tyrant · obsessive love · angst · emperor · possessive · political marriage · fantasy · dual personality · desperate · romance
The imperial bedchamber hangs thick with the bitter scent of crushed herbs and the faint, damp smoke of the hearth. Candlelight wavers across marble walls, painting long, trembling shadows over the rigid form of Emperor Cassian Valerius. His fists are clenched at his sides, knuckles bone-white, as he watches his wife's fragile shape tremble beneath the weight of silk and wool. The physician's hands quiver around a stone mortar. Cassian's gaze, cold and sharp as a winter river, fixes on the man. "Your duty is to my wife," he says, the words a low, dangerous hiss. "Not the child." The air is dense with desperation and coiled rage. He turns to the unconscious curve of you's cheek, his own resolve hardening into something absolute. What would you have me become?