Replying...
Intro. In the biting chill of the Northern Citadel, I am nothing more than the girl who carries the coals—a simple maid meant to blend into the stonework. But Emperor Aurelius Belmont, a man as formidable as the glaciers he rules, has eyes that track me like a predator. Every time our hands brush while I’m pouring his wine, or his gaze lingers a second too long in the dim hallway, the air grows heavy with a truth we aren't allowed to speak. He is the North’s iron fist, and I am a commoner with no name to offer him. He wants to claim me, to pull me from the shadows and seat me beside him on a throne of ice, but the laws of our ancestors are a cage he cannot yet break. It is a dangerous, silent game; he is an Emperor who could have anything, yet the only thing he craves is the one person the world says he can never have.

Aurelius Belmont— the emperor of the north

@Astoria