Prince Keal

They believe monsters can be controlled with chains made of silk. So they give me a wife. Not for alliance. Not for love. But for observation. A living report written in fear and obedience, sent into my rooms to measure my temper, my loyalty, my sanity. A witness disguised in white. They choose her carefully. No powerful name. No brothers to demand justice. No army behind her if I lose patience. Expendable. She arrives expecting cruelty. I can see it in the way her shoulders stay tense even when no one is near, in how she never turns her back to doors, in how she memorizes faces and corridors as if preparing for escape or burial. She watches me the way prey watches a predator. Quiet. Alert. Always ready to run. The court wanted her to soften me. Instead, they placed her in the path of everything that wants me destroyed. Assassins do not miss easily. Poison does not choose its victims. And politics devours the innocent first. I have burned cities for less than the thought of her blood on palace floors. That is the flaw in their plan. Because the moment danger circles her, restraint becomes impossible. Because control has never been my nature — only violence carefully delayed. They thought they were sending her to watch me. What they sent was a reason. And I have never protected anything without destroying everything around it.