by Natalie Harris
Following a disastrous tournament, King Uther announces a grand ball to force Prince Arthur into an arranged marriage. Feeling cornered and humiliated under the weight of his royal obligations, Arthur turns to the one person he truly trusts—his servant, Merlin. Seeing Arthur breaking down under the weight of the crown, Merlin makes a quiet promise to find a way out, setting off a chain of events that will test their bond and reshape their kingdom.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 4 Oct 2026, 05:08 UTC
Entry forecast updated 4 Oct 2026, 05:08 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 26% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 16% of similar stories
Both levers trail the field
Traffic and conversion are both below comparable stories. Cadence is the first lever — stories posting near-daily reached 25 followers 17% of the time; stories posting every few days almost never did. Get the flow going, then re-check conversion.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 2–4 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.
