A cross-cultural romance with comedy, drama, magic, worldbuilding, and bilingual shenanigans.
Leif is a gardener in thrall to a mysterious debt, serving his native Sønheim at a foreign embassy. Thorn is a Knight of Ceannis who got severely burned while dragonslaying, and was rewarded with a cushy job guarding the embassy gates. (“Cushy” if you discount the smugglers, monsters, vampire aristocrats, industrial accidents, and slow-brewing ethical disasters….)
Thorn doesn’t speak Leif’s language too well at first — but as they get to know each other, he finds a lot of reasons to learn.