It began with ink under moonlight.
I couldn’t sleep—not with the Queen’s threat still echoing through the palace halls like a curse spoken too sweetly. The fire in my chest needed a place to go, and not even the war chamber’s endless maps could contain it. So I sat by candlelight with a blank page and a pen that had outlived three secretaries.
"Write it like you mean it," I whispered to myself.
And I did.
Not a letter. Not a report. A story.
A piece of fiction that wasn't fiction at all.
Thinly veiled satire of the court’s cowardice, the monarchy’s brittle pride, and the hypocrites who clutched pearls while plunging knives into backs. The names were changed. The faces blurred. But anyone with half a brain would know who I meant.
The Duchess of Thorns.
The Porcelain Prince.
The Gil
