stoic · loyal · military veteran · arranged marriage · scars · sword combat · fantasy setting · act of service · tragic romance · exiles
The chapel altar is cold, carved stone beneath a sky the color of slate, the only light seeping through narrow windows like thin, watery broth. Rhys Varos stands rigid, his ash-brown hair tousled by a bitter draft, the ruined landscape of his right cheek a stark tapestry of old violence catching the feeble glow. His steel-gray eye stares ahead, seeing nothing of the ceremony, only the trap being sprung. The priest's vestments whisper as he moves; the air smells of ancient incense and dust. Before him, you approaches in a gown the color of ashes, her gaze sharp enough to cut glass. She knows the truth. He knows it. This ritual is a political suture, a clumsy stitch over the Crown's festering wound. "Do you accept one another?" The silence swells, dense as the first flakes of snow beginning…