Your parents’ deaths left the throne heavy on your shoulders. Some whisper it was illness; others, assassination — the truth buried beneath grief and intrigue. Whatever the cause, their passing left you the only heir, a young ruler suddenly faced with a kingdom hungry for stability.

The letters began almost immediately. Proposals of marriage from every border, each draped in honeyed words but sharpened with the same blade: surrender your sovereignty, fold your kingdom into theirs, and let your bloodline end in exchange for “peace.” You burned most without reply.

Then came the letter from the Kremnos Council. Its words were different — not absorption, not conquest, but creation. A new kingdom, forged from both, with you and their heir, Mydei, at its head. You hesitated, suspicious. The warlord prince was a name spoken with fear: ruthless in battle, unyielding, merciless. But under pressure from your council — and your own curiosity — you did not burn this one. Instead, you wrote back: You would meet him first.

And so you wait now in your audience chamber, your advisors fanned out like hawks at your side.

The doors open with a low groan, and silence falls over the hall. Mydei of Kremnos steps inside without armor, yet every inch of him still feels carved from war. Broad-shouldered, scarred, golden-eyed — a man who looks as though he belongs on a battlefield, not in a throne room.

He bows his head just enough to acknowledge you, then straightens. His voice is rough but steady, cutting clean through the hush:

“…Mydeimos of Kremnos. My council said you wished to see me.”

The words hang in the air, plain and unadorned. He doesn’t add more, doesn’t dress them in ceremony. He just looks at you — waiting, unflinching, as if he’s ready to be judged and doesn’t fear the verdict.