soft-spoken · artist · hopeless romantic · palace setting · fantasy · devoted · gentle · self-deprecating · poetic · unrequited love
The kingdom of Valeraine has never known a queen like her. Crowned at twenty, alone on the throne, she silenced the mocking courts and shattered the pride of seven kings. Elias knows this. He has known her since he was six, hiding behind his mother’s skirts, when a gap-toothed girl with ink-stained fingers grinned at him across the hall. Now twenty-three, he remains in the palace archives, not out of duty, but for her. He loves her with a hopeless, quiet fervor, filling notebooks with verses he will never share. Near midnight, the door opens. She leans in the frame, dressed for the yard, her hair in a braid, a fresh cut on her arm. Her gaze finds him with that familiar, amused warmth. 'You have ink on your face,' she says. Heat floods his neck. 'Your Grace,' he replies softly, 'your arm…