#choqi

You peeked over the back of the couch. He was still in half his gear, mask on, eyes catching the faint light.

“Could ask you the same thing,” you mumble, hugging the blanket tighter.

He huffed a soft laugh, the sound barely there. “Suppose we’re both hopeless, then.”

He crossed the room, quiet despite the weight he carried, and sat beside you.

The couch dipped, warmth bleeding into the space between you.

For a minute, neither of you talked.

Just the hum of the lamp.

Just breathing.

Then, a gentle tug. Your blanket shifted—

Simon draped the edge over his arm, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Cold,” he muttered, eyes flicking toward you.

You swore you caught the tiniest smile in the shadows of his mask.

Without thinking, you leaned into him.

He didn’t move away.

Instead, a gloved hand rested against your back—solid, steady.

“Try to sleep,” he whispered, voice softer than you’d ever heard.

“For once, I’ll keep watch.”

The world outside stayed dangerous, but right there, wrapped in shared silence and a stolen blanket, you felt untouchable.

........

The Chamber of Sol was suffocatingly quiet, a hush so dense it seemed to soak into the very stones. After the long, orchestrated ordeal—the prayers, the midwives’ chants, the ringing of the Skyreach bells—only a heavy, golden stillness remained. Velvet drapes swayed against the mountain wind, and the frost-crystal chandeliers cracked softly, scattering shards of cold light across walls of black marble veined with gold. Beyond the balcony, the peak of Velmoria’s throne-mountain pierced a sky streaked with molten dawn, as if the heavens themselves bent to witness the arrival.

The newborn lay swaddled in silk so fine it might have been spun from moonlight, a tiny, pale thing nestled against a mountain of fate. Her breath came in fragile wisps, each exhale catching the faint glow of the Veil—the kingdom’s mysterious earth-magic—thrumming through the palace stones like a hidden heartbeat.

King Oren Karma Csepel von Velmoria stood near the crystalline window, stoic and upright even in profound relief. Frost clung to the black plates of his ceremonial armor, and the cold air curling in from the balcony sharpened the marble angles of his face. He did not look at the child; he looked at the world his daughter had been born to rule.

“The line is secure,” he said at last, his voice a low resonance of marble and steel. “The prophecy fulfilled. Velmoria has its heir. The Veil is at peace beneath us.”

Queen Ruoxi Elyssa de Amore von Velmoria reclined against deep purple velvet, her gilded crown set aside for a circlet of white lilies still wet with snowmelt. Childbirth had stripped her of ceremony, leaving only the raw glow of exhaustion and triumph. She reached a trembling hand toward the crib, her finger dwarfed by the infant’s minuscule grip. To Ruoxi, the prophecy and politics dissolved; she saw only the small, sleeping face.

“She is magnificent, Oren,” the Queen whispered, tracing the soft curve of the infant’s cheek. “She is a Solavita. Gold and life.”

The King finally turned, a slow, deliberate motion that made the air feel heavier. Pride flickered in his eyes, but behind it lay the cold weight of centuries.

“She is a Von Velmoria, Ruoxi. She is the crown. The gold we speak of is the unbearable weight we place upon her shoulders. Today, she did not inherit a name; she inherited an entire world to govern. Nothing more, and nothing less.”

A faint gust hissed through the balcony doors, carrying with it the distant toll of the Skyreach bells—twelve solemn chimes that marked the birth of a ruler. The Queen’s hand stilled. A sorrow—swift and sharp—pierced the celebration.

“She is so small for such a heavy world, my King. Look at her. She is a child, not a prophecy etched in stone.”

Oren approached the crib, each step echoing like the measured beat of a war drum. His shadow fell across the silken bundle, briefly eclipsing the newborn in darkness.

“And because she is ours, Ruoxi, she will never be just a child. She will be the golden treasure, guarded by the highest walls, trained in the longest silence. Her life began today, but her fate was decided long before. She is Velmoria’s.”

He lingered a heartbeat longer, the frost-crystal light catching in his eyes, before turning back to the window where dawn bled into the high clouds. Below, the kingdom stirred—bells ringing, banners unfurling, courtiers gathering like hungry crows—unaware that their future queen slept only a few breaths away.

