The council chamber reeked of fear.
Marble walls gleamed in torchlight, and the vaulted ceiling swallowed every sound, turning whispers into echoes that seemed to haunt the very air. Nobles in their silks and priests in their robes knelt low as Damien entered, his black cloak sweeping the floor, the crown sharp against his brow.
He took his seat at the head of the long obsidian table. His hands gripped the arms of his chair like a king gripping the throat of the world.
"Rise," he commanded.
They obeyed at once, though none dared meet his eyes.
For a moment, silence reigned. Then a priest, pale and trembling, cleared his throat. His staff rattled faintly against the floor as he spoke.
"My prince… there are whispers in the city. The people—"
"They speak of her." Damien's voice cut like a blade.
The priest swallowed hard. "Yes, my lord. The people call her the Woman of Light. They say she bears the goddess's blessing. Some even claim she is a vessel."
"She is," Damien said, his gaze unblinking. "The goddess of beauty's chosen."
Murmurs rippled through the chamber. The nobles shifted, exchanging glances. One bold enough to lift his chin spoke with a smile too sharp to be genuine.
"Then she is a treasure, is she not, my prince? A gift to the realm. Perhaps… shared, in ceremony? Displayed before foreign courts? If the goddess favors her, should she not belong to all of us?"
Damien's hand twitched.
The noble never finished his breath. In a blur, Damien's dagger flew across the chamber and pinned the man's sleeve to the table. The blade quivered in the wood, a hair's breadth from flesh.
The noble froze, his face drained of blood.
"She belongs to no one but me," Damien said softly. Too softly. "If any man so much as dreams otherwise, I'll cut his tongue out and feed it to him."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Another priest stepped forward, older than the rest, his voice rough with age but steady.
"My prince… forgive me, but her light does not shine as beauty's alone. There is… another aura. I have felt it. Wild. Consuming. It is as if—"
"Careful," Damien warned, his eyes flashing.
The old man bowed his head, but pressed on. "As if the goddess of fire touches her also."
Gasps broke through the nobles. Even the younger priests made signs of warding, horror flashing in their eyes.
"That is impossible," one whispered.
"No vessel can bear two blessings," said another.
"It would tear her apart."
Damien rose slowly from his chair. The scrape of it against the stone floor made every man flinch.
"Do you think I don't know the teachings?" he asked, his voice calm, deadly calm. "Do you think I haven't studied every scripture, every law of the divine? The girl is mine. Her power is mine. And whether it is one goddess or ten, I will not hear another word of doubt."
He swept his gaze across them, sharp as flame. "If the priests cannot explain what she is, then perhaps the priests are no longer useful."
The old man fell silent, his knuckles white around his staff.
Damien's gaze turned to the nobles.
"You see her as a prize," he said. "A jewel to parade, a tool to bargain. But you forget yourselves. It was I who brought her here. I who bound her chains. She breathes because I allow it. And she will remain where I keep her—at my side, beneath my hand, under my crown."
The nobles bowed low, their silks brushing the floor. Fear quaked in their voices as they echoed, "Yes, my prince."
When the chamber emptied at last, Damien remained alone. He stood at the window, staring down at the city below, where torches flickered like fireflies against the night.
He should have felt victorious. He had silenced them, broken their whispers, bent them once again beneath his will.
But still the words gnawed at him.
Fire.
He had seen the smoke. Smelled it. Seen the flicker in her eyes that night.
If it was true—if she bore both beauty and fire—then she was more than his. She was a living miracle. A danger. A temptation that even his grip might not contain.
And yet the thought only made him want her more.
Because if she carried both blessings, then surely it was fate. Surely the gods themselves had given her to him.
He pressed his forehead to the cold glass, closing his eyes. "You're mine, Victoria," he whispered to the city below. "No priest, no noble, no god will take you from me. Not again."
But beneath the vow, the serpent of fear coiled tighter in his chest.
Because he remembered the way she had smiled in chains, proud and defiant before the entire kingdom.
And for the first time, Damien wondered if even the gods had underestimated her.