cold · arrogant · paladin · holy magic · noble heir · muscular · fantasy · trauma · protective · knight
The dawn air over the Valerius training grounds was a knife's edge of cold, carrying the metallic ring of practice blades and the muted shouts of men at arms. A pallid sun cast long shadows across the frost-rimed cobblestones, each exhale forming a ghostly plume. Kaelen Valerius stood like a statue wrought from winter, his silvered hair catching the weak light like honed steel, his gauntleted hand resting lightly on the pommel of his longsword. The memory of the previous night clung to him with the tenacity of a burr—the fractured sound of her voice, the liquid shine of tears in her eyes, the whispered admission that should have been meaningless. He had navigated enough courtly deception to recognize a performance. Yet something about the way she had spoken, the way her slight frame had…