CHAPTER 206: THE SHADOW’S BRUSH

She turned then, dress whispering across blood-stained ice, already dismissing the corpses, the spell, the horror of what they’d just done.

"Clean this up," she instructed Isolde with the same tone she might use to order tea. "Dispose of the bodies. Burn the blood away. Tomorrow night, we’ll use the eastern vents. And Aira..."

"Yes." The witch assured her. "I’ll prepare everything. All we need is the right moment."

Vetra paused at the doorway, looking back over her shoulder, backlit by the purple-white flames that refused to die. "Tomorrow, during the ritual, when all eyes are watching them hunt for shards and prove their love..." Her smile widened. "We’ll remind this empire what happens when you let monsters wear crowns."

Then she was gone, gliding through shadows like she belonged to them.

Aira followed, the black book clutched to her chest, already muttering ingredients lists under her breath.

And Isolde stood alone in a chamber that reeked of death and dark magic, surrounded by bodies that had died for a test run, for a practice session of the apocalypse, and she wondered, not for the first time and certainly not the last, what she had become in service to a woman whose hatred burned colder than any ice.

And...

Far across the palace, in chambers warmed by braziers and softened by furs, Eris Igniva stood pinned against a door that had been locked for the past hour.

She’d come to ask questions about some policies, about the documents Aldric had shown her, about the proper protocol for addressing certain state matters.

She had not expected this.

Soren’s office, typically pristine and organized to the point of obsession, currently served as the stage for something far less professional. Papers scattered across on the desk, Inkwells teetered on the edge, forgotten. The fire in the hearth burned low, casting dancing shadows across walls that bore witness to the Emperor’s complete loss of imperial dignity.

Eris’s back pressed against the door, the wood solid and cold behind her. Both her legs were hooked around Soren’s waist, ankles locked at the small of his back, her position utterly compromising and entirely his doing.

One of his hands gripped her ass with a possessiveness that should have been insulting but instead sent heat spiraling through her body. The other roamed freely, mapping her curves with the dedication of a scholar committing texts to memory.

His lips hovered near her throat, breath cold against skin that already burned too warm, teasing without quite touching, driving her slowly insane with anticipation.

"You," Eris managed, voice strained, "are absolutely incorrigible."

"Mm," Soren hummed against her neck, finally, finally pressing a kiss to her pulse point. "You say that like you didn’t come to my office wearing that dress, Your Majesty."

"This is standard formal attire! Find a better excuse!"

"The neckline begs to differ."

She would have argued, should have argued, but his teeth grazed her collarbone and her words scattered like sparks.

This was madness. Anyone could knock. Aldric could return with documents. A guard could report an emergency. The scandal if they were caught, the future Empress pinned against a door like a tavern girl, the Emperor’s composure completely shattered...

Then Soren’s hand slid higher, found bare skin where her dress had shifted, and she stopped caring about scandal entirely.

"Soren," she gasped, not sure if it was a protest or an plea.

"Yes, future wife?" The title was teasing, familiar, intimate in a way that made her chest tight.

"Let me go."

"Not yet, Your Majesty," he murmured, lips tracing a path up her neck, across her jaw. "Five more minutes."

His lips found the skin in the curve of her neck and shoulders again, swallowing whatever retort she’d been forming, and Eris melted into him despite her better judgment, despite every logical reason this was a terrible idea, despite the fact that they were supposed to be discussing important things, not...

A dark, unsettling yet familiar sensation rippled through her, cold and foreign, raising every hair on her body.

It felt like fingernails dragging across her spine, like ice water in her veins, like something ancient and hungry turning its attention toward her from very far away.

Her fire responded instinctively, surging beneath her skin, and Eris jolted, breaking the moment. Her eyes flickered bright, just for a heartbeat, pupils elongating before snapping back to human.

Soren noticed immediately. Of course he did.

He felt the brief shift in the air. Something humming...

His hands gentled, grip shifting from possessive to protective in an instant.

"What’s wrong?"

The sensation passed as quickly as it came, leaving only an echo, a memory of wrongness.

"Nothing," Eris said, but her voice wavered. "I just, it felt like something..."

"Like what?" His eyes searched hers, all traces of playfulness gone, replaced by the sharp attention of an emperor who’d spent years reading threats in shadows.

She tried to explain the feeling, the cold-foreign-hungry presence, but the words wouldn’t come.

How did you describe the sensation of something terrible waking in the dark? How did you explain that for just a moment, you’d felt the presence of old magic, the kind that predated kingdoms and kindness both?

"It’s nothing," she said finally, forcing certainty into her tone. "Just my magic being temperamental. Probably because it’s host is being kept captive."

Soren stared at her, unconvinced but unable to argue without proof. His thumb traced her cheekbone, a gesture so tender it made her throat tight. "If you feel anything else, anything at all..."

"I’ll tell you," she promised, lying through her teeth.

Because the truth was, she could still feel it, that distant attention, like being watched through layers of stone and earth, like something far below had stirred and taken notice of her presence.

But the feeling was fading now, dismissed or retreated, and Eris decided she had imagined it, that the stress of the wedding and the weight of everything else that followed.

So she did what she always did when fear threatened to take root.

She shoved it down, locked it away.

Her hand came up, pressing against Soren’s face, pushing until his confused expression made her flustered despite herself. "Enough. Down. I came here for a reason, and it wasn’t to be manhandled like a..."

"Like a what?" Soren asked, grinning now, tension broken, the moment of fear passed.

She shot him a glare.

"Like meat, you pervert."

His laugh rumbled through his chest, through her where their bodies still pressed together, and gods, she’d liked it, this lightness, this ease.

Caelen had never laughed with her, not like this, had never looked at her like she was something precious and dangerous and desired all at once.