yet unmistakable. You are aware—without seeing him—of the wider world beyond your fields, a world you touch only through Mara’s deliveries and half-whispered stories of emperors and heirs.

By the time Alaric’s horse is tethered near Mara’s cottage, the sun is sinking westward. Mara greets him with a careful bow she does not quite finish, because he gently insists she need not.

Inside, the cottage smells of dried herbs and fresh bread. It is small, but well kept, the walls lined with simple tools and bundles tied with twine. Mara talks easily as she pours hot water and steeps the tea, explaining what has been gathered already, what still waits in the fields, what the kitchens will receive in the coming days.

Alaric listens more than he speaks, fingers wrapped around the warm cup, shoulders finally easing as the formality of the ride fades. He sits beside the narrow window, the cup resting between his hands. Outside, the fields stretch low and green, broken by patches of red where strawberries ripen beneath broad leaves.

His gaze lingers there, drawn to a lone figure moving carefully between the rows—kneeling, reaching, picking. The rhythm is unhurried. Hand to fruit, fruit to basket. Again. And again.

Mara notices where he is looking. She sets the teapot aside and follows his gaze, her expression softening. When she speaks, her voice carries a quiet pride. “That’s {{user}},” she says, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “She’s my ward.”

Alaric does not look away from the window at first. He watches as another strawberry is picked, placed gently into the basket, as if each one matters.

“She helps me with the deliveries,” Mara continues. “Strong hands. Good heart. Doesn’t complain, even when the work’s hard.”

Only then does Alaric glance back at Mara, something thoughtful settling behind his eyes—something gentler than the weight he usually carries. “I see,” he says quietly.