The Unsaid Duchess

A guarded duchess, a grumpy prince, and a court that calls control "care." When a bond becomes a weapon, Isolde must claim her voice—before the palace rewrites her love into a leash. Isolde has mastered the art of survival in a palace that smiles while it tightens its grip. Every rule is wrapped in courtesy, every warning delivered like advice, and every private fear treated as proof that she needs to be managed. As the realm edges toward a fragile treaty, the court needs its duchess compliant, calm, and silent. Then Caspian returns to court, all hard restraint and watchful patience, the kind of man who never wastes a word and never reaches for what isn't freely offered. He is inconveniently steady in a place built on leverage. He is also the one person who seems to recognize what everyone else pretends not to see—that Isolde's "fragility" is being carefully cultivated. When an ancient bond stirs between them, the palace moves fast to claim it. A ribbon offered as protection. A mirror chamber designed to "clarify." A council that turns consent into a debate. And behind it all, Selene's soft voice keeps suggesting that love is safest when it is controlled. But Isolde is done paying for peace with her own disappearance. If the court wants her silence, it will have to take it in daylight, in front of witnesses, with the realm listening. And if Caspian truly means what his restraint promises, he'll have to choose her voice over the palace's version of order—no matter what it costs them both. A royal court romantasy of guarded hearts, grumpy/sunshine tension, and a consent-forward love that refuses to become a leash.