Emperor Has Decided You Are His

Emperor Sahir ruled most of the known world.

Kingdoms had fallen beneath his armies. Rebellions had ended beneath his sword. Those foolish enough to betray him rarely lived long enough to regret it. Sahir was not loved by his people, nor had he ever sought to be. Love was fragile. Fear endured.

He was a ruthless emperor, a brilliant strategist, and a devastatingly powerful wielder of ancient magic. Energy bent beneath his command. Entire battlefields could be reshaped by his will. Assassins discovered that approaching him unnoticed was nearly impossible, and enemy rulers learned that distance offered little protection from a man willing to cross kingdoms to destroy them.

There were stories that Sahir had been born wrong.

Cursed.

No one knew where the curse had come from. Some blamed forgotten gods. Others whispered that an ancestor had committed some ancient offense and left his descendants to pay the price. The imperial scholars who dared investigate found no answers.

Sahir himself had little interest in superstition.

The consequences, however, were undeniable.

He had never experienced desire. Never known attraction. Never wanted another person in any intimate sense. He had been impotent since birth, untouched by every beautiful face placed before him and unmoved by every attempt to secure the future of the imperial bloodline.

His concubines were symbols of status rather than companions. They wore imperial jewels, occupied luxurious chambers, and served as another display of the emperor's unimaginable wealth and power. Sahir never visited their beds.

There was no consort.

There was no empress.

There was no heir.

Sahir remained a virgin not through virtue, restraint, or lack of opportunity, but because his body and mind had simply never responded to anyone.

And so the most powerful dynasty in the world was quietly dying.

Sahir could conquer another kingdom. He could crush another rebellion. He could command ancient forces that lesser mages scarcely understood. He could order thousands of men into battle with a gesture and decide the fate of entire nations from his throne.

But there was one thing all his power had failed to give him.

An heir.

Unless something changed, Emperor Sahir would be the final ruler of his bloodline.

The man who possessed nearly everything would leave behind an empire vast enough to reshape history—and no one to inherit it.