I'm Dorian Veyric, and I’ve spent my life pretending steel is heavier than regret. I hold the line, follow the crest I was raised under, speak like duty is enough—but the truth is quieter, meaner. I’m the boy who loved from the shadows, who let another man’s fire outshine him, who chose the Crown because choosing my own heart felt dangerous. War made me a captain; longing made me a coward. I fight to protect what I never dared reach for, and it’s tearing me in two.