As if their gazes could speak, Arisha stared at the ruby ring Mikhael offered her with a sly smile. The jewel shimmered with a deep, violent red, as if it had been ripped from the heart of a still-beating beast.
"This ring is older than this kingdom," Mikhael whispered, stepping closer. "And it's been waiting a long time for a worthy hand."
When Arisha touched it, a hot sting flared in her fingertips. The metal vibrated, and for a split second, an image flashed in her mind—Baco's blood-soaked eyes looking at her with pain… and something else. Was it tenderness?
"Do you feel it?" Mikhael asked, as if expecting her reaction. "He recognizes you."
She didn't understand what he meant, but before she could ask, he took her hand and slid the ring onto her finger. The fit was perfect—too perfect.
"From this day forward, Arisha is the official fiancée of the Ghali Snova family," Mikhael declared, raising her hand, intertwining their fingers. "And my life companion."
Arisha swallowed hard, disoriented. If this was part of his plan, she couldn't believe a word of it.
The secretary stepped forward. Glasses were raised.
"Mia," Mikhael toasted.
His eyes gleamed with an unusual golden light. Then he took a seat beside her, just as the noble houses began announcing their offerings. One of them was a large metal cage, guarded by several commanders.
"This is not a game, Mikhael."
The hanging lamps trembled gently, casting shifting shadows across the painted faces of the guests. The scent of fine wine and melted wax floated through the air.
He halted the presentation and extended his hand to Arisha.
"Dance with me."
The ballroom erupted in cheers and hollow applause as the notes of a somber waltz drifted from the string instruments. Couples aligned around the center, but their steps were mere echoes compared to the attention fixed on Mikhael and Arisha.
Whispers slithered among the guests like snakes between wine glasses—some in awe, others in disdain, many in fear.
"The heir's fiancée?""And that slave? Why is he even here…?"
Eyes followed them. The stares were invisible blades slicing through the heavy air of uncertainty.
Mikhael dodged every attempt at conversation, as if he were dancing not with Arisha, but with his own hidden game.
She gripped his hand tightly, hoping for a reaction, but he merely smiled—that cold smile that said everything and nothing at once.
"Cheer up, my love. This is a special day for us," he murmured sweetly, but his golden eyes burned with an unnatural glow, like lanterns in the eye of a storm.
Arisha dug the tip of her heel into his shoe.
"Get used to it, love," she snapped. "You and I have been playing the same game since the beginning."
Mikhael spun her twice before wrapping his arms around her and kissing her neck. As if sending a telepathic signal, the great cloth was removed. Where there should have been elegance, there was only cruelty masquerading as ceremony. Baco, displayed like a broken offering, was a stain on the perfect lineage Mikhael tried to present.
The dance came to a halt.
Baco wore a half-open white shirt, his chest bandaged, and a fine chain bound his wrists. They forced him to kneel beside the table like a grotesque ornament.
"Do you recognize him, darling?" Mikhael asked with mock innocence. "You said you saw him in the tower, but you never told me if… there was anything else."
Arisha felt the ring on her finger tighten. A burning pressure rose from her hand to her throat.
"No… nothing happened. I only helped him."
"You helped him? How noble of you," Mikhael said, taking a glass of wine but not drinking. "And him? Did he touch you?"
Silence. Mikhael smiled, as if it were all a lover's joke.
"Tell me—what did you know about this slave before I marked him as mine?"
Baco didn't look up, but his chest heaved. Arisha noticed the ruby glowing brighter every time Mikhael spoke, as if angered by him.
Mikhael raised Arisha's hand to kiss her knuckles, but the moment his lips touched the ring, it exploded in deep red light. Baco's body arched violently as if seared, flinging the two guards beside him.
A crimson surge burst from the ruby like a molten whip, humming through the air. The light spiraled in carmine twists before striking Baco's bandaged chest.
At contact, the hall trembled. A silent explosion shook the room, snuffing out all light for a moment. Baco's chest arched upward, as if an invisible force tried to rip out his soul.
Ancient symbols—like claws or burning roots—etched themselves in glowing red across his skin, from heart to shackled arms.
Arisha felt a current surge through her, and the ring pulsed like a living heart, soaked in fury. Its heat flowed into her veins, marking her from within.
Mikhael tried to let go, but the ring flared with its own rage, fusing their fingers briefly. The air reeked of ozone and blood.
Only the three of them could see it. The air thickened. Mikhael struggled to break contact.
"What is this?!" he growled, forcing it.
Baco raised his eyes for the first time.
"You can't possess what you don't understand."
"Your blood is mine now! I am the rightful heir!" Mikhael shouted.
"Then you've only inherited the curse, not the legacy."
The ruby detached from Arisha's finger for a moment, floating toward Baco, but he turned his face away, rejecting it. The ring fell to the floor, and Mikhael picked it up instantly, placing it back on Arisha's finger with a cold smile—erasing the vision of what would happen if that slave got too close.
"You must keep wearing it," he ordered. "It's... part of you now."
Baco tried to speak, but collapsed under Elly's strike.
"As you command, Lord Mikhael."
Arisha stepped in his path.
"This has to end. Let him go."
That night, Arisha couldn't sleep. The ring felt like a thorn buried in her flesh. When she touched it, a soft, broken voice whispered in her mind:
"Arisha…"
She bolted upright. No one was in the room. The ring glowed faintly, as if it were breathing.
"Baco…?"
There was no response—only a shiver crawling down her spine. And a premonition that wrapped around her like fog:
This ring wasn't a symbol of love.It was a chain.