Visilios
It came like a whisper.
A breath of sound barely clinging to life in the aftermath of the feast.
Elira's body was sprawled across the silken altar of the banquet table—limbs slack, lips parted, her flesh still slick with blood, sweat, and the seed of half the court. She was trembling in a way that spoke not only of exhaustion but of something broken and remade.
And then she said it.
"Amarisa…"
Soft. Fragile.
But clear.
And everything in me went still.
I moved closer, brushing her pale hair from her brow. Her eyes fluttered beneath their lids—half lost in sleep, half buried in whatever memory or dream she was drowning in.
"Elira," I murmured. "Say it again."
But her lips were silent now.
Her body slack.
Only the echo remained—burning through my mind like a brand.
That name. That impossible name.
She should not have known it.
No one should.
The Elder Council convened before dawn.
Not out of decorum.
Out of fear.
"She was supposed to be spent," the Second Elder hissed, pacing behind his chair. "She was meant for nothing but release."
"She's not the one," Marek confirmed. "We tested. The signs never aligned."
"No," I said. "But she knows something. She spoke the name."
That silenced the room.
Even Malenthros—usually vacant and calm—lifted his head, the corners of his mouth twitching with something like interest… or possession.
"She must have heard it," one of the lesser Elders said. "Some broken echo from the witches' old tongues—"
"No one alive remembers Amarisa," I snapped. "Not without bloodline or binding."
A long silence.
"She cannot be executed," said the First Elder finally. "Not now."
"I would never kill her," Malenthros replied quietly.
They all turned to him.
His voice was barely audible, but it vibrated in the marrow of the stone hall.
"She is mine," he said. "I claimed her. I brought her here. Her first scream was for me."
"You may keep her," I said. "But she must be preserved."
"For how long?"
"For as long as that name lives inside her."
That was the ruling.
Elira belonged to Malenthros—body and mind.
But not her death.
That belonged to the Court.
And for the first time in centuries, we chained a girl not to pleasure… but to truth.
Later, I stood in the high atrium of my wing, watching the dawn bleed pale across the distant hills. The castle was quiet, recovering from the night's debauchery. And in a tower far beneath, Elira would be sleeping, her body marked, her voice silent.
But the name remained.
Amarisa.
A warning from the past.
A prophecy thought buried.
One not written in books, but carved into bloodlines and bones.
She wasn't the chosen one.
We knew that.
But she had touched something.
Something old.
Something dangerous.
I turned as Malenthros appeared behind me, his cloak dragging like shadow across marble.
"You're quiet," I said.
He smiled—empty, unreadable.
"She cries in her sleep," he said softly. "Even now."
"You will not kill her."
He bowed his head. "I know."
"Nor allow her to be taken or used by others."
"She is mine," he said again. "No one else will touch her."
There was a madness in him. Always had been. But now it curled around him like a second skin.
I wondered if he knew what she was.
Or if he only loved her because she refused to break completely.
She was a vessel of forgotten knowledge.
A girl sold by a jealous woman to monsters.
A girl who should've been discarded—who should've died during the feast.
But she hadn't.
She endured.
And she had spoken the name of the first marked one.
Amarisa.
That night, I did not sleep.
Because if Elira knew the name…
Then there was only one explanation:
She had met her.
Not in flesh.
Not in body.
But in blood.
And if that was true…
Then somewhere, buried in shadow and lineage, the true heir was waking up.