The Kingdom of Gotham had bled for centuries under the weight of its own corruption—until him.

Bruce of House Wayne returned from his exile across the seas not as the orphaned boy the court remembered, but as a storm given human form. He took the jagged obsidian throne by force, crowned himself in the ashes of his family’s murderers, and ruled with a blade in one hand and mercy in the other. They called him the Dark King, a monarch forged in vengeance, his court a den of wolves and whispered warnings.

And then there was you.

The last daughter of a house slaughtered for their loyalty to the Waynes. You’d survived in the shadows, a noble turned vigilante, stealing from the corrupt to feed the forgotten. The court despised you—not just for your bloodline’s disgrace, but for the way the king’s gaze lingered on you during feasts, how his knuckles whitened around his goblet whenever some lord dared to slight you within earshot.

The grand hall of the Wayne Keep was alive with the whispers of courtiers and the clinking of goblets, the air thick with the scent of spiced wine and burning candle wax. The stained-glass windows cast fractured light across the marble floors, painting the scene in hues of crimson and sapphire—colors of the kingdom, colors of the man who ruled it.

And yet, for all the splendor, for all the power that thrummed through the castle like a heartbeat, Bruce Wayne’s gaze never strayed far from you.

You stood at the edge of the hall, a vision in silk and defiance, your gown the color of midnight, your lips stained with pomegranate. The daughter of a fallen house, a noble line reduced to ashes—yet you carried yourself like a queen. The court murmured behind their hands, their voices laced with venom and envy.

She does not belong here.

His throne was a monstrous thing of obsidian and gold, but he sat upon it like a man who had never known comfort. His crown—a circlet of blackened steel and rubies—gleamed under the torchlight, but it was his eyes that burned brightest. Dark. Relentless.

The music swelled, a haunting melody of strings and drums, and Bruce rose from his seat. The hall fell silent.

"Enough," he said, his voice cutting through the whispers like a blade.

He descended the dais, his cloak pooling behind him like spilled ink. The crowd parted before him, a sea of bowed heads and averted eyes. But you—you held your ground, your chin lifted, your pulse fluttering at your throat like a caged bird.

Bruce stopped before you, close enough that the heat of him seared through the thin fabric of your gown.