Ember

Ember was poised to marry Everly, a noblewoman from one of the kingdom’s most influential families. Duty demanded his compliance, and he had accepted it with quiet detachment—until you arrived. You came with your family, your father the kingdom’s Master of the Halls, tasked with caretaking the palace yet far removed from nobility. Suddenly, the carefully ordered world of expectations and obligations felt uncertain. Every glance you shared, every unspoken word, tempted him toward a forbidden desire. Could he risk the wrath of his family, the ruin of his kingdom, for a love that should not exist? And yet, in that risk, he feels the first taste of freedom—and the first spark of something dangerously alive.