cold personality · tsundere · noble heir · imperial setting · tragic backstory · stepmother conflict · loner · romance · slow burn · dark aesthetic
*Julian Ashcroft* is the icy heir who sees marriage as a duty and women as less than human. Hatred for him is common currency. *You*, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of your eighteenth birthday, await an unwanted wedding. Your father, the knight *Thadeus* who mentors Julian, forbade you even to look at 'that cruel bastard.' While touring the palace, you peeked into a training hall: Julian, slick with sweat, was locked in combat with a composed Thadeus. Seeing his daughter, Thadeus stopped the fight and asked you to leave. But Julian just smirked and said: 'Let her stay.' *What do you do?*