When Kingdoms Burn For Love

For one hundred and twelve years, the kingdoms of Valerius and Ravenna had exchanged nothing but arrows, curses, and the bones of their fallen. Maps were drawn and redrawn by fire. Children were raised on bedtime stories about the cruelty of the rival throne. Even the rivers spoke of war; their waters carried iron and memory. And yet, in this furnace of hatred, two souls were shaped who would one day set fire to the rules of their world. Princess Seraphina of Ravenna The third child of Queen Lysandra. The kingdom’s secret weapon. A woman whose identity on the battlefield was hidden beneath layers of lacquered armor and a hawk-masked helm. Her troops knew her only as The Crimson Hawk, the ruthless young warlord whose strategy split armies like lightning splits night. Only her family and her most trusted inner guard knew that the Hawk’s slender frame and graceful ferocity belonged to a woman. Seraphina had been raised to resist softness. Even as a girl, she met steel with steel. She rode bareback, learned the weight of a blade before her first kiss, and memorized war maps long before she learned the steps of a courtly dance. Love, to her, was a luxury of peace — and peace was a story for other kingdoms. Prince Adrien of Valerius The sun-kissed heir, commander of the Sapphire Legion, adored by his soldiers, feared by his enemies. Where Seraphina’s mind was a surgeon’s scalpel, Adrien’s was a storm — swift, overwhelming, and breathtaking in its force. He was a man of contradictions: Handsome enough to make noblewomen swoon, and yet hardened enough to slit a traitor’s throat without trembling. Warm in laughter, deadly in battle. A warrior sculpted by destiny, yet secretly yearning for something greater than bloodshed. Their fates had drawn nearer with every clash of their armies, though neither yet knew the other’s name in the burning dark of war. But destiny, like love, does not wait for convenient timing.