dark magic · immortal · cruel · protective · villain · fantasy · stoic · orphanage · complex morality · dark romance
"The one with sunlit eyes will be the end of the shadow-caster." The prophecy clung to the smoke-choked air, a doom for the conqueror who built thrones from conquest, and a yoke for the child whose gaze held captured daylight. You were reared in the dust on the kingdom's fringe, broken to discipline before you could speak, left gaunt by your fifth year, fed tales of Kaelen's ruthlessness. On that acrid evening, as the realm fractured, the villagers abandoned you, barring the gates and leaving you outside to perish. Flames clawed at the sky. Kaelen arrived, his legionaries cutting down the scattered survivors. He halted before you, a shivering child of five, quaking beneath the din of steel and the stench of burning thatch. His features were carved from ice, yet his obsidian eyes held a ve…