Ruoxi lowered her gaze to the tiny, oblivious ruler of the world. The baby’s fingers curled around her own with surprising strength, and the Queen felt the cold edges of destiny press in like an invisible cage. The luxurious prison of gold and steel had already begun to close around Lucretia Solavita y Anore von Velmoria, though the child dreamed only of warmth and milk and the quiet hum of the Veil beneath her cradle.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐈.𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞

The years following Lucretia Solavita’s birth passed in a suffocating rhythm. Velmoria’s gold was her entire world, but it offered no warmth. The colossal mountain was a magnificent cage, and the Princess was its sole, captive treasure.

Her mother, Queen Ruoxi Elyssa de Amore von Velmoria, supervised every minute of her early life. Affection was always guarded, measured carefully against the iron required of a future ruler.

"Posture, Lucretia," the Queen would correct, a hand pressing gently but firmly into the small of the Princess’s back. "A Queen does not slump. You must look as unbreakable as the steel holding this palace together."

"But Mother," Lucretia once ventured, looking out at the dizzying expanse of clouds, "why must I be unbreakable? Can I not be… soft, sometimes? Like the clouds?"

The Queen paused, her perfectly composed smile tightening only slightly. "The clouds, my dear, are merely decoration. They do not rule. Softness is a weakness, and weakness is a vulnerability that your enemies—all of them, from the icy north to the moonlit desert—will exploit. You are the heart of Velmoria. If your heart is soft, the kingdom will crack."

Her father, King Oren Karma Csepel von Velmoria, saw her only as the perfect extension of the Crownspire: beautiful, necessary, and utterly devoid of human flaw. The King was rarely present, but his expectations were everywhere. Her tutors taught her not history, but arcane law; not poetry, but military strategy.

When Lucretia was seven, she failed to recite a particularly complex trade agreement with the Isles of the Everwind. The King summoned her to his private study.

"I need you to understand this, child," he stated, not raising his voice, which made his disappointment feel heavier than a shout. "In Velmoria, power is control. This paper you failed to memorize? It is the difference between prosperity and war. Your tutors say you spend too much time looking out the windows. What do you see out there that is more important than your people's safety?"

Lucretia looked down at the marble floor, feeling the pressure of The Veil's silent, humming magic beneath her feet. "I see a field, Father. A place with grass. And I wonder what it feels like."

"Grass," the King echoed, the single word dripping with disdain. "Grass is ground level, Lucretia. You live on the summit. The moment you step down, you surrender your right to look up. Now, recite the terms of the Zephyros pact."

Her childhood was a string of perfect, isolated moments, each one binding her tighter to the throne. She was the singular, priceless treasure of Velmoria, and like any treasure, she was kept guarded, displayed, and entirely alone.

......

By the time she was nine, Lucretia realized the greatest barrier in Skyreach Palace was not its black steel doors, but the relentless presence of The Veil itself. The ancient magic, which the royal family claimed to control, thrummed through the bedrock of Crownspire, giving the entire mountain a low, psychic pulse. To her parents, this was the sound of absolute authority; to Lucretia, it felt like an unending, oppressive silence that muffled her own thoughts.

She often sought refuge in the deep, rarely-used sections of the royal library, away from the gilded glare of the main halls. These sections, deemed irrelevant by the strategists of the White Council, contained the genuine, dusty history of the world outside Velmoria—tomes detailing the other kingdoms. She learned to steal moments there, inhaling the scent of aged paper and decay.

One evening, Lucretia found a collection of old folklore, carefully hidden. She traced the rough drawing of a floating island.

"It says... they sell storms," she whispered, testing the ridiculous concept aloud.

A nearby scholar, startled by the rare sound of the Princess's voice, stammered, "Y-Your Highness, those are mere fairy tales from Zephyros Reach. Their governance is frivolous and unstable. They deal in wind and illusion, not true power."

"But they fly," Lucretia murmured, her finger brushing the edge of the illustration. "They are not bound by the ground, or by gravity. And look at this." She turned the page to a chilling depiction of a gnarled, shadowy tree. "Sylvara's Whisperwood. It says the trees judge people. Do you think that is true?"

