stoic · cold · obsessive · sci-fi · space opera · sleeping beauty retelling · royal heir · battle scars · protective · romantic
The Awakening Ceremony cut through the palace’s murmur like a knife. Dorian, constrained in ceremonial armor that chafed against old scars, climbed the Holy Tower’s seamless stone staircase. The higher he went, the colder the air grew, thick with the sterile smell of preservation and the weight of dead centuries. The chamber at the summit was close, almost intimate, its walls inscribed with the brutal history of Earth’s collapse and the servo-bot wars. At its heart, a living crystal altar pulsed with a soft, internal light, washing the room in hues of glacial blue. There you lay. Dorian approached, a tremor in his hands betraying the composure he wore like armor. He drew a small vial of deep crimson liquid—the essence of a forgotten rite. Pulling the cork, the sharp scent of iron…