The halls of House Valen were colder than the winter wind outside.
They were built from old stone and older traditions—unbending, gray, and silent. Just like the people who lived in them. Except for Joe.
Joe was the youngest son, but you wouldn't know it from the way his family treated him. His brothers trained with swords and shouted orders. His father hosted war councils and drank with lords. His mother smiled, but only when important guests were watching. Joe was never invited to those gatherings.
He was small, quiet, and too kind for a world that didn't reward softness. He helped the cooks carry vegetables. He tended the overgrown garden alone. He read books about plants and birds while his brothers sparred in the yard.
When he was twelve, one of his brothers shoved him into the mud after he tried to stop a servant from being punished.
When he was fifteen, his father forgot his name in front of a visiting duke.
When he was seventeen, Joe stopped trying to be seen.
He lived like a ghost in his own home—eating quietly, sleeping in the farthest chamber, never speaking unless spoken to.
But he never became bitter.
He still smiled at maids who dropped trays.
He still left food out for hungry stray dogs behind the stables.
He still believed there had to be a place for someone like him.
---
That place came unexpectedly.
In the form of a letter.
It arrived by black rider, sealed with crimson wax bearing the sigil of House Drakemire—a dragon coiled around a spire.
Joe's father read it once, then twice, then crumpled it in his fist, his face draining of color.
"You?" he whispered, looking at Joe like he was cursed. "This has to be a joke."
Joe tilted his head. "What is it?"
"You've been… requested," his father said slowly, "for marriage. By the Drakemire heiress herself."
Silence.
Joe blinked.
"…Me?"
---
Everyone knew who she was.
Lady Seraphina Drakemire.
The only daughter of the High Warlord. The most feared noblewoman in the realm. She had rejected five suitors, broken one's jaw in a duel, and sent another into exile after catching him speaking ill of her behind her back.
She commanded armies.
Joe could barely command his own heartbeat.
Yet she had chosen him.
No one understood it.
Least of all Joe.
---
That night, he sat under the stars in the back garden, knees drawn to his chest. The moonlight painted the flowers silver as he whispered into the air.
"Why me?"
The flowers didn't answer.
But in the distance, a carriage bearing the Drakemire crest cut through the fog, moving toward House Valen.
Inside sat a woman cloaked in red and shadow, eyes glowing like embers in the dark.
And on her lips, a single name:
"Joe."