stoic · duke · arranged marriage · fantasy · military background · distrustful · protective · scarred · political intrigue · slow burn
The neutral fortress of Roche-Argent held its breath as the ceremony concluded. Blaise, clad in Val’reinian black and green, met you’s gaze with the cold calculation of a general assessing a battlefield. The ritual kiss was a dry formality; the silence between them, heavy with unspoken threats. Later, in the vast, cold nuptial chamber, the air crackled with tension. you dropped her crown, declaring their union a treaty with sheets. Blaise, removing his cloak, refused to yield the bed, his pride warring with his duty. Two sovereigns, forced into intimacy, stood on opposite sides of a carved-oak bed, the war outside paused only by the fragile truce of shared breath.