Chapter 1 The Jewel of Royalkins
Nahim Jane had grown accustomed to the rhythm of the kingdom. Dawn was always his hour of clarity, when the palace still slept and the cape kingdom outside its walls hummed like a beast stretching from slumber. From the narrow balcony of his chambers, he often leaned against the stone rail and breathed in the mingled scents of the empire—the salt from the distant harbors, the faint smoke of blacksmiths kindling fires, and the sweetness of fresh bread already baking in the markets.
The Royalkins Empire was not a place that whispered. It roared. Gold-trimmed towers scraped the sky, gardens bloomed with foreign flowers, and the streets beneath them pulsed with traders, scholars, and soldiers. Yet Nahim knew better than most that beneath its beauty, the kingdom carried fractures too carefully hidden.
His eyes often wandered to the highest terrace of the palace, where a figure sometimes appeared long before the court assembled. Angela Hills.
She was the heiress, the empire’s crown jewel, the daughter of both legacy and expectation. And though Nahim was no prince, he had spent enough years within the palace to see more than what her portraits or public processions revealed.
Angela was grace in motion, yet restless beneath the weight of tradition. She walked like someone rehearsing destiny, but her laughter—when she allowed herself to laugh—spilled like water against stone, wild and uncontainable.
That morning, as Nahim stood in his balcony, he saw her there again—draped in pale silk, her dark hair braided and pinned with the smallest ruby clips. She was not yet dressed for council. Instead, she leaned against the terrace railing as though the empire below belonged not to her father, but to her alone.
Nahim swallowed, as he often did when the thought struck him that one day, she would be Queen. The heiress of the Royalkins Empire and the cape kingdom’s beloved princess. A symbol, a treasure, a future written before her birth.
Angela, however, never lived solely for the crown.
By midmorning, she slipped from the grandeur of council halls into the quieter corners of her life. The stables knew her more intimately than her throne; the libraries held more of her secrets than the court ladies who shadowed her. She had trained herself in diplomacy, in politics, in swordsmanship and music, but when given a moment, Angela chose freedom.
She often rode beyond the palace walls, into the sprawling fields where peasants toiled. She spoke with farmers, laughed with their children, and tasted the coarse bread baked in homes without servants. These moments gave her a sense of belonging to the people she would one day rule—not from a throne, but from their soil.
In those stolen rides and midnight wanderings, suitors found her.
Not the princes lined up by her father’s advisors, but the men of her own kind—nobles, scholars, and knights who dared to charm the princess when the King was not watching. Some offered her poetry; others offered her daring glances across banquet halls. Angela did not refuse their company, though her heart remained untouched. She explored, she learned, she allowed herself to feel the stirrings of what love might one day be.
Nahim Jane was among those who watched her from a distance, though he dared not speak his longing. He knew his place too well—respected within the palace, yet far from royal blood. Still, whenever she passed him in the courtyards, offering him the same kind smile she gave the guards and servants, something within him ached.
That evening, Angela returned from council with her father, the King, her posture impeccable, her face serene. To the world, she was the perfect princess, but Nahim caught the flicker in her eyes—tiredness, yes, but also hunger. Not for food, not for jewels, but for something untold.
Later, she wandered into the library, where rows of manuscripts towered like ancient guardians. She trailed her fingers along the spines of old books until she found one bound in cracked leather. Sitting by the fire, she read with the kind of focus that made the world disappear.
Nahim entered quietly, delivering documents to a scribe. He should have left immediately, but his eyes betrayed him. They lingered. Angela did not look up, though he wondered if she noticed the silence stretching too long.
Finally, she spoke without glancing at him. “Nahim, you’re staring again.”
Heat rushed to his face. “Forgive me, Princess. I only—”
She closed the book, turning those piercing eyes on him, softened by amusement. “I only jest. You look as though you carry more secrets than the empire itself.”
His throat tightened. “Perhaps the empire is safer with some secrets kept.”
For a moment, silence stretched between them. Then, she smiled—not the polite curve of lips she gave courtiers, but a rare, genuine smile that lit her face in a way portraits could never capture.
Nahim bowed low, retreating before his courage betrayed him further.
Angela watched him leave, a trace of curiosity in her gaze. She had grown used to attention, to men bending under her beauty, to being admired like a jewel on display. But Nahim’s silence, his restraint, unsettled her in a way she couldn’t yet name.
Outside, the palace bells tolled, announcing the close of day. The streets buzzed with music, children’s laughter, and the clatter of wheels against cobblestone. Beyond the walls, the kingdom thrived, unaware of the undercurrents threading through its heart.
And though Angela Hills lay in her bed that night beneath embroidered silks, her mind wandered—not to duty, not to council decrees, but to the feeling of a world larger than what her crown would ever allow.
Far beyond the horizon, in places where myths whispered of banished races and hidden worlds, something stirred. A presence neither she nor Nahim could yet imagine.
But for now, her life belonged to dawns like these—golden mornings, secret smiles, and the fleeting promise of love untainted by fate.
The tides, however, were already shifting. And when they came crashing, they would sweep her into a story no crown could shield her from.
