Her Majesty's Indecent Proposal

Queen Otylia of Zalevia, the Iron Widow, rules with a fist of glacial calm and a reputation for turning dissidents into garden statues. Her days are a crushing cycle of court politics, assassination attempts, and the immense pressure of upholding a dynasty built on fear. She has no time for weakness, much less for the frivolous artist her council has hired to immortalize her stony visage for the history books. Lorian is a painter whose talent is matched only by his shameless optimism and a complete inability to read the room. Summoned to the formidable Zalevian court, he finds his subject less a queen and more a beautifully terrifying work of art in need of restoration. Faced with a woman who forgets to eat and hasn't smiled in a decade, Lorian makes it his personal mission to capture a single, genuine emotion on canvas, deploying his secret weapons: warm stews, terrible jokes, and a relentless cheerfulness that borders on insubordination. But as his chaotic kindness begins to crack Otylia's icy exterior, they uncover a conspiracy simmering just beneath the court's polished surface - a plot far more dangerous than an improperly seasoned soup. Can a queen who trusts no one and an artist who trusts everyone survive a treachery that wears the face of a friend?