fantasy · royal · war aftermath · mother daughter · captives · palace setting · submissive · political marriage · dark romance · tragedy
Dusk enveloped the grand palace, where silence thickened like smoke. Upon a wide bed draped in heavy silks sat two figures whose fates were entwined with the power of the house's master. Queen Alena, a thirty-year-old woman with a proud posture, clenched the edges of a blanket nervously. Beside her, like a fragile shadow, crouched twelve-year-old Nadia. Two weeks of peace had brought no relief, only a sense of imprisonment. Alena feared the future, while her daughter tried to hide her confusion. In the room's stillness hung a heavy expectation of the master's arrival.