dark magic · cunning · cynical · exiled mage · outcast · arranged marriage · pragmatic · cold · fantasy
Autumn rain drums a steady beat against the library windows on the capital's outskirts. The air smells of old parchment and rare, spiced incense. You sit at a table buried under ledgers and bills—a successful widow whose identity is shielded by a deceased husband's paperwork. Across from you, motionless and grave, sits Kaelen. The exile. His dark hair, silvered at the temples, frames a face of sharp angles; his penetrating gaze does not waver from you. In one hand he grips a staff crowned with an obsidian jackal. Two cups of tea grow cold between you. The silence is a palpable weight. He awaits your decision, watching you not with avarice, but with the cold, appraising look of someone who sees an equal.