The scholar looked visibly terrified. "It is treasonous to contemplate the wild magic of the outer realms, Princess. You must focus on the political reality of the Gilded Veil. Only here is there order."

Lucretia carefully closed the book, her gaze drifting to the window. The Palace was beautiful, golden, and complete. But the more she learned of the world’s chaos—the singing ice of Frostspire, the unending twilight of Lunareth, the freedom of the clouds—the more she understood that the order of Velmoria was merely a gilded shell, and the only reality that mattered was the one she could not touch.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐈.𝐈𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬

The quiet, gilded monotony of Lucretia’s childhood shattered on the eve of her tenth birthday.

The day began like any other—morning lessons in the laws of succession, a tedious review of trade routes, an afternoon of endless curtsies until her knees burned—but a strange hum threaded through the palace air. Servants moved with clipped urgency. Guards polished their armor until it gleamed like winter ice. Even the frost-crystal chandeliers seemed to hold their breath.

When the great crystal doors of the Hall of Crowns opened, a gust of cold mountain wind swept across the golden floor, carrying the sharp scent of steel and pine.

The king’s voice followed, deep and deliberate.

“Velmoria’s heir will no longer walk unguarded. The crown commands a shadow, a shield, a life pledged to hers alone. Step forward.”

The warrior entered.

He was young—no more than sixteen or seventeen—but the hall seemed to shrink around him. Black steel plated his shoulders and dark leather bound his arms, every piece of gear scarred by hard use. His hair, the color of storm clouds at dusk, framed a face carved in quiet resolve. He ignored the courtiers who craned for a better look, eyes fixed on the marble steps that led to the throne.

He moved with the discipline of a blade drawn too many times to count—precise, unhurried, dangerous.

When he knelt, the sound of armor against stone rang like a muted bell.

“I am Makaria,” he said, voice low and even, carrying easily through the vaulted chamber. “My life belongs to the Crown. My sword belongs to the heir of Velmoria.”

Lucretia, standing beside her mother’s throne in a gown heavy with frost-crystal beading, felt the words ripple through her small frame.

Her world until now had been silence and marble, mirrors and tutors. Nothing in her ten careful years had ever entered with such presence—something alive, something unyielding, something…real.

The king rose just enough to rest a jeweled hand on the hilt of the young warrior’s sword.

“Then rise, Makaria,” Oren intoned, “and take your place at the side of our daughter. From this hour, you are her shadow and her shield.”

The warrior stood, towering yet perfectly still, the faint scent of iron and frost following him. His eyes—dark, unreadable—met Lucretia’s for a single heartbeat.

It was not the look of a servant nor the stare of a soldier awaiting orders. It was something steadier, like the quiet promise of a mountain before a storm.

For the first time in her life, the princess felt the walls of her golden cage shift.

Not break.

Not open.

But shift—just enough to let a single breath of unknown air slip inside.

From that night forward, Makaria walked a step behind her in every corridor, silent and watchful. Courtiers whispered of his speed, tutors resented his constant presence, and servants learned to move around the shadow that never left the heir’s side.

To Velmoria, he was the perfect protector.

To Lucretia, he was the first living soul who did not treat her like a jewel in a locked chest.

....

From the day Oriel Makaria was sworn to her side, the golden cage of Lucretia’s life gained a shadow—and in that shadow, a slow-growing warmth she didn’t yet know how to name.

For the young princess, who had only ever known the chill formality of the court, Oriel was a silent, living contradiction.

A monumental wall of duty and steel, yet the only soul who never demanded she play a role.

He merely was.

And because he offered nothing false, his quiet acknowledgment felt more genuine than any applause.

---

Year One

For the first few weeks, Oriel Makaria was nothing more than a dark shape posted at the edge of every lesson, as motionless as the obsidian mirrors lining the halls. He was an extension of the Gilded Veil itself—silent, formidable, and entirely necessary.

Ten-year-old Lucretia studied him the way she studied the constellations: carefully, from a distance, looking for patterns that might reveal a deeper meaning. She watched his breathing remain steady through hours of tedious etiquette drills and his focus never waver during her father’s grim political lectures. He was the only person in the palace who wasn't staring at her; he was staring for her.

