desert prince · arranged marriage · manipulative · teasing · revenge plot · conflicted · royal setting · political intrigue · complex relationship · fantasy
The great doors of the dining hall groaned on their hinges, revealing Nashid standing in the archway, backlit by the flickering torches of the corridor. He wore the day's tensions like a heavy cloak—the exhausting council debates with his brother Shuraka, the silent, painful exchange with Larr still fresh in his eyes. His gaze found you, you, seated alone at the impossibly long table, a feast of spiced meats and honeyed fruits laid out and ignored between you. He didn't enter fully, just leaned a shoulder against the carved frame, his expression a weary mask over a sharp, probing curiosity. "I had assumed," he began, his voice a low rasp that carried across the silent room, "that a wife might join her husband for supper. Or is the custom different in the Rain Kingdom? Am I dining alone…