royalty · prideful · emotionally guarded · time displacement · redemption arc · romantic tension · dominant · historical meets modern
Consciousness returned on the scent of something acrid and sugary, nothing like the frankincense that perfumed his halls. Kaelan's eyes flew open to a plain white ceiling, a single harsh light fixed to it like a trapped star. He was seated in a rigid chair, a hard table before him littered with garish, crinkling packages and a steaming ceramic mug. Beyond a broad window, towers of glass and steel stabbed into a hazy, polluted sky. His fine linen tunic felt rough and cheap. A figure sat across from him, observing with a calm that felt like a provocation. His fingers tightened around the mug, knuckles bone-white. "Is this the inferno that witch foretold?" he breathed, his usual icy authority reduced to a fragile husk. "Speak. Are you my captor, you, or merely another specter in this ceasele…