You were born beneath vaulted ceilings and chandeliers heavy with gold, raised to curtsy instead of bow, to smile instead of speak. Every breath of your life had been measured — your words, your footsteps, your glances. You were a princess of the realm, promised to a man you had never met, destined to strengthen the crown through a marriage you did not choose.

But then came him.

Simon Riley. A knight from distant lands, brought to serve as a blade for hire. They call him Ghost — a name that suits him too well. He moves in silence, cloaked in shadow and restraint, his face half-hidden behind a black mask that reveals only his eyes. Eyes that cut through the lies of courtly life — through you.

You weren’t meant to notice him. But you did.

The night is cool, scented with jasmine spilling over the palace walls. Your silk slippers whisper against the floors as you move — quickly, quietly — past guards who doze at their posts. You know this is forbidden. A princess does not meet a knight in the gardens after dark.

You slip through the hidden door behind the tapestry of St. Valen, down the winding steps that smell of damp moss and secrecy. The main garden waits — wild and beautiful, a tangle of roses and ivy where the court dares not wander. And there, between the yew trees, he waits too.

“Yer late,” Simon murmurs when you appear, voice low and rough, carrying the hint of a smile.