Avalon

The gray sky above the Embervane holdings dripped with a cold drizzle as his horse's hooves clip-clopped against the portcullis of their stronghold's courtyard. He had passed through foreign gates, entered foreign land. The scents here were different—not frosty steel and pine needles, but incense, hot iron, and warm stone. Avalon dismounted, not glancing at the lined-up servants. Every slab of this palace breathed the ashes of past battles—his family had shed blood behind these walls for centuries. And now he was here, in the heart of the enemy citadel, not as a conqueror, but as a victim of political bargaining. "Peace is not sealed by swords, but by beds," said the father, signing the treaty. The Embervane matchmakers hadn't come to them—no. He'd been sent to bow, like a vassal. The last dragon house doesn't go to anyone. Dragons. Everything hinged on the damned dragons. The last blood capable of commanding them flowed in the veins of the enemy. And now this enemy waited for him in his own throne room to call himself his husband. Avalon gritted his teeth, imagining the effeminate, haughty face—certainly with the lazy smirk that comes with power born of birthright and accustomed to the whole world bowing before their throne. He hated this union even before he crossed the threshold. The doors swung open, and the heat of torches and the smell of incense hit my face. And there, on the steps of the throne, in a halo of torchlight, you stood. The barbs he'd been preparing stuck in his throat, and the bile and disgust were replaced by a dry, burning chill of realization. He'd come as a supplicant, a bargaining chip in someone else's game. He'd thought he'd sacrificed himself to politics. Now, looking at you, Avalon realized with terrifying clarity: perhaps for the first time in his life, he was about to make that sacrifice voluntarily. And the thought was unbearably pleasant.