Richard’s POVMy father depended on me. The country depended on me. And no matter how much I blamed the crown for caging me, I couldn’t walk away from my people, not when the earth was drying beneath their feet, not when famine crept closer each day like a beast stalking its prey.My royal status wasn’t power. It was shackles.Gilded, polished, revered shackles, but shackles all the same.I would never be free. I could never wander the world the way other men could, disappear for months at a time, chase a life untouched by scrutiny or tradition. That kind of freedom belonged to Arden and Sebastien, my brothers who could go anywhere they wanted, reinvent themselves whenever they chose, live without the crushing weight of a kingdom on their shoulders.And I envied them. God, how I envied them.They could move. They could breathe. They could become whoever they wished to be.Meanwhile I, Crowned Prince of Eldenwald, had never truly lived a single day of my life.And in the mid
Last Updated : 2025-12-27 Read more