CHAPTER 224: SHIFT

The mountaintop altar stood like a monument to winter’s eternal reign, a platform of black ice so ancient its origins predated written history, carved with symbols in languages no living scholar could fully translate, positioned at precisely the point where three mountain peaks converged to create a natural amphitheater.

The setting sun painted the surrounding snowfields in shades of rose gold and deepening purple, light bleeding across the horizon as though the sky itself was wounded and beautiful in its dying.

Everyone who’d made the journey assembled in careful positions around the altar, nobles in their finest furs, priests in ceremonial robes that had been white that morning but now bore traces of incense smoke and ritual offerings, Imperial Hunters standing at attention despite hours of maintaining watchful readiness, servants and attendants clustering at the edges where protocol permitted them to witness without intruding.

The air hummed with anticipation, with exhaustion from the day’s tensions, with the collective held breath of people waiting to discover whether their future Empress had survived, whether their Emperor would return, whether this entire elaborate tradition would conclude in triumph or tragedy.

Then, from the eastern path that descended into caverns and darkness, a figure emerged.

Eris Igniva looked like winter had tried to claim her and failed. Her furs were torn in places, stained with blood that might have been hers or the lynx’s or both.

Ice crystals clung to her pale hair, catching the fading light. Her face was pale with cold and exhaustion, her movements carrying the careful precision of someone whose muscles had been pushed past comfortable limits.

But she was alive. Whole. Walking under her own power with the Star-Shard clutched in one hand, its blue glow visible even from a distance.

The crowd exhaled collectively, relief and something approaching awe rippling through the gathered witnesses. She’d done it. The foreign fire queen had survived Nevareth’s frozen depths and returned with proof of her worthiness.

Eris barely registered their reactions, too focused on the simple mechanics of putting one foot in front of the other, of maintaining composure when every instinct screamed to collapse and sleep for three days straight.

The cold had seeped into her bones during the return journey, the kind of deep chill that no amount of internal fire magic could fully dispel without advertising her presence to every predator within sensing range.

She was aware, distantly, that people were staring. That the priests looked surprised, possibly that she’d succeeded, or possibly at the peaceful expression she wore despite obvious physical toll. That nobles whispered behind gloved hands, recalculating whatever political equations her survival had disrupted.

She was less aware, initially, of the second figure that emerged from the northern path moments after her arrival.

Then someone gasped, and Eris’s attention snapped toward the sound.

Soren looked like he’d bathed in violence and emerged baptized.

Blood covered him... not the careful spattering that came from controlled kills, but the comprehensive coating that suggested he’d been intimate with violence, had rolled in it, had perhaps celebrated in it.

Other than the splatter of blood, his ceremonial hunting attire remained the same, somehow making him look more dangerous rather than diminished. His hair was wild, freed from its usual style by wind and exertion and possibly the thrashing of dying prey.

And his eyes... gods, his eyes... held the flat, cold gleam of a predator that had fed well and was contemplating seconds.

For a moment, just a heartbeat, Eris felt genuine chill race down her spine that had nothing to do with Nevareth’s climate.

This was the man who’d killed his own father. Not in secret, not with poison or politics or any of the civilized methods nobles employed when removing inconvenient relatives.

He’d done it publicly, brutally, with ice magic that had apparently turned the old Emperor’s blood into internal blades that shredded him from the inside out.

This was the man who’d single-handedly ended an attempted military coup three years ago when northern territories had tried to secede. Stories said he’d walked into the rebel army’s camp alone, had emerged six hours later as the only living thing for a mile radius, every soldier frozen solid in positions that suggested they’d died screaming.

Nevareth’s history was punctuated with attempted divisions, with nobles who thought they could carve out independent kingdoms, with civil wars that erupted like winter storms... sudden, brutal, leaving only corpses and cautionary tales in their wake. Unlike Solmire, where threats came from families trying to end the Igniva bloodline to claim the throne, Nevareth’s dangers came from territories, from those who already had power and wanted more.

And Soren had crushed every single attempt with the kind of ruthless efficiency that made people stop trying.

She’d known this intellectually, of course. Had heard the stories, seen evidence of his capabilities, understood on a theoretical level that the man who annoyed her daily about her temperature preferences and choice of breakfast was also capable of mass execution without apparent moral struggle.

But knowing and seeing were different things.

Seeing the blood. Seeing the expression. Seeing the way he moved, not tired despite obvious exertion, but energized, alive in ways that suggested violence agreed with him on fundamental levels.

She’d gotten so used to his silly side, to the playful antagonism and shameless flirting and the way he looked at her like she was the sun and he was a plant desperately photosynthesizing. She’d forgotten, or allowed herself to forget, that she was dealing with someone who’d inherited more than just his father’s throne.

Then Soren’s gaze found her across the crowd.

The transformation was instantaneous and somehow more unsettling than the bloodlust had been. His expression shifted from cold calculation to something bright and warm and utterly harmless-looking, his entire face lighting up with recognition and what could only be described as puppy-ish enthusiasm.

He waved.

Not a dignified imperial acknowledgment. Not a subtle gesture meant to convey respect between equals. An actual, genuine, slightly-too-enthusiastic wave, his blood-splattered hand moving in an arc that probably violated seventeen protocols about proper imperial deportment.