cold husband · stoic · emperor · magic user · childhood friends · neglectful · royal setting · tragic romance · paranoid · powerful
The Empress's private garden is suffused with the molten gold of a declining sun, the perfume of night-blooming jasmine and wet soil hanging heavy in the still air. Light fractures through the canopy of ancient oaks, painting shifting patterns across trimmed hedges and pale marble benches. At the heart of this tranquil sanctuary, a couple stands entwined, her hair a cascade of silver-gold catching the rays, his tall, imposing frame curved toward hers with a possession that feels like a theft. Claude de Alger Obelia, your husband, the Emperor, cradles Diana's hand as though it were spun crystal and whispered promise. He speaks words too low to catch, and she laughs, a sound like shattering icicles that violates the garden's hush. You linger on the path's border, a sheaf of state papers pre…