Vasilios
The flame had begun to flicker.
I could feel it in the walls.
The house responded to blood, always had. To tension. To power. To change.
And something in Maryna Valmont was changing.
Not with ceremony.
Not with force.
But with quiet inevitability—like the moment before a storm, when the trees go still and the air thickens and even the birds seem to hold their breath.
She had been quiet these last few days. Observing. Wandering. Dreaming, no doubt. And yet, her silence said more than her defiance ever had.
The marked girls always broke in stages.
Terror first.
Then resistance.
Then the slow collapse of will.
And finally… desire.
But Maryna didn't follow the pattern.
She had not screamed.
She had not yielded.
She had not begged.
She watched.
And that was more dangerous than any scream.
I sat in the south wing's solarium, watching the light die behind the stained-glass windows. The wine in my glass had gone untouched. Even its scent did nothing to dull the weight in my chest.
Shiva was moving.
I'd seen her watching the girl—sliding through corridors like smoke, leaving no trace but jasmine and pressure. Shiva didn't hover unless she sensed something worth claiming.
And she had only ever claimed power.
Which meant Maryna's awakening was no longer just mine to manage.
The Court was stirring.
They could smell it.
Not her blood.
Not yet.
But her potential.
It leaked into the walls. Stirred the old magic. Triggered the House's defenses. Whispers behind mirrors. Doors locking without touch.
She was beginning to fit the shape prophecy had carved long ago.
Her mother had been the same.
Beautiful.
Quiet.
Deceptively compliant.
But she had carried a bloodline too old to trace cleanly. Her father… a whisper of flame and rebellion. A bloodline marked not by nobility, but by sovereignty. Untamed.
It wasn't until after the girl's mother disappeared that I began to suspect what had truly been born in the Valmont line.
Not just purity.
Not just magic.
But will.
And now that inheritance lived inside Maryna, pushing against the world we'd trapped her in like a blade against silk.
I had bound her, yes.
She wore my mark.
But even that might not be enough.
Because binding a creature like Maryna—if that's what she truly was—required more than possession.
It required belief.
And I did not yet believe she would stay.
There had been others.
Marked girls.
Chosen.
Tested.
But none had this weight.
This pulse beneath the skin.
The others had been silenced. Elira most of all. Even in her madness, she had carried a spark—but only a spark.
Maryna was wildfire.
And wildfire was not tamed.
It was either controlled…
Or it consumed.
I stood and poured the wine down the drain.
Too sweet tonight.
The House didn't want calm.
It wanted blood.
It wanted answers.
It wanted her.
There were only two things I knew for certain now:
She could not leave.
And soon, everyone would try to take her from me.
I stepped into the hall and called the guards.
"She is not to be touched," I said. "By anyone. Shiva. Malenthros. Even Marek. No one sees her unless I give the word."
"Understood, my lord."
"And if she tries to leave the estate?"
The silence that followed was thick with hesitation.
"Bring her to me. Whole. Unharmed. Immediately."
The guards nodded, retreating into the dark.
She was still mine.
For now.
But I could feel it—beneath the skin of the world, beneath the stone of the estate, in the way the wind had gone still outside the garden gates.
She would not stay caged for long.
And when she broke free…
She would not run.
She would rise.
To be continued…