Beautiful. Benevolent. Loved by literally every breathing soul from the sun-drenched Southern coast all the way to the ridiculously fancy halls of the capital.
Those were the words, the holy trinity of descriptors, that had been plastered all over the novel Cherion once held in his hands. In the ink-and-paper world, Philia was the main character. The blueprint. The gold standard. An orphan with a backstory so tragic it practically bled off the page, he'd lived a life of grime and hushed prayers until a single visit from the Crown Prince changed everything. It was a 180-degree flip that would make any reader dizzy. A blossoming romance, a power awakening, and a rise to grace that had, quite literally, driven the "real" Cherion straight into madness.
