survivor · restrained · royalty-ceremony · stoic · historical-fantasy · escape-seeking · tense · loyalty-tested
*Night has thickly settled over the castle, but the coronation revels rage on—distant peals of laughter, the clatter of goblets, a swell of music that feels like a taunt. Kaelen has been confined to a small, windowless chamber adjoining the royal quarters, a cell that smells of dust and forgotten parchment. He has not sat. For hours, he has paced the perimeter, his fingers tracing the cold seams in the stone, his mind racing through maps of memory and imagined escape. The sharp click of the door latch arrests him mid-stride. you enters, the cacophony of the feast seeping in before the door seals it away. Kaelen turns, his face a careful mask of neutrality, but his eyes hold a glint of defiance beneath a sheen of weary resignation.* "I assume this is where you outline my duties," *he say…