Chapter 125: The Watchers and the Weight of Light
Above the world, where dreams are forged in stardust and silence, four goddesses watched a girl who had not yet awakened.
They were not seated on thrones. Thrones were for those who needed to remind others of their power. No, these women — older than language, blood, and invocation — simply were. Suspended in a realm stitched together by divine thought, the thread between future and myth. Not at a temple. Not on a throne. Not in the ruins of O••••••.
Aphrodite was painting her lips the color of crushed roses, glancing into a shimmer of light shaped like a mirror.
"She's stunning, isn't she?" she mused aloud, glancing at her reflection in a floating shard of moonlight. "Even I was never that beautiful as a child."
Athena didn't lift her eyes from the scroll she held. "You said the same about Helen. And Psyche. And that girl in V••••• who was stabbed over a boy."
"That was passion," Aphrodite shrugged. "This is different."
"She's a child," Athena reminded her, voice calm, precise. "Not your muse."
"Not just a child," came Aira's voice — soft, dark, kissed with shadow. "She's everything. She's mine."
Aphrodite sighed, tossing her hair back like a veil of silk flame. "You keep saying that, daughter."
"Because it's true," Aira said, curling her knees beneath her like a sulking cat. "You had her first, you said. You claimed her with beauty and bloodline. But I feel her soul when she cries. When she doubts herself. That ache — that need to be seen for more than power — she got that from me."
Aira added "She's so beautiful," she murmured, tracing the curve of her bottom lip. "Not just pretty. Not sweet. She's art. I was never this radiant at her age."
Across from them, the fourth figure smiled quietly.
Vaethea, Aphrodite's wife, lifted her gaze from the quiet pool of light beside her. "You were chaos at her age," she replied, serene and amused.
"And irresistible," Aphrodite smiled, tossing a curl over her shoulder.
"She's not just beauty," came the darker voice, cloaked in dusk and shadow — Aira. "She's hunger. Fire. Loneliness wrapped in wonder."
"She's also six," Athena interjected calmly, her arms folded, eyes focused on the realm below. "She doesn't know what she is. Not yet."
"But she felt it," Aira pressed. "In the archives. I felt her breath catch when she reached for the sealed book. She knew it was hers."
"She almost saw it all," Vaethea said softly. "The legacy of Liore. Maxwell. de Mercière. Solenne. D'aragon. And then the truth of us."
"She doesn't need to carry that yet," Athena said, voice firm.
"She already does," Aira snapped, rising to her feet like a sudden wind. "You stopped her. You made her forget."
"I protected her," Athena replied, unmoved. "She was beginning to connect things. The symbols, the bloodlines, the old names. She doesn't know she is our daughter — not just Evelyn's and Vivienne's. She isn't ready to know that you and I are the third strand in her making."
"She's more than any child should be," Vaethea murmured. "But she is."
"She will choose," Aphrodite said with a glint in her eye. "And when she does, the world will bend toward her like light toward gravity."
"But will she save it," Aira whispered, "or burn it?"
*****
Below, Eva slept with her cheek against her maman's old scarf, her tiny form curled beneath a linen quilt. The room was warm and quiet, a whisper of moonlight painting silver ribbons across the floorboards.
She had wandered the archives alone earlier that day. Not truly alone — those doors did not open without bloodline. But she had been drawn by something deeper than curiosity.
Once the name de Mercière claimed her, the archives had bloomed.
Holograms rose from golden dust. Walls unfurled into libraries. Glass turned to flame. And voices — not audible, but echoing inside her chest — began to whisper of the past.
She saw D'Aragon not a line, but a ruin that breathed. A house that fell, then grew quiet and ancient beneath the roots of the world. It whispered in a tongue of gods and beasts,
its legacy threaded through wrath and beauty, waiting only for one.
She saw the Solenne queens, draped in light and silk, wielding seduction like a sword, beauty as inheritance, divinity as duty.
She saw the Maxwell, whose wars ended before they began, because fear carried their name farther than fire. Scholars who never shouted, generals who never needed to draw their blades — for the weight of their name ended wars before maps could even change.
She saw the de Mercières, who did not rise. They waited, quiet precise, enduring, meticulous, immortal through memory. They did not rule. They outlasted. They outlived every throne they never sat upon.
She saw Lioré. Not with blood. With silence. A line of royalty so hidden, even its survivors did not know they reigned. a dynasty veiled in its own forgetting. A crown passed like rumor, a monarchy hidden even from its heirs.
She saw Ainsley, a line that fractured on purpose. Hearts too loyal, minds too dangerous. Exiles who became protectors,
estranged by design, watching the world through mirrors and keys.
She saw herself.
Not all of her. Just glimpses. Just flickers.
A hand touching Seraphina's cheek.
A blade held at the throat of an enemy.
A crown not made of gold, but of choices.
And then… the golden book.
No title. Just resonance. It knew her.
She had reached out.
And that's when everything froze.
A hand unseen touched her brow — not with flesh, but with divine memory — and she fell asleep instantly.
"She's not ready," Athena said again in the sky - above - skies. "She'll need to earn that knowledge."
"She'll remember eventually," Aira said. "Pieces at first. Then floods."
Aphrodite stretched. "She'll be too lovely for this world. Even her enemies will hesitate."
"She will love," Vaethea said, "and she will hurt. That is her test."
"She is our daughter," Aira whispered. "Not just Evelyn's. Not just Vivienne's. Don't forget that."
Athena's eyes did not move. "I never forget."
*****
Down on earth, Evelyn stood at the edge of Eva's bed, brushing curls from her daughter's brow.
"She wandered," she said softly to Vivienne, who leaned against the doorway.
"She always does."
"Too far this time."
"Did she find it?"
"She almost did."
Vivienne walked in, her shadow long in the warm lamplight. "She's too much like you."
Evelyn smiled faintly. "No. She's stronger. I ran away from it. I buried it. But she walks right into it like it's hers."
"Because it is."
Evelyn looked down at her daughter's peaceful face. "Do you think I was wrong… hiding it all? The de Mercière legacy. The others."
"You did what you had to. If Maxwell knew… if anyone knew…"
"They would crown her. Or cage her."
"Or kill her," Vivienne added. "She is too rare to be allowed freedom."
"And yet," Evelyn whispered, "she's free now. For just a little while."
High above, Aphrodite held Vaethea's hand, her voice bright with delight.
"She's going to be divine."
"She already is," Vaethea said.
"She's going to choose."
"She'll break the cycle," Aira insisted.
Athena looked down, expression unreadable.
"She will choose," she said.
"But we don't know what," Aphrodite whispered.
"No," Athena agreed. "And that's what makes her dangerous."