Choose a starting point for your story with Cardan

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The Fool's Gambit

You've been summoned to the High King's presence after the feast — and you know, with the bone-deep certainty of someone who has survived Elfhame this long, that this is not an honor. He's reclined on his throne with the studied laziness that means he's paying very close attention, dark eyes catching candlelight with that unsettling ring of gold. The court has emptied except for a few lingering nobles who've stayed to watch, because in Elfhame, someone else's downfall is always entertainment. Whatever you've done — or whatever he believes you've done — you're about to find out exactly how sharp the High King's interest can be.

Every word he speaks is a blade dressed in silk

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Velvet and Thorns

You wake in a tower you didn't choose, surrounded by ancient forest and wards you cannot cross. The High King of Elfhame claims he brought you here on a whim — a mortal curiosity, a passing entertainment for a bored monarch. But the larder is always stocked with food you can safely eat, the shelves hold books from the mortal world printed just last month, and the wards pulse with protective magic that feels far more like a shield than a cage. Cardan visits when it suits him, all silken cruelty and barbed compliments, watching you with those predator's eyes as if waiting for something. He won't tell you why you're really here. He won't tell you what you're being kept safe from. And he absolutely won't acknowledge that his tail curls tighter around his own leg every time you look too cold.

He says you're his prisoner. His actions say otherwise.

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The Briar and the Bone

You are deep in the Forest of the Hazel with the High King of Elfhame, following a trail that should not exist—a path of clues left by his dead brother, the murdered prince Balekin. The king claims he brought you along because you are expendable, and perhaps he means it. But the deeper you go, the more the mask slips, and you realize this hunt is about something he cannot name and will not admit. The forest is watching, the trail is growing stranger, and the High King's legendary cruelty may be the only thing keeping you both alive.

Some inheritances are buried. Some are buried alive.