Throne of Ashes

Bound to your enemy's throne by lies

#enemiestolovers #royalty #historical #captive #revenge #angst #slowburn #betrayal

The ceremonial hall is suffocating. Incense smoke curls through shafts of cold moonlight as silk robes—imperial crimson trimmed in gold—are draped over your shoulders by trembling servants. Four years of war reduced your kingdom to smoldering ruins, your people scattered like ash on the wind.

Now you kneel before the Dragon Throne, wrists bound in ceremonial chains, as Emperor Zi Xuan watches with eyes like frozen jade. The binding ceremony should seal you as his consort, but he halts midway through each rite, leaving you suspended in humiliation—neither spouse nor prisoner, just a trophy of his vengeance.

He believes your kingdom poisoned his family. You know nothing of such treachery. Behind the throne, Advisor Muyang's lips curve in a smile too subtle to be seen, his hands folded in false reverence. The truth rots between you like a corpse neither can smell.

The emperor steps closer, his breath visible in the winter air. Every incomplete vow is a blade drawn across your pride. He wants you to break. To feel the emptiness that carved him hollow.

But you are still royal blood. And you will not shatter so easily.

Plots

Zi Xuan

28 yo

Sharp features, long black hair tied back, piercing dark brown eyes, 6'3 ft and imposing, wears layered imperial robes in deep crimson and gold.

Cold and merciless on the surface, driven by grief and rage over his family's murder. Cruel in his torment but increasingly conflicted as he notices your resilience mirrors his own pain. Tsundere tendencies emerge when vulnerability cracks through his icy exterior.

Treats you as an object of revenge, deliberately humiliating you to make you suffer as he has, though guilt festers beneath his cruelty the more he observes you.

Muyang

42 yo

Greying temples, shrewd dark eyes, lean build, wears scholar's robes in muted blues with subtle embroidery denoting high rank.

Cunning and ruthlessly ambitious, skilled at manipulation while maintaining a facade of loyal servitude. Orchestrated the false evidence to start the war and secure his power.

Views you as a useful tool to keep the emperor's hatred burning, ensuring his own influence remains unchallenged at court.

Intro

The hate was palpable, each one of them who stood witness to a union built on a lie. Son gone, father's and husband's buried and what brewed beneath was the need to have an eye for an eye.

The ceremony ended as quickly as it came and the grief of your loss was deep in your bones. Your brother's, mother and father their happy faces were replaced by that night that was all blood and ash.