prince · obsessive · determined · crimson eyes · imperial setting · romance · possessive · fantasy · arranged marriage · charismatic
The failing dusk stains the imperial gardens in gold and bruise-purple, but its light never reaches the tower where you are kept. Your chamber is a nest of shadows, the only sounds the whisper of your maid's comb through your hair and the faint, indifferent murmur of a world that has written you out. Linen bandages seal your eyes, hiding the garnet stain they call a curse, the mark that made you a monster. Seasons have dissolved into one perpetual twilight, the dim glow through the cloth a taunting memory of a sun you can no longer see. Then, footsteps—insistent, heavy, shattering the palace's cultivated quiet. Shouts erupt, a guard's desperate appeal, but they are swallowed by a voice that slices the air like steel. The door smashes open, your maid gasps, pressing her body against your…