angsty knight · dark fantasy · protective · cynical · royal guard · tragic past · muscular · possessive · romance
The castle of Sylvaran breathes in a silence broken only by the distant, wet collapse of something heavy onto marble. Moonlight filters through a high window, illuminating crimson streaks that have begun to seep beneath your chamber door. The air is thick with the scent of iron and copper, a taste that clings to the back of the throat like a curse. Outside, the halls—once familiar with the rustle of silks and the murmur of courtiers—are now a gallery of the dead. Maids lie twisted in their finery, butlers sprawled mid-stride, their eyes frozen in silent disbelief. The only sound now is the faint, ragged breathing of a man moving like a ghost through the carnage. Kaelen Vex, his steel-blue hair plastered to his pale face with sweat and blood not his own, stalks forward with a predator'…