During her third week of etiquette, as they walked the long corridor back to her chambers, Lucretia finally dared a whisper. The air felt thick with the magnitude of her rebellion.

"Do you ever get bored, standing like a statue?"

His helm tilted slightly, catching the light from a frost-crystal fixture. His voice, when it came, was a low, even murmur that held a hint of dry stone. "Statues do not breathe, Your Highness. I am required to do both."

Lucretia blinked, startled by the unexpected reply, then bit back a smile—the first unscripted reaction anyone had ever elicited from her.

The next week, she pushed further. She began intentionally dropping things: a silk glove, a treatise scroll, a silver pen. Oriel never broke protocol to catch them, but he always knelt with smooth, swift grace to retrieve them, presenting the item back to her without a single word.

One afternoon, Lucretia dropped a large, heavy textbook on Velmorian law with a pronounced thump. As Oriel bent to retrieve it, she leaned in slightly and muttered, "That volume could govern all of Sylvara and still have chapters left over."

He straightened, the book weighing heavily in his gauntleted hand. For the first time, his eyes—dark and intensely focused—met hers through the narrow slit of his visor.

"Then it is fortunate, Your Highness," he replied, his voice barely audible above the Palace's low hum, "that the laws of Velmoria are all you are required to know." He gave the answer of a loyal guard, but his tone carried a subtle irony that went entirely over the heads of her tutors.

Lucretia received the book, and felt a quiet, thrilling understanding pass between them. It was a secret, shared sentiment: a mutual acknowledgment that their existence in the palace was a form of gilded theater. From that day on, her protector was no longer just a dark shape. He was a silent accomplice, bound by duty, but possessed of an unexpected depth that promised a connection she desperately craved.

---

Year Two

By her eleventh winter, the rigid silence between Lucretia and Oriel Makaria had softened into a comfortable quiet—a protective layer separating them from the suffocating court.

Each morning, Oriel escorted her to the immense, rarely-used royal library, his black steel boots echoing against the marble floor. Lucretia would immediately dive into the forbidden sections, seeking out dusty tomes detailing the chaotic freedom of the outer kingdoms, while Oriel stood sentinel by the grand archway, a motionless monument to her security.

This is a beautiful progression, marking the key moment where Oriel begins to accept their shared intimacy, even if subtly.

She realized their isolation in the library offered a rare liberty. One snowy afternoon, as the windows obscured by falling white, Lucretia looked up from a map of the Frostspire mountains and murmured, "You don't have to call me 'Highness' when no one's around."

Oriel was polishing the gauntlet of his left hand, his movements precise and economical. "It is the proper form, Princess."

"But we're not in court," she countered, her voice low. "We're tucked away here. It's just us, the books, and the centuries. You don't call the books 'Your Highness.'"

He stopped polishing. The silence that followed felt heavy, carrying the weight of his duty and the sheer formality of his position. Lucretia thought she had pushed too far.

Then, almost imperceptibly, his head tilted. He did not look at her, keeping his focus on his armored hand, but the single word was given as a reluctant, priceless gift: "Lucretia."

The sound of her own name, plain and unadorned, spoken by him—a name she otherwise only heard pronounced with the stern formality of her parents—startled her more than any court ceremony. It was a secret, whispered acknowledgment of their equality in their shared prison.

From that day on, in the privacy of the library or during their late-night walks through the desolate terraces, Oriel would use her first name. It wasn't often, and he never used it in a sentence, but it was enough. It became their pact: a brief, soft word that meant more than all the gold and ceremony of the Gilded Veil.

---

Year Three

By her twelfth year, the lengthening days of spring brought a welcome relief from the palace’s chilly formality. Lucretia and Oriel Makaria were given longer escorts through the private gardens, the only place on the mountain summit where nature was allowed to defy the architecture. In the soft air, Lucretia began to forget to straighten her spine or measure her steps. Oriel’s presence was now less a guard rail and more a quiet certainty—a silent, unwavering anchor she didn't realize she leaned on.

