CHAPTER 215: TALES

Dawn broke over Nevareth like a blade cutting through silk, sharp, cold, and impossibly beautiful.

The palace stirred to life with the efficient chaos of an event that had been planned for weeks but still managed to feel rushed in its final hours. Imperial heralds moved through the corridors, their voices ringing out in practiced cadence, announcing what every soul in the capital already knew: today was the day of the Star-Shard Hunt.

Ancient tradition, they proclaimed. Mandatory for imperial weddings. Sacred rite blessed by Aenithra herself, the Frostmother who’d given magic to humans along with her counterpart before vanishing into myth and memory.

The Emperor and his future Empress would journey to the Rifted Glacier Forest. Each would hunt alone, retrieve a Star-Shard from a living Ice Beast, and return before dawn. The shards would be melted together in the wedding ceremony, their fusion determining the blessing, or curse, upon the union.

Simple in concept. Brutal in execution.

From the palace gates, one could see the massive imperial procession assembling like pieces of an elaborate game board. Supply wagons laden with provisions, tents that would house the witnessing nobles, alchemical braziers that burned with blue flames hot enough to ward off even Nevareth’s savage cold. The Imperial Hunters, elite guards whose sole purpose was to observe and record, never to interfere, checked their weapons with grim efficiency.

And in the center of it all, looking thoroughly irritated, stood Eris Igniva.

The furs they’d provided her were Nevarian style, thick, layered, restrictive in ways that Solmire’s lighter garments never were. She’d been sewn into them by attendants who’d ignored her protests about mobility, who’d insisted that tradition demanded specific attire, who’d basically treated her like a decorative doll to be dressed and positioned rather than a woman who needed to hunt and kill something before sunrise tomorrow.

Her expression suggested she was seriously considering setting the entire wardrobe on fire and fashioning something more practical from the ashes.

"You look magnificent," Soren said, appearing at her elbow with the kind of timing that suggested he’d been waiting for precisely this moment of maximum irritation.

Eris turned to glare at him, and if looks could kill, the Emperor of Nevareth would have been a frozen corpse on the cobblestones. "I look like a stuffed bear. There’s a difference."

"A very attractive stuffed bear," Soren amended, his grin widening in direct proportion to her increasing fury.

He, of course, looked infuriatingly perfect in his ceremonial hunting attire, fitted leather reinforced with ice-treated steel, furs that actually allowed for movement, weapons positioned for easy access rather than decorative purposes. His hair remained the same half messy, effortlessly perfect style, revealing the sharp lines of his face, and his eyes practically glowed with excitement.

The man was enjoying this far too much.

"Stop staring at me like that," Eris snapped, adjusting her furs for the hundredth time in a futile attempt to find a comfortable position. "It’s creepy."

"I’m not staring," Soren lied blatantly. "I’m admiring. There’s a difference."

"Don’t complain if I gouge your eyeballs out."

"Please don’t. I’m quite fond of this outfit."

"Then stop. Bothering. Me."

Soren leaned in closer, lowering his voice to something intimate and infuriating. "But you’re so entertaining when you’re angry. Your eyes do this thing where they literally glow, and your temperature spikes just enough that... "

"Soren." The warning in her voice could have frozen the sun.

He grinned wider, absolutely delighted. "Yes, future wife?"

"I’m reconsidering this entire marriage."

"That’s a lie."

"I will murder you in your sleep."

"That..." Soren said thoughtfully, "might be true. I should probably start locking my doors. Nevermind I’d keep them open."

From a respectful distance, three men watched this exchange with varying degrees of concern and amusement.

Aldric who’d spent decades cultivating Soren’s image as a cold, calculating ruler, looked like he was witnessing the slow collapse of everything he’d worked for.

His expression cycled through disbelief, horror, resignation, and back to disbelief as he watched his Emperor, the same man who’d once executed a duke without blinking, who’d negotiated trade agreements that left nobles weeping, who could silence a room with a single glance, actively trying to provoke his fiancée like a little boy pulling a girl’s hair.

