CHAPTER 218: FIRE AND ICE

Near the front of the procession, priests of the Ice Creed prepared their ritual implements, bowls of sacred ash, ceremonial blades forged from glacier ice and blessed by generations of faithful, scrolls containing the exact wording of prayers that had been spoken at imperial weddings for three centuries.

High Priestess Serah moved among them with quiet authority, her white robes trimmed with silver, her staff topped with a crystal that supposedly contained a fragment of Aenithra’s own essence.

She noticed Soren and Eris’s interaction and allowed herself the smallest smile. In her century of service to the Ice Creed, she’d blessed two imperial weddings. Both had been political arrangements, cold contracts sealed with colder vows, unions that produced heirs and alliances but little else.

This one, she suspected, would be different.

The caravan began to move, a slow procession of horses and wagons winding through the palace gates and into the frozen landscape beyond.

The journey to the Rifted Glacier Forest would take several hours, time for the participants to contemplate what awaited them, time for the witnesses to place their bets on which Ice Beast the couple would choose, time for the priests to perform the traveling blessings that would theoretically protect everyone from the various horrors that inhabited Nevareth’s wilderness.

Soren rode beside Eris, their horses matched for size and temperament, chosen specifically so neither would have an advantage or disadvantage... so indeed Solara had to sit this one out.

Soren leaned toward Eris, his voice pitched low enough that only she could hear over the crunch of hooves on snow and the jingle of harness bells.

"Most couples choose small prey," he explained, his tone shifting from playful to informative. "Lynx cubs. Young elk. Something manageable that won’t actually threaten them. The ritual is symbolic more than anything... proof they can work together, can face a challenge as a unit."

"And what are we choosing?" Eris asked, though her expression suggested she already knew the answer.

Soren’s grin was sharp and wild and utterly unrepentant. "The biggest bastard we can find."

Despite herself, despite her irritation with the furs and the cold and the entire ridiculous tradition, Eris felt answering excitement stir in her chest. "You’re insane."

"You’re marrying me anyway."

"I’m definitely reconsidering that decision."

"Lie."

They rode in comfortable silence for a while, the landscape gradually shifting from cultivated palace grounds to true wilderness.

Trees twisted by centuries of wind and cold lined the path, their branches heavy with ice that caught the weak winter sun and threw it back in prismatic fractals.

In the distance, mountains rose like titans’ teeth, jagged peaks that disappeared into clouds.

Somewhere in those mountains, in caverns and crevasses and frozen wastes, Ice Beasts waited. Some were merely large and dangerous, predators enhanced by magic, their natural instincts sharpened to supernatural levels.

Others were true monsters, creatures of legend that existed at the intersection of magic and nightmare, things that shouldn’t be possible but were, thriving in Nevareth’s brutal climate.

By the time they reached the staging area, a snowy ridge overlooking a frozen ravine, the sun had hovered over the horizon.

Camp sprang up with military efficiency: tents erected, braziers lit with alchemical flames that burned blue and hot enough to create pockets of warmth in the savage cold, drums positioned at cardinal points to be beaten during the ritual, banners planted in the snow bearing the imperial crest.

The atmosphere was brutal, ancient, theatrical in a way that made Eris think of her own kingdom’s festivals different manifestations of the same human need to make meaning through spectacle, to transform life’s significant moments into something larger than mere existence.

High Priestess Serah approached as they dismounted, her staff thumping against packed snow with each step. She’d aged well, Eris thought, her face lined but strong, her eyes still sharp despite their clouded color.

"Your Majesties," she intoned, her voice carrying despite the wind that whipped snow sideways across the ridge. "You stand before Aenithra’s chosen land, where ice has reigned since the world’s first winter. Tonight, you will prove yourselves worthy of the blessing you seek."

She produced two bowls from beneath her robes, each containing ash so white it seemed to glow. "Kneel."

They obeyed, and Eris felt the cold seep through her furs instantly, the frozen ground stealing heat with greedy efficiency. Serah marked their foreheads with the ash, drawing symbols that tingled against Eris’s skin with subtle magic.

"Fire and ice," the priestess murmured.

"Elements opposed, yet seeking union. A dangerous proposition. A beautiful one."

She met Eris’s eyes, and something ancient and knowing flickered in her gaze. "May you find balance in each other, or may you find mercy in the ice should balance prove impossible."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, Eris thought wryly.

Serah presented them each with a blade, ceremonial but functional, edges sharp enough to cut, hilts wrapped in leather treated to resist both fire and frost.

"Retrieve the Star-Shards before dusk. Return alive. The how and the why are yours to determine, but the when is absolute. Evening breaks the seal on this ritual. Return after that, and the blessing is forfeit."

She stepped back, raising her staff high. "May Aenithra guide your path and guard your souls. May the ice remember you kindly. May your union prove stronger than the forces that would tear it apart."

The drums began, a low, rhythmic pounding that seemed to resonate in Eris’s chest, matching her heartbeat, making her magic stir restlessly beneath her skin.

"We split paths here," Soren said quietly, his playfulness from earlier replaced by something more serious, more focused.

"Tradition demands we hunt separately, prove ourselves as individuals before we can claim unity."

He gestured north, toward the deeper mountains where peaks vanished into storm clouds. "That’s my route. Deeper into the range, where the older beasts make their lairs. Harder terrain, but more impressive prey."

"And mine?" Eris asked, though she could guess.

"East." He pointed toward a series of the vast openings in the cliff face, caverns that descended into the mountain’s heart, where ice formed in layers thick enough to entomb entire cities.

"Through the caves. Different dangers, but no less real. The things that live in perpetual darkness down there..." He paused. "Be careful."

"I’m always careful."

"That’s the biggest lie you’ve told all day."

Despite everything, she smiled. "Fair."

They stood at the divergence point, where the path split into two tributaries of frozen death, and for a moment, neither moved.

Around them, witnesses gathered on the ridge, nobles wrapped in furs, priests chanting blessings, guards watching with the grim awareness that they could observe but never interfere, that if either the Emperor or his bride died in these frozen wastes, they would do nothing but record how it happened. Though thankfully there had never been any recorded deaths in the last century.

"Don’t die," Soren said finally, and there was something vulnerable beneath the command, something that made Eris’s chest tight.

"Don’t give me orders," she replied, but her hand found his, squeezed once, let go.

Then they turned away from each other, fire toward ice and ice toward storm and the hunt began.