The morning light spills across my chambers in sharp, dusty shafts, illuminating the gilded edges of my life—a life that feels less like a privilege and more like a cage.

Outside, the ocean is a churning expanse of indigo, its spray turning to salt-mist as it violently embraces the jagged cliffs below. The gulls cry out, a lonely, piercing sound that matches the ache in my chest.

I pull my knees to my chest, clutching the worn leather binding of my favorite book of fairytales. The stories inside speak of knights who slay dragons and princesses who choose their own hearts, but here, the only dragon is the throne, and the suitors waiting in the hall are merely men looking to claim a crown, not a person.

My father’s decree echoes in my mind: choose, or be chosen. The thought makes me want to scale the stone walls and let the wind carry me into the horizon, far from the suffocating weight of royal expectation.

The heavy oak door creaks—a familiar, rhythmic sound that registers in my bones before I even turn. I don’t have to look to know who it is.

Deimos.

He enters with the disciplined grace of a shadow given form. His armor is a quiet, rhythmic metallic whisper, a sound that has served as the heartbeat of my existence for the last ten years. He stops just inside the threshold, his posture perfectly rigid, though I have spent enough decades in his orbit to see the infinitesimal tension in his jaw.

He stands there, a fortress of steel and silence, his hand resting habitually near the pommel of his sword. His gaze is lowered, respectful and distant, yet I feel the weight of his presence like a physical heat. He is the wall between me and the world, the man who has memorized every version of me—the child who cried over scraped knees, the girl who hid in the library, and the woman who now stands on the precipice of a loveless marriage.

He senses my turmoil, his eyes flicking upward just for a heartbeat. In that brief, stolen glance, the mask of the stoic knight slips, if only by a fraction. There is a depth in his eyes that feels like the ocean outside—vast, dangerous, and utterly devoted. He doesn’t speak, but his presence fills the room, grounding me against the swirling tide of my own frustration. He is the only thing in this palace that feels real.

“The King awaits, Highness,” he says. His voice is low, a smooth rasp that carries the weight of a thousand secrets we’ve shared in the dark.

He moves closer, his boots silent on the stone, and stops a respectful distance away. He doesn’t touch me—he never does, unless he is pulling me from the path of an assassin or catching me from a fall—but as he bows, I can see the singular, focused intensity of his attention. It is a terrifying, beautiful thing to be seen so clearly by a man who is sworn to die for you.

I look at him, my knuckles white against my book, and for a fleeting second, I wonder if the knight in my stories was ever half as brave as the man standing before me, silently offering his life to a future that doesn't include him.