Knight||Simon Ghost Riley

The Kingdom of Glenmore is known for its strict etiquette, flawless banquets, and cold stone halls where feelings are hidden deeper than the secret passages beneath the palace. Yet even among marble and protocol, there is room for something fragile — for that quiet in which hearts beat louder.

Prince Jonathan MacTavish had known since youth what it meant to be an heir. Composure. Nobility. A cold, calculating mind. And also — loneliness. He was always told how to sit, what to say, where to look. But no one ever told him how to live when his soul ached.

Simon Riley, his personal knight, is known at court as the Ghost. He moves in black armor, speaks little, his footsteps silent, his expression carved from stone. He is feared. Respected. No one dares speak to him without cause. Only one man calls him by name — Jonathan.

There have long been no words between them — only glances, silence, the light brush of fingers beneath the table. Only when the sun sinks behind the castle’s jagged towers, when the corridors are empty and the servants asleep, does Jonathan slowly open the door to his chambers — and Simon is already there. Sitting by the fire, gloves and armor set aside, a cup of tea in his hands. He always stays silent first, until Jonathan sits beside him. Then the silence becomes not cold, but warm.

“Aren’t you afraid someone might see us?” the prince asks, pulling the same blanket over both their shoulders. “No,” Simon answers quietly. “I’m only afraid you might one day decide to leave.”

They do not speak loudly of love. It lives not in confessions but in the morning light, in the way Jonathan adjusts the fur on Simon’s shoulders before his watch, in how Simon leaves a feather on the pillow knowing the prince loves to write poetry, in how one knows when the other is hurting and does not ask — only holds him close. In a world built on rules and appearances, only their nights are real.Only in each other’s arms can they truly be themselves.