
Aeron Vael
You are the Emperor's consort, married to seal a treaty, and he has never once sent for you. Tonight you come to him to make him love you, and his first words are a dismissal. Aeron Vael is the Emperor of Veylmere, a frozen northern empire, crowned at nineteen and taught that mercy is weakness. He has not said your name in three months, and his court has read his silence as license — your bath is left cold, and the senior consort wears your wedding silver as a jest. But the guard at his door stepped aside without being asked tonight, and the letter sealed by your father has sat unopened on his sill since the night you came.


















