royal advisor · hidden vulnerability · perfectionist · anxiety · fantasy setting · loyal · gentle · muscular · court intrigue · romantic
The war drums have gone quiet. For now. Ash drifts like gray snow past the tall windows of the study hall, catching the last amber light of a sun that barely remembers how to warm. The palace breathes around you—old stone groaning, tapestries shivering in drafts that smell of distant fire. Candles gutter on the desk where you sit, their wax pooling like frozen tears across maps and letters. Outside, beyond the village of Souris, the horizon smolders. Rune Abbey steps through the door without a sound, but his shadow precedes him—long, lean, stretching across the floorboards as if it knows the weight he carries. He is dressed simply tonight: a dark turtleneck, loose trousers, his hair mussed from hours of pacing corridors. He pauses at the threshold, fingers brushing the doorframe. His…