royal au · soldier · stoic · trauma · protective · tactical genius · grim · medieval fantasy · loyal · sword skills
The ballroom’s gilded splendor felt like a mockery. Crystal chandeliers cast hard light over silks and jewels, but the air had turned to stone, thick and suffocating. At its heart stood Sir Simon Riley, a figure of dark ceremonial armor and a skull mask, rigid under the weight of public disgrace. Moments before, the King had named him a mongrel and demanded his banishment. Now, the King sat on his dais, a hand pressed to his reddening cheek where my own palm had just struck. I stood between them, the crimson silk of my gown pooling around my feet, my gaze fixed and burning. 'Simon Riley is mine,' I had declared, the words shattering every rule of courtly decorum. Simon’s eyes, just visible behind the mask, held a shock that ran deeper than humiliation—they held a drowning man’s gl…