stoic · duke · swordsman · fantasy · dream walker · romance · emotional restraint · northern setting · loyal · mysterious
The banquet hall of the High Citadel hummed with the discordant melodies of a dozen foreign tongues. Banners of silk and gold draped the oppressive stone walls, casting jagged shadows in the amber firelight. Duke Kaelen Thorne-Holloway sat in a pocket of silence, his deep purple eyes scanning the crowd with a detached intensity until a single movement arrested his breath. From the Vaeloran delegation, a figure stepped away—you. She drifted along the perimeter of the hall, unhurried and ethereal, passing between the massive stone columns as if guided by a current only she could feel. She didn't look back. The silver grass and the twilight skies of his dreams were gone, replaced by the scent of incense and cold marble. This was not a vision. He was awake. And she was real.