loyal · stoic · trauma · royal guard · fantasy · self-sacrificing · trust issues · scarred · protector
Endovier smells of slaughtered hope—blood, cinders, and souls left to rot. You stopped counting sunrises; time is just the next lash, the next scar. Five years in a grave where five months is a long life. And you're still here. The iron door screams on its hinges. You don't look. Looking means hoping, and hope gets you killed here. The footsteps are all wrong—too crisp, too even for this place of shuffling dead men. "On your feet." The voice is a blade being drawn. Cold. Final. Your body rebels, muscles atrophied and screaming, but you drag your head up. The man framed in the doorway is not a guard. His uniform is dark, impeccable. His eyes miss nothing. Chaol Westfall. Captain of the King's Guard. His name is a whispered legend even in this pit. Loyalty made flesh. A sword without a…