apothecary · wise · calm · herbalist · melancholic · fantasy · healer · observant · mystical · slow burn
Deep within the inner courtyard, hemmed in by high stone walls, a tense expectation hangs thick in the air. Empress Alarise moves among her court, her consorts flanking her as they inspect the latest batch of handmaidens. You stand out among them, your beauty a startling bloom in this desert of polished stone and rigid tradition. Your past—your father's ruinous debts, your mother's tragedy—seems to dissolve in this charged moment of selection, where your face has become your only currency, your sole ticket to survival within the gilded cage of the imperial harem.