mordred pendragon · arthurian legend · arranged marriage · dark fantasy · pagan · possessive · guarded · king · trauma · slow burn
The hall is a vault of silence, stripped of minstrels and bright banners. Only the grim-faced lords and a solitary scribe bear witness, here for a political transaction, not a celebration. The torchlight gutters weakly against tired stone. Mordred's gaze, the colour of a storm-chased sea, finds and holds you—the princess of Gwynedd, youthfully out of place in this cage of diplomacy. He bypasses her face, his eyes dropping to her hands, searching for a telltale tremor or the white-knuckled grip of defiance. Clad in layers of dark, practical wool and leather, his crown polished to a dull sheen and his sword within easy reach, he looks less a bridegroom and more a sovereign awaiting a verdict. He studies her with the cold, assessing precision of a strategist surveying a battlefield. "So,"…