Prince of Predators
They say a predator knows another when they lock eyes. I knew from the moment she stepped foot in the throne room, something was off. The heavy oak doors groan open, admitting a slender silhouette framed by sharp golden light. She moves with the grace of a shadow slipping between candle flames; fluid, deliberate, untouched by the weight of the eyes that immediately pin her. No one in the room dares to breathe as she approaches. The marble floor beneath her feet gleam like ice, reflecting the faint glimmer of her hair that cascades down her back in thick, dark waves, braided high like some ancient ritual.
She bows low, perfectly regal, effortlessly poised. A courtesan trained since childhood in the art of control. The thing that tugs at my senses is something deeper, more primal than any etiquette can hide. Her magic is silent. Too silent. Like the air just before a thunderstorm; taut, oppressive, humming beneath the surface with a promise of violence. I’ve seen power like this before, and I’ve learned to fear it.
She claims to be the Demon Princess, heir to Ypokosmos. I know better. I’d met the Galanis envoy years ago, back when our kingdoms tried to patch broken treaties with forced smiles and brittle promises. The Galanis were notorious; brash, unpredictable, their magic always on edge, like flames threatening to burn everything down. This girl? She is something else entirely.
She has buried her scent so deep that not even a bloodhound mage could’ve traced her, but I’m not just any mage. I am a Zochal Kasem. The ancient blood that runs through me, a gift from a forgotten ancestor, awakened the moment her eyes met mine. Bright. Unnatural. Predatory. The room felt colder as our gazes locked. It wasn’t fear that stirred inside me but something far more unsettling: recognition. Recognition of a force that could swallow kingdoms whole.
“You’re awfully quiet, brother,” Silas murmurs beside me, his voice low and teasing, but his golden eyes are sharp, flicking between the gathered princesses and the newcomer standing in the marble circle before the throne.
“Does that one catch your attention?” I don’t answer immediately. Instead, I study her like a hunter sizing up prey, or a rival.
“I’m watching,” I say finally, voice cool and steady. I keep my face neutral, unreadable, the mask a necessity. Father’s voice echoes in my mind, relentless as a blade unsheathed:
Never let them see your thoughts. You’re Zervos. Your silence is your strongest weapon.
The court is a battlefield, and every glance, every whispered word, every flutter of a fan is a calculated move. I can’t afford to lose my advantage now, but gods, she is beautiful. Her hair falls like a river of wine, long even in the high braided style she wears, thick ropes coiled atop her head, held in place by pins that gleam like tiny blades. Under the sun filtering through the colored glass dome above, it shimmers with hints of garnet and blood. Her body is sculpted like a blade; lean and deadly, not too delicate, not too rough. Her form is made for movement, like a dancer or a killer, and I suspect both.
Her eyes… gods, her eyes. Bright yellow-green, almost glowing with rings of molten gold, like a serpent basking in sunlight. I’ve never seen a demon with her eye color, nor one that retains a human form. It certainly makes her more intriguing. The murmurs behind me swell. Every courtly reaction sharpens into weaponry. The princesses fan themselves with more aggression than grace now, jealousy and suspicion coiling like smoke behind their lashes. Perfume thickens the air, a cloying blend of rosewater and ambition.
“I heard her mother was a priestess of Nyx,” Ariadne hisses too loudly, voice dripping with venom as she glances at the newcomer. Her fan snaps closed, an audible punctuation to her contempt.
“Or maybe a harlot. It’s hard to tell with Ypokosmos bloodlines.”
“She’s dressed like one,” Thea Varela adds, lips curling in disgust. Her own gown is a work of imperial tradition; gilded, laced, suffocating in its modesty.
“Does she even own sleeves?”
“She looks like she bathes in poison,” Daphne says, wrinkling her nose in distaste, her delicate hand brushing back a curl with feigned delicacy.
“She looks like she’d kill you in your sleep,” Kassandra says quietly, almost dreamily, from the far end of the circle.
That makes me pause. I glance at her; barefoot and serene, her sea-green eyes watching the newcomer like she was music in physical form. There’s a strange stillness to Kassandra. The kind of quiet one feels just before a storm breaks or a prophecy is fulfilled. Huh. At least one of them had sense.
Sylvara walks forward in slow, confident strides, the hem of her dark, strapless dress whispering against the marble. Her clothing is unlike anything the court has ever seen, obsidian-black fabric layered with silk so sheer it glistens like oil on water, cut close to the skin around her torso before fanning out at her waist. A thin belt of chain glints against her hips. No sigils. No obvious family crests. Just a small emerald pendant at her throat. A silent declaration: I do not need your names to make you kneel.
I shift my stance, folding my arms behind my back to keep from fidgeting. My heart is beating harder than it should. The pull I felt before, when she first stepped into the room, has only grown worse. It’s not just lust. It’s recognition. As if some slumbering thing inside me has opened one golden eye.
She doesn’t flinch when Uncle Elias steps forward from the shadows beside Father. That alone sets her apart. Elias is a mountain of a man, twice the height of most, clad in ceremonial black, his voice a blade and his temper worse.
Father finally stands, breaking the rising tension. His expression is carefully neutral, though I can see the flicker of calculation behind his eyes. He’s weighing her; her power, her pride, her danger, and perhaps, if she’s worth marrying off or destroying outright.
