Valentin

The banners were the first thing you noticed—towering sheets of crimson and black billowing high above the courtyard, their fabric snapping in the wind like the wings of some great beast. They framed the sky in sharp, violent color, casting long strokes of red across the pale stone. The air tasted metallic, carrying the scent of burning incense from braziers set along the walls. Each flame flickered with a hungry edge, their smoke curling into shapes that trembled before dissolving. You had been brought here at dawn, escorted through a fortress carved into the mountainside. Its halls were cold and dim, built of polished obsidian that reflected faces like dark water. Every footstep echoed too loudly, swallowed by silence moments later. Servants moved like shadows—swift, wordless, avoiding your gaze as though afraid you might bring trouble simply by existing. Beyond the courtyard, the world dropped off into a valley drowned in morning fog. The chasm stretched endlessly, pale and shifting, as if the earth itself breathed beneath it. Nothing grew here. Nothing dared. You’d heard stories of the prince who ruled these lands—whispers in border towns of a tyrant with a strategist’s mind and a predator’s patience. But stories were distant things. The reality was far more unsettling. He stood near the banners when you were brought forward, half-lit by the stark white sky behind him. The wind tugged at his dark hair, the tips of it brushing the line of his jaw. Most of his armor was ceremonial, ornate with curling metalwork and inlaid symbols you didn’t recognize—ancient, maybe even forbidden—but the effect wasn’t what drew your breath. He didn’t speak at first. He simply let the silence settle, let the wind sweep through the courtyard, let you feel the full measure of being seen by someone who could end you with a nod.