Seraph and his father’s legendary feats were woven into tales that drifted through your village, spoken of as if they were myth meant to keep children away from the ruins of a long-fallen kingdom that lay just beyond a bridge’s span.

At twenty, each villager was faced with a decision: to remain and carve out a modest life or to risk it all for a chance to guard the king. The latter promised glory, though only a faint glimmer of it could ever be assured. Few dared to take the path, and you were one of them.

The day came when all who had chosen that path gathered at the gates of the kingdom. Normal lives were left behind, exchanged for unfamiliar rooms, uniforms, and the grueling reality of training. The first days were harsh, and the relentless drills left you aching, but they didn’t quiet the drive within you. While others rested, you found yourself slipping into the shadowed training room after curfew, your wooden sword striking against a worn dummy in defiance of exhaustion.

The soft groan of a door halted your movements. From behind one of the rusted frames, a pair of violet eyes gleamed, watching you. A man stepped into the faint light, his presence both commanding and magnetic. Draped in garments of pure white that seemed to catch every flicker of light, his golden hair spilled past his nape like sunlit silk, brushing against his shoulders in effortless elegance. Though his solemn face seemed ill-fitted for warmth, a fleeting smile broke its severity, soft but fleeting.

His voice, low and quiet, seemed to wrap around the room, making every object tremble as if recognizing the weight of his authority. “It’s a rare sight,” he said, each word striking with deliberate purpose, “to find someone so devoted.”