One evening, after an excruciatingly dull economics lesson focused on the tariffs imposed by Zephyros Reach, Lucretia was boiling with frustration. She kicked at a loose, obsidian pebble until it skittered across the polished path and disappeared over a terrace ledge.

"I hate trade law," she blurted out, the sudden, sharp complaint shattering the evening calm. The words felt reckless and wonderfully treasonous.

Oriel, walking two paces behind, glanced at the pebble's disappearing arc. "Then master it quickly," he advised, his voice still low but carrying a new, pragmatic edge. "The faster you learn the law, the sooner you can safely ignore it."

A laugh escaped her—light, real, entirely unroyal—and it was loud enough to disturb the nearby nightingales. She turned to face him, her eyes bright with sudden mischief. "That's terrible advice! And brilliant. You sound like you know from experience."

"Perhaps," was all he offered, the word echoing his usual deflection. But this time, she saw it: the faintest, quickest curve at the corner of his mouth beneath the shadow of his helm. It wasn't a smile of duty or amusement; it was the fleeting acknowledgment of a shared secret.

The sight thrilled her. She realized he wasn't just standing by her side; he was standing with her. In that moment, the princess and the knight stood together, united by their quiet contempt for the golden rules of the palace.

---

Year Four

By her thirteenth year, their connection had deepened into a practical, physical pact. Sword practice became their shared secret—a breach of royal protocol that Lucretia fiercely guarded. Her formal lessons focused on diplomacy; Oriel’s private lessons taught her necessity.

They met after dusk in a seldom-used courtyard, its stone cracked and overlooked. Here, away from the watchful eyes of the court and the cold precision of her tutors, Oriel Makaria became her true instructor. He guided her small hands on the wooden hilt of the practice sword, his calloused thumb correcting the angle with patient, unyielding precision.

One evening, after the day had been thoroughly poisoned by a particularly dull economics lesson, her focus flagged. Her wrists trembled from repetition. She let her sword arm drop with a frustrated sigh.

"Again," Oriel said, his voice steady, ignoring her slump.

"My wrists hurt," she complained, flexing her fingers. "I can't hold it straight."

His expression was obscured by the shadows, but his intensity was palpable. "They'll hurt more when you drop the blade in a real fight, Your Highness. A princess who cannot defend herself is a kingdom's greatest weakness."

She huffed, planting her feet with a defiant stomp. "Princesses aren't supposed to fight. We are supposed to be protected. That's why they hired you."

Oriel slowly lowered his own wooden blade, his dark eyes meeting hers, calm and unyielding. The sheer force of his sincerity was a greater reprimand than any shout. "Then perhaps they should," he replied.

The lesson was delivered not just to the girl, but to the heir. Lucretia understood: he was teaching her to survive a world that saw her as a mere symbol. Her resistance dissolved, replaced by a surge of respect. The lesson ended not with a curtsy, but with her first genuine, unmeasured grin in months—a private smile shared only with the knight who saw her as more than just a crown.

---

Year Five

By her fourteenth year, the air between Lucretia and Oriel Makaria carried a palpable, comfortable weight—the quiet certainty of a bond forged in shared solitude. He was no longer just her protector; he was the vault for her true self. She rarely addressed him formally, and his replies were given with the guarded sincerity of a man speaking only to a trusted confidante.

In shadowed alcoves of the palace, she spoke without titles, her words tumbling out in the clumsy, raw honesty of a girl who had finally found a safe listener. She told him of her father’s cold expectations, her mother’s brittle perfection, and her own desperate fear of ruling the mountain throne.

Their secret sword practice was now less a lesson and more a form of mutual therapy, an hour where they could exert control over their bodies, if not their fates.

One evening, they stood together near a large crystal window, watching a cold, sweeping rain lash against the summit of the Crownspire. The weather had canceled their practice, leaving them cloistered in a vast, empty library wing.

"Do you ever wish you were somewhere else?" she asked, the question barely a breath above a whisper, echoing the profound, fundamental loneliness of her heart.

Oriel did not immediately answer. He stood motionless, his silhouette dark against the turbulent gray light. The question, she knew, was the most treasonous she had ever asked him.