“Welcome, daughter of Ypokosmos,” Father intones, his voice deep and carrying across the chamber.
“You are late.” A lesser woman might have flinched. She doesn’t. Instead, she dips her head in a bow, low but not servile, voice low and smooth. Velvet and iron.
“I was not aware there was a deadline for the invitation. But I offer my apology if I kept your court waiting.” A few gasps ripple through the princesses. Ariadne visibly stiffens. Daphne chokes on her own breath. I fight a smirk. Oh, she has teeth. And she knows how to use them.
Father’s eyes narrow, anger flashing before he reins it in with practiced ease. Beside him, Elias watches her like a predator sizing up another. “Take your place among the others. The games begin tomorrow. Impress me. Now, let us all sit and eat.”
There’s a pause. One heartbeat. Two. She bows again, but this time, her gaze locks with mine just a second too long. There it is again. That pull in my chest. A clawing feeling, ancient and unfamiliar, like a name half-remembered from a dream. Like instinct stirred awake. My palms are damp. My breath comes too sharp. I don’t like it. The other princesses shift around her like carrion birds, their movements too sweet, too choreographed. Ariadne steps deliberately into her path, smiling with all the warmth of a blade.
“I do hope you packed more than that dress,” she says, her voice honeyed but barbed. “It would be such a shame for someone so… exotic to get chilled.”
Sylvara, or whoever she actually is, stops. She tilts her head, and for a moment, I think she might smile, but instead, she says nothing. She simply stares at Ariadne, as though peeling her apart layer by layer. The silence stretches until Ariadne, for all her bravado, takes a step back. Without a word, the newcomer turns and walks to the edge of the circle. She stands alone. Unbothered. As if being surrounded by enemies was exactly where she wanted to be. Still, she doesn’t look at me again. It’s maddening. I’m not used to being ignored. Not by princesses. Not by assassins. Not by anyone. So why does her silence taste like a challenge, and why, gods help me, do I want to lose?
Later that night, I sit on a high terrace overlooking the practice grounds. The moon hangs low and swollen, casting pale silver across the stone battlements. My sword lay beside me, the hilt cold beneath my palm, my armor stripped to the waist, sweat drying on my skin. The air is thick with the scent of jasmine and burning torches, but my mind was elsewhere. Silas lounges behind me, legs propped against the railing, lazily tossing an apple core over the edge.
“She’s dangerous,” I say aloud. He doesn’t ask who I mean.
“Dangerous,” Silas echoes, “or interesting?”
“Both.”
Silas chuckles, a low, knowing sound. “So you admit you’re intrigued.”
I scowl. “I’m not a boy chasing skirts.”
“No,” he says softly, “you’re a prince choosing a queen. And you’ve got at least eight half-starved lions waiting to rip each other apart for your name.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to. Silas knows me too well. He knows how I hate the court games, the politics, the power-hungry smiles from girls raised to seduce and conquer. But this one? Sylvara? She doesn’t want me. That is the most dangerous thing of all.
That night, restless and unable to settle, I wander the halls of the west wing, the wing where I told her to stay. Her room is supposed to be off-limits, as any official courting is to be done under the eyes of the King of his guards. The guards however, always seemed to look the other way when it came to me. The flicker of torchlight bounces off the walls in long shadows, the quiet punctuated only by my footsteps echoing on stone.
I pause near her door. I could hear… nothing. No heartbeat, no breath. It is as if the room is vacant, or dead. Except I know she is inside. Even if she isn’t here for the competition, she came for a reason. I open the door. She is sitting cross-legged on the windowsill, back to me, her hair down and falling like liquid dusk. The moonlight catches the faint glint of gold in the strands, shimmering like scattered stars.
“You move like a predator,” she says without turning. “Your scent however, would give you away immediately. As the future King who is currently where he shouldn’t be, you should probably work on that.” I step inside, closing the door softly behind me.
“Why are you here? You don’t seem to be interested in competing with the others here at all. I am also finding it hard to believe you’re a demon. Your eyes aren’t like any I’ve seen before and you’ve looked human since you arrived.” I ask. She turns then, slowly, and I swear the shadows curl around her like living things.
“That’s quite the personal question,” she murmurs, smiling with no warmth.
I want to say more. To ask if she is human, demon, monster, or something else entirely. Except her response keeps me quiet. I know better than to push. Instead, I watch her carefully, trying to read the truth in her eyes. The room is cool, scented faintly with herbs I can’t name, something ancient and wild.
“I’m not your enemy tonight,” she says quietly, as if reading my thoughts. “But that doesn’t mean you can trust me.”Her voice is soft but edged with steel.
I want to believe her. I want to believe the pull I felt was more than instinct or blood magic. Though I had learned long ago that monsters wore many masks, and some of them were the most beautiful of all.
For the next few hours, neither of us speak. I sit nearby, my fingers twitching towards the hilt of my sword whenever her eyes flicker with something unreadable. She watches the moon crawl across the sky, silent as the grave. I wonder what secrets lay beneath that calm exterior, what battles she’s fought, what scars she hides beneath flawless skin. Is she truly the Demon Princess? Or something darker? The night thickens, and a chill crept into the air. I stay, because somehow, despite every warning screaming in my blood, I can’t tear myself away. Tomorrow, the games begin, and so will the war.