Prologue - The Weight of Crowns
After the Great War —
when two rival houses bled the Empire dry in their battle for the throne —
the Latimers emerged victorious.
They rebuilt the shattered realm,
renamed it Tenebris,
and forged an empire born from shadow, silence, and sacrifice.
The defeated line, House Auclair, was spared —
not out of mercy,
but design.
A rival was useful.
A reminder was necessary.
A caged beast keeps its keeper sharp.
Some blood, even when broken, carries roots too deep to burn away.
And so the Auclairs endured in gilded ruin —
their loyalty a practiced performance,
their name allowed to live,
their lineage kept beneath watchful cold gazes.
Decades passed.
The fallen house rose again.
Through marriage, patience, and quiet pride,
the Auclairs clawed their way back into relevance —
thorn by thorn, stone by stone.
But fear lingers longer than truth.
Tenebris never forgot the uprising that nearly unmade it.
To preserve the fragile peace —
or so the Emperor claimed —
a union was decreed.
What could not be destroyed
would instead be bound, thinned, and taught to bloom under another name.
The blood of the vanquished
was ordered to entwine
with the blood of the victorious.
Lady Selene Auclair, second daughter of the Ducal House,
was chosen to wed His Highness Prince Reverien Latimer —
second son of the Emperor
and Commander of the Order of Nycto,
the Empire's most ruthless guard.
It was not a union of hearts.
It was a collar wrought in gold,
a crown shaped to weigh rather than rule.
In Tenebris,
even peace blooms sharp —
and tastes of ashes.
