Shiva
The House was humming again.
It started beneath the stone.
A vibration she could feel through her heels.
Faint. Rhythmic. Like a sleeping heart slowly stirring.
Shiva stood in her private antechamber—high above the east wing—and pressed her palm to the marble pillar near the window.
It was warm.
That wasn't normal.
Not here.
Not unless something was changing.
She had worn silk today. Crimson. Liquid. A gown made of whispers and warnings.
The others mistook her elegance for softness.
Let them.
Shiva had ruled her quadrant of the Court for over a hundred years. Not with brute force. Not with charm.
With patience.
With strategy.
With exquisite timing.
And now, the game was shifting.
The girl was rising.
And Vasilios was stalling.
Shiva lit the oil lamp on her writing desk with a flick of her finger, watching the flame spring to life.
Blue.
Then red.
Then gold.
Her brows lifted.
Blue was rare.
It meant bloodline activation.
Resonance with old magic.
Maryna had reached the threshold.
She turned to the table at her back. A chessboard of her own design sat beneath a glass dome, each piece hand-carved from obsidian and ashwood. She lifted the dome, selected the Queen—a tall figure cloaked in curls and shadow—and moved it one square forward.
Check.
Not to the King.
To the House itself.
Because that was what Maryna represented now.
A challenge to all of them.
Vasilios had gone quiet.
Which meant he was either scheming…
Or terrified.
She suspected both.
He was old, yes. Strong. Measured.
But he had a blind spot.
And her name was Maryna Valmont.
Shiva poured herself a goblet of bloodwine.
She drank slowly.
And she thought.
Maryna wasn't just a marked girl.
She wasn't just prophecy.
She was something unwritten.
A force not foreseen by the Elder Council's scrying bowls.
Not shaped by Court tradition.
She was something raw.
Which made her valuable.
And dangerous.
Vasilios wanted to keep her.
Malenthros wanted to possess her.
But Shiva?
Shiva wanted to crown her.
There hadn't been a Queen in the Court in nearly three centuries.
Not since the last one had grown too powerful, too beloved, and had to be executed before the Court fractured around her.
Shiva had learned from that.
The next one would need to be feared before she was ever adored.
And Maryna?
She could be both.
If properly broken.
If properly honed.
The time would come soon.
To act.
To choose sides.
To decide whether Maryna would be chained, exalted, or destroyed.
Shiva planned to ensure the decision was hers to make.
And when the others began to crumble—
She would still be standing.