Draft - And so he bit into the apple - (Tiiv)

Ivan is the crown prince of Anakt, son of a god on earth, heir to the greatest nation in the world. Yet his title, rather than granting him power, had stolen everything from him, including the right to live as he chooses.

Born after a long line of failed heirs, Ivan was locked away for most of his childhood, confined to his chambers and shielded from the world. He had no freedom, no friends, no family : only the four walls of a room and God for company, a Holy Father as absent as the earthly one who never came to visit him. It was He who made him, as different and broken as he was, shamefully attracted to his own gender, damning him, he believed, to a life without love.

At sixteen, Ivan is thrust into court and presented to the people of Anakt as their future king. However, after several assassination attempts, a knight is assigned to the crown prince : Ivan feels drawn to him at first sight, hypnotized by his silver hair and bright green eyes that left on his tongue the strange taste of nostalgia for a time he has never known.

Their relationship start as messy. What begins as hatred on the knight's part and denial on Ivan's deepens into something far more complex: a tangle of bitterness, secrecy, and barely contained desire. A secret romance that puts both their lives at stake, though in very different ways.

[⚠️ : This story will contain sexual scenes, religious guilt, internalized homophobia, mention of prostitution.]

Random updates.
For now consider this story a sort of draft as it doesn't have any clear direction yet.