It began with a voice in the dark.
At first, Eloise thought she was imagining it—a whisper threading through the veil of sleep, brushing against her thoughts like silk.
Her name.
Soft, low, not quite pleading. But intimate. Known.
"Eloise."
She sat up in bed, breath caught in her throat.
The room was still. The fire had long since gone out, and only moonlight painted silver paths across the stone floor. No footsteps. No breeze. Just the echo of a name.
Her name.
The dreams continued for the next three nights.
Each time, it was the same: darkness first, then candlelight blooming like a slow sunrise—revealing a high-ceilinged chamber of carved blackwood and crimson tapestries.
She could never see him. Only his silhouette in the flame's glow.
A man seated in shadow. One hand draped lazily over the arm of a throne. The other, lifted to her cheek—but never quite touching.
"You're not ready yet."
The words curled like smoke in her ears. They meant nothing. And yet… they stirred something deep in her, like a string being plucked in a forgotten room of her soul.
Each time she woke, her heart thundered. Her sheets were damp with sweat. And the feeling—that strange, aching pull—lingered long after morning.
She told no one.
Outside the safety of her dreams, the palace had grown colder.
Not in temperature, but in tone.
Brides now walked in pairs. Or trios. Or not at all. Those who had once shared laughter over tea now exchanged wary glances across the courtyard. One by one, alliances began to form.
Cecilia attached herself to a gleaming-haired beauty named Inessa, both of them born from powerful northern bloodlines. They wore their silk like armor and smiled like wolves.
Lysandra, ever solitary, had become a force all her own. Other girls moved when she entered a room. Doors opened quicker. Servants bowed lower. She said little—but when she did, they listened.
And Eloise?
She kept to the edges. Not invisible. But not involved.
She noticed the glances. The whispers. The way some girls looked at her now—not with curiosity, but calculation. She had made the altar glow. That single spark had branded her something other.
Desirable. Dangerous.
She could feel the weight of it everywhere she went.
One evening, just past the tenth bell, a scream tore through the east wing.
Brief. Piercing. Then silence.
Eloise bolted upright in bed. She wasn't the only one—doors creaked open, robes rustled, slippers whispered down stone corridors. By the time she reached the outer gallery, two guards had already sealed the far hall.
But not before she caught a glimpse of the girl.
Maribel.
The youngest of them. Barely seventeen. Beautiful in a way that had always felt too delicate for this place.
Now she was on her knees, hair torn loose, blood smeared across her shoulder.
One of the guards held her by the arm. The other clutched something small and glinting.
A jeweled hairpin.
"It was a mistake," Maribel sobbed. "I only wanted to see him—I wasn't going to touch—"
The steward arrived seconds later, his expression as blank as polished glass.
"No one enters the Prince's wing without summons," he said. "You know this."
"But I heard his voice," she whispered. "I thought—I thought he called me."
The steward raised a hand. The guards dragged her away.
No one spoke after that.
The next day, her room was cleared out. Her name scratched from the lists.
No scream this time. No blood.
But the message was clear.
The Prince is not to be hunted.
Only chosen.
"You heard it too, didn't you?"
Eloise turned. Lysandra stood in the garden alcove, a soft orange fruit in her palm, watching her like a hawk.
"Heard what?"
"The voice," Lysandra said. "In the night."
Eloise's mouth went dry.
"I don't know what you mean."
Lysandra just smiled. Bit into the fruit. "You're not the only one who dreams in this place, Eloise. But you are the only one he speaks to."
"You think it's real?"
"I think the Prince's blood runs too old and too strange for anything here to be simple."
Eloise looked away. "He hasn't appeared. Not once. Not since the altar."
"Doesn't need to," Lysandra said. "He's watching."
"Why?"
Lysandra tossed the half-eaten fruit into the hedge. "Because this is not a game. It's a summoning. We are not guests—we are ingredients."
---
That night, Eloise lit no candles.
She lay in darkness, covers pulled to her chin, trying to will herself into dream.
She wanted answers. And she hated that she wanted him.
Whoever he was. Whatever he was.
Some foolish part of her still hoped she'd see his face this time. That he'd step from the shadows and speak plainly. That he'd explain why the dreams left her aching. Why his voice felt like something carved into her bones before she was even born.
But no dream came.
Only silence.
And when she woke, her pillow was damp with tears she didn't remember shedding.
---
The palace continued spinning. Dresses were fitted. Tea ceremonies rehearsed. Another challenge was whispered to be coming—a dance, a recitation, something elegant.
And yet Eloise felt the noose tightening.
Not just around her. Around them all.
Because beneath the competition, beneath the gowns and games and silent threats, something ancient was stirring.
And she had the sinking sense that none of them were meant to leave the same.
If they left at all.