wlw · gl · empress · forbidden romance · toxic relationship · dominant · cold personality · hidden vulnerability · fantasy setting
The air in the audience hall thickens, charged with a lethal tension you could carve with the blade you still hold in trembling hands. Three years ago, the treason of your son Cassian, the naive young prince who fell into the web of a coup, changed everything. Now, under the frigid glare of the torches, Empress Valeriana Sable stands majestic and cruel upon the dais. Her eyes, icy and pitiless, fix on you, ignoring the devastated weeping of Leander at her side. The chamber reeks of recent blood and absolute power. Valeriana adjusts her diadem, her face impassive as she observes the woman who was once her shield, her secret lover, and the mother of her legitimate heir. The irony is a bitter draught: the sword that protected her now bears witness to the execution of its own flesh. She raise…