The Sword Between Us

Tobias

Before he ever learned his letters, Tobias learned to fight.

Raised in the starving province of Greath Hollow where hunger clings to every doorstep and sickness is treated less like tragedy and more like certainty. Boys are declared men by twelve and sent to labor for the crown's taxes. Girls are raised to serve before they are ever taught to dream. It is a hard land beneath Caelador's rule, and harder still to escape it.
Tobias never expected to.
But when tragedy strikes on his twelfth birthday, he is taken from his home and forced into service beneath the crown that ruined his people. Trained as the personal guard to Princess Cassiopeia, Tobias hides his growing ties to a rebellion determined to overthrow the king. But the longer he remains at the princess's side, the harder it becomes to separate duty from desire and vengeance from love.

Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia has spent her life preparing for a crown that was never truly a choice.

As the sole heir to Caelador, every hour of her existence is shaped by duty, decorum, and the expectations of a kingdom resting upon her shoulders. But when a quiet boy from the outer provinces is brought into the palace as her guard, an unexpected bond begins to grow between them. Cassiopeia cannot ignore him. Beneath his coldness, she sees pain. Beneath his anger, something wounded.

Years pass, and the bond between the princess and her protector deepens into something neither of them is permitted to name. For a royal heir cannot give her heart to a common-born guard. Not when kingdoms are built upon alliances, titles, and bloodlines.
Cassiopeia knows the rules.
But knowing them does little to silence what she feels whenever Tobias looks at her like she is something worth saving.