"I can’t get used to this," Aldric muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I’ve tried. Gods know I’ve tried. But watching him deliberately antagonize a woman who could incinerate him with a thought..." He trailed off, shaking his head.

Beside him, Ryse, captain of the Imperial Guard and the only person in the empire who’d known Soren since childhood, chuckled low in his throat. "You’ll adjust eventually. I did."

"You’ve had more time," Aldric pointed out. "I’m still processing the fact that our Emperor, who once stared down a berserker horde without flinching, is currently flirting by annoying his bride into homicidal rage."

"It’s a bold strategy," Jorel observed, joining their little group with a cup of something warm clutched in his gloved hands. He’d been studying the seeming disaster with academic fascination. "Unconventional, certainly. Possibly suicidal. But you have to admire his commitment."

Ryse snorted. "Commitment to what? Getting himself killed?"

"To making her smile," Jorel replied, and all three men turned to watch as Eris, despite her best efforts, failed to completely suppress the twitch at the corner of her mouth as Soren said something else too quiet for them to hear.

"She’s going to kill him," Aldric predicted flatly.

"Probably," Ryse agreed.

"Definitely," Jorel added.

They stood in companionable silence for a moment, watching their Emperor blatantly ignore every rule of self-preservation by moving closer to a woman who was literally radiating heat from frustration.

"Remember the Rebellion five years ago?" Ryse said suddenly, his voice gone quiet and serious in a way that made the other two men pay attention. "When the northern territories tried to secede? When they sent that assassin, the one with the cursed blade that used dark magic?"

Aldric nodded slowly, his expression darkening with the memory.

"Soren caught him in the throne room," Ryse continued. "In front of the entire court. The assassin was good, one of the best I’ve ever seen. Got within striking distance before anyone realized the threat."

"I remember," Aldric said. "I was there."

"Then you remember what Soren did." Ryse’s voice dropped even lower. "How the temperature in that room dropped so fast that people’s breath froze in their lungs. How the assassin’s blood in his veins and turned into spikes that punctured his whole body and organs before he could complete his strike. How His Majesty didn’t move from his throne, didn’t raise his voice, just... ended him. Completely. Efficiently. Without mercy."

Jorel shivered despite his warm clothing. "I’ve heard the story back in Solmire once. The blood shattered when the guards tried to remove it."

"That’s our Emperor," Ryse said, still watching Soren laugh at something Eris had just said. "That’s the man who rules this empire. Cold enough to turn blood into a blade, powerful enough to kill with a thought, ruthless enough to execute an entire noble house for treason without losing sleep."

"And now he’s..." Aldric gestured helplessly at the scene before them, where Soren was apparently trying to adjust Eris’s furs for her and getting his hands swatted away for his trouble.

"Completely besotted," Jorel finished. "Utterly, hopelessly in love with a woman who threatens to murder him at least twice a day."

"It’s disturbing," Aldric muttered.

"It’s actually kind of sweet," Jorel countered. "In a deeply dysfunctional, probably unhealthy, definitely concerning way."

Ryse’s expression softened slightly as he continued watching. "You know what the really terrifying part is? He’s still that cold, ruthless ruler. Still capable of everything we just described. But with her..." He paused, searching for words. "With her, he’s also this. Whatever this is."

"A man in love," Jorel supplied.

"A man with a death wish," Aldric corrected.

"Both," Ryse decided. "Definitely both."

A flash of movement caught their attention as Bianca Virelya emerged from one of the guest carriages, her hair arranged in elaborate braids, her expression carefully neutral as she took in the scene. Her hand, they noticed, was still wrapped in bandages from yesterday’s encounter in the garden.

"Oh good," Ryse said dryly. "The other woman scorned has arrived. This should make things even more interesting."

"Define interesting..." Aldric added.

"Catastrophic," Ryse clarified. "I meant catastrophic."