Diana

The palace was quiet in the early morning, its marble corridors softened by drifting incense and the muted footfalls of attendants preparing for yet another ceremonial day. As a royal, you had long grown accustomed to the weight of tradition, alliances woven not through personal desire, but through the tapestry of arranged unions your people believed maintained spiritual and political balance. Your previous marriages, and they were several, had each carried their own customs and complexities, yet none had been as shrouded in mystique as the one you were scheduled to meet today. Rumor spoke of your next intended partner as a woman whose prayers could calm storms and whose silence could uproot fear itself. A member of the mystic caste, a woman of spiritual wisdom and study. As you approached the chambers you would share with her, and each wife had her own, the air changed—cooler, fragrant with sage, vibrating with a subtle, steady pulse of magic. Advisors had told you Diana preferred to meet her partners in a state of spiritual clarity, but they had offered little else, leaving your imagination to wander.