After the night on the terrace, after the kiss, after the whispered promise against his skin, Arthur couldn't sleep for a single moment.
It wasn't fear that kept him awake—
but the overwhelming responsibility Victoria had placed in his hands when she had murmured:
"I want you to be my husband."
Loving her had always been effortless.
Marrying her… was politically impossible.
At least to everyone else.
The law was cruel in its simplicity:
the consort of a reigning queen had to be of noble birth—a prince, a duke, or at the very least a member of a house with royal blood.
Arthur Lionheart was none of those things.
Or rather—
not yet.
Sitting in his study while dawn filtered through London's fog, Arthur felt the weight of the situation pressing on his chest. The city was waking slowly, unaware of the storm preparing to unfold behind the quiet corridors of power.
He ran a hand through his hair, exhausted.
If I don't create nobility for myself,
I'll lose Victoria.
And if I let her fight for me, she'll lose her kingdom.
"Damn it…" he muttered. "What am I supposed to do?"
And then the spark came.
Not a foolish idea.
Not a crude forgery.
Not a clumsy deception.
But the reconstruction of a real noble identity, one that had truly existed, forgotten by history, buried under centuries of dust and incomplete records.
A sleeping dynasty.
A lost bloodline.
A perfect void waiting to be filled.
Arthur Lionheart didn't need to become noble.
He needed to become undeniably noble.
To resurrect a vanished house.
To breathe life back into a title that survived only in the margins of history books.
Audacious.
Reckless.
Almost madness.
And yet, entirely possible.
His mind drifted back to something he'd once read: in the eighteenth century, a small sovereign branch of the Nassau dynasty—the House of Nassau-Saarbrücken—had ruled a tiny principality along the Saar river.
Recognized.
Independent.
And extinguished.
During the chaos of the French Revolutionary Wars, their lands were annexed.
Their archives scattered.
Their lineage shattered.
The last legitimate heir, Prince Henry Louis, died in 1797.
A younger cousin reportedly fled west.
After that—silence.
A broken line.
A name without confirmed successors.
"A dynasty without a corpse," Arthur murmured, grazing the edge of an old map. "A principality dissolved into dust… and a bloodline with no proven end."
A perfect place to step in.
A place to be reborn.
He would create himself.
"Henry."
His confidant entered the room short of breath. A heavy man, round-faced and permanently flushed, but far sharper than his jovial appearance suggested.
"Arthur, you haven't slept and—"
He froze.
Spread across the table were maps, notarized documents, heraldic sketches, genealogies, vellum manuscripts.
"...what the hell is all this?"
Arthur leaned on the desk, eyes steady.
"Henry, it's time to do something immense. Something that will make half of Europe tremble."
A beat.
Then:
"I'm going to create a legitimate noble identity for myself."
Henry stared at him as if he'd gone mad.
"Arthur… you… you can't—"
"Yes," Arthur cut him off calmly. "I can."
He pointed at the map of Nassau-Saarbrücken.
"That house is extinct. No confirmed heir. No evidence to the contrary. Their archives were destroyed, split, sold, lost. And we have everything we need—money, historians, notaries. If we reconstruct a plausible genealogy… it becomes real."
Henry swallowed hard.
"You want to become a… prince?"
Arthur smiled slowly.
A smile that tasted like destiny.
"Prince Arthur of Nassau-Saarbrücken."
He whispered it like a prophecy.
"I think it suits me."
Henry collapsed onto a chair.
"Alright… fine… but what do we need?"
Arthur began pacing.
"We need an invisible team."
Historians to rebuild the Nassau-Saarbrücken lineage piece by piece.
Notaries to certify every document.
Archivists with access to private collections in Vienna and Munich.
Heraldic experts to restore the blue lion rampant of Nassau-Saarbrücken.
Goldsmiths to craft a princely seal in gold and midnight enamel.
Shadow diplomats to reconstruct a plausible past:
an illegitimate descendant of a cadet branch, raised far from the Rhine, lost in damaged records, forgotten… until now.
"We won't forge," Arthur said. "We'll reconstruct.
We'll fill omissions with truths history never had the chance to record."
Henry trembled.
"Arthur… this is madness."
"No," Arthur replied softly. "This is politics."
Then his expression softened.
"And love—when it's real—deserves the very best politics."
Arthur's study became the beating heart of a resurrected principality.
Private archives were opened.
Copyists worked day and night on linen parchment.
Goldsmiths carved the Nassau lion into a disc of dark enamel.
Historians traveled to an abbey in Alsace to access forgotten records.
Lawyers and genealogists assembled a hundred-page dossier.
Every detail worked toward one unbreakable truth:
Arthur Lionheart was Arthur von Nassau-Saarbrücken, rightful heir of a sovereign house.
Not a lie.
Not a fabrication.
A historical void—filled.
Henry placed the final dossier on the table, hands trembling.
"Arthur… it's perfect. They can't deny it."
Arthur picked up the most important document:
The Recognition of Nassau-Saarbrücken Succession.
The gold-and-black seal shimmered.
His new name gleamed in embossed lettering.
"Victoria will never bow for me," he whispered.
"And I will not be the man who costs her the crown."
He closed the engraved box slowly, reverently.
"It's time."
Henry blinked.
"We're taking it to Buckingham?"
Arthur shook his head.
"No."
A spark of audacity ignited in his eyes.
"We're sending it diplomatic show to the Privy Council."
He grabbed his coat.
Slipped on his gloves.
Lifted the Nassau-Saarbrücken box.
On the threshold, without turning back, he murmured:
"It's time the Queen of England find out that the man she loves is a prince."