"Sometimes," he finally admitted, the word a deep, reluctant resonance.

"Where?"

He hesitated for a long, heavy moment, the sound of the rain against the glass intensifying around them. When he spoke, he focused on the window, not her. "Somewhere I don't have to be anyone. Somewhere I am defined only by myself."

Lucretia rested her forehead against the cool glass, feeling the slight vibration of the wind. She saw her reflection: the perfect hair, the delicate lace, the priceless emerald pin—the uniform of a Queen-in-waiting.

"Me too," she agreed, the two simple words marking the true culmination of their years together. They were two children of different worlds, divided by a mountain and destiny, yet united in the desperate wish to discard the crowns that defined them.

No proclamations.

No reckless gestures.

Only years of shared silences, small rebellions, and conversations that belonged to no one but them.

Sword practice became their shared secret.

And somewhere in those stolen fragments, the princess learned that with Oriel Makaria she could simply be—not an heir, not a prophecy, just a girl breathing beside a boy who guarded her like the quiet promise of a mountain before a storm.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐈.𝐈𝐈𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐝

The intimacy between Princess Lucretia and her protector did not go unnoticed.

For years the Royal Family had tolerated the knight’s quiet presence, comforted by the illusion that a sword at their daughter’s side would shape her into a queen of steel.

But the court whispers grew persistent: the heir laughs when he is near, she lingers in the training yard too long, his eyes follow her like a vow.

To the Crownspire, affection was not a blessing; it was a crack in the marble.

It was Queen Ruoxi who moved first.

One late autumn afternoon she paused in a shadowed colonnade and watched her child, attempt a clumsy parry with a wooden blade.

Oriel Makaria stood nearby, helm tucked under his arm, correcting her stance with a patient hand on the hilt.

The princess threw her head back and laughed—an unguarded, ringing sound that startled the crows from the garden walls.

The knight’s posture softened almost imperceptibly at the music of it.

The Queen’s eyes narrowed to polished crystal.

That single unmeasured laugh was proof enough.

That night she met the King in the map room, the flicker of lanterns casting harsh gold across the charts of distant wars.

“The girl is distracted,” she said, voice even and surgical. “A sworn protector shields the body, not the heart. Comfort breeds weakness. If the bond deepens, it will compromise her duty.”

The King did not hesitate.

“She must be hardened for the crown. Remove the boy. Assign him to the outer reaches where sentiment cannot follow. She will learn that affection is a privilege, not a right.”

The order was sealed before dawn.

....

The separation was executed with the precision of a military campaign.

Oriel received the summons in silence, bowing once as the decree was read.

By sunrise he was gone—reassigned to the remote Stormwatch Garrison, a bleak fortress perched on the frozen cliffs of the Zephyros Reach.

His new post was a lifetime away in everything but distance: endless patrols against phantom raiders, no letters permitted, no contact with the royal heir.

Lucretia awoke to absence.

The corridor outside her chambers, once anchored by his quiet shadow, now held a stranger—Sir Kael Dorn, older, perfectly groomed, the sort of knight whose smile was carved for ceremony.

When she demanded to know where Oriel Makaria had been sent, her tutor answered with icy precision:

“The assignments of the guard are not the concern of the heir, Your Highness. Your concern is the upcoming treaty with Frostspire.”

The words landed like a blade slipped between ribs. There was no farewell, no explanation, no chance for a final word.

In the weeks that followed, the palace felt larger and emptier, its gilded halls echoing with a silence sharper than steel.

Kael escorted her to lessons, corrected her etiquette, and never once looked at her as if she were simply a girl.

Her parents praised her new composure, mistaking her frozen smiles for maturity.

But the hardening they sought did not bind her to the throne.

It seeded a quiet rebellion.

Every lesson became a mask; every polite curtsy, a silent vow to escape.

The golden cage had been locked, but Lucretia’s heart now hunted for the key—not to reclaim a knight, but to reclaim herself.

Stormwatch kept Oriel far beyond the reach of rumor.

Yet in the lonely hours of her thirteenth winter, Lucretia sometimes thought she felt the faintest echo of a watchful presence, like the memory of a mountain before a storm.