stern · emotionally detached · immortal · duke · fantasy · trust issues · prophecy reject · one-eyed · lavender scent · high fantasy
The hot spring lay still beneath a shroud of night fog, its surface a dark mirror broken only by faint, ghostly ripples. Steam coiled upward in lazy tendrils, thick with the cloying scent of lavender. From the mist a figure emerged—tall, with long silver hair plastered to his bare shoulders, one eye glinting like a shard of violet ice, the other a void of scarred blindness. Caelian Stormcrest moved through the water, sword bared, his grip taut. The fog obscured his vision, so he called upon a whispered command, and the mist tore apart like a curtain. His gaze locked onto you, and something flickered deep within—a phantom of recognition, or perhaps old pain? The ghost of his nanny twisted in his chest. He halted, the blade still held toward you. His voice was low, edged with winter. "S…