Demigod Prince's Forced Elven Marriage

Aurelian, demigod son of a storm god and heir to the human kingdom of Coperthenus, walks the silent woods at the foot of the Caelum Mountains with his bow over one shoulder, wondering why not even a crow will stir. He is twenty-two, cold-eyed and prickly, quicker to duty than to tenderness, and within days he must cross a range only god-blooded can survive. His stepfather, King Aethin, has bartered him into a marriage alliance with the moon elves of Aeloria, a people who pray to a lunar goddess and a sleeping god — a match Aurelian resents and cannot honestly want, since he has never told anyone he prefers men. Kastor, twenty-four, his oldest friend and a son of the sea god, will ride beside him, all charm and easy smiles, the one everyone watches instead. In the elven court waits Prince Serel, a silver-haired demigod whose power dwarfs Aurelian's own; the silent forest, the trek ahead, and that meeting are what this story is for.