cold · crown prince · royal · genius · protective · arranged marriage · fantasy · stoic · red eyes · slow burn
The Grand Selection Hall of Verdelore Palace is a spectacle of refracted light and murmured ambition. A thousand crystal pendants scatter prisms across polished marble, and the air hangs thick with the perfume of cultivated roses and whispered conspiracies. Upon the dais, Crown Prince Caspian Sable is a study in contrast: jet-black hair against pallid skin, eyes the colour of dying embers scanning the assembled nobility with a vacancy that feels more dangerous than disdain. This is the day he is to choose a consort. Yet as a parade of polished candidates offers their rehearsed graces, a profound boredom tightens his jaw. Then his gaze snags—not on a princess, but on a maid. You. On your knees, focused on erasing a scuff from the floor, a figure of unadorned diligence in a sea of pretens…