CHAPTER 60: PROPOSAL

There was too much folded into that single question.

Now that you’ve stepped down.

Now that you’ve destroyed everything.

Now that you’re free.

Eris’s lips curved... not cruelly, but faintly, like the ghost of a smile that had forgotten what joy felt like.

"I believe that is my own business."

She let the words rest in the air a moment, then added, softer...

"But if you must know... I won’t be around to bother you and Ophelia anymore."

A murmur rippled through the onlookers... curiosity, disbelief, dread. But Caelen’s expression only hardened, suspicion sharpening into something darker.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I plan to travel," she said simply. "With my time."

It was vague... too vague. A statement polished to sound harmless, yet every syllable carried the weight of farewell. She was already gone in her heart; this was merely the courtesy of informing the world.

But then Caelen’s voice changed. The edge softened, replaced by something almost fragile.

"What about Rael?"

The name caught her off guard. It was such a simple question, but it hit her like a blow. For a heartbeat, she only stared... because they never spoke of their son. Not in years. Not since her cruelty had devoured everything between them.

She could have answered ten ways... guilt, heat, the ache of a mother but instead she tilted her head, asked instead with a faint, almost teasing cruelty: "And what about him?

Caelen’s throat worked.

"Would you leave Rael too?"

Eris laughed, softly, bitterly, like someone trying to breathe through smoke.

"Were you not the one who separated the child from his mother in the first place?"

Silence fell.

The truth landed on Caelen like a stone. He had been the one, once, to take their child away... he had convinced himself of necessity, of protection. Guilt, immediate and ugly, scrawled itself across his features. He found nothing clever to say. The room watched the shiver of shame cross the man who wore steadiness like armor.

And Eris, with that same terrible composure, continued... her voice no longer a queen’s, but a woman’s, raw and trembling at the edges.

"I don’t blame you. You did what you thought was best. After all, a woman like me is hardly a model for a child." She said.

"Rael has learned to live without me," she went on. "He’ll be fine... with his father, and a good woman to raise him."

It was said gently, but the gentleness was the cruelest part.

‎That was too clean for Caelen. He saw a woman shedding her mantle, and he could not help himself: his protective impulse hardened into accusation.

"Or is that your excuse to abandon him?" he bit out.

He stepped closer, his fury low and shaking.

"You can dress it in poetry if you like, Eris, but I know you. This isn’t remorse. It’s escape."

And then... like a blade driven into the floor between them... came the declaration that turned the air to ice.

"If you have truly stepped down as Queen and handed your authority to me..."

His tone shifted. Cold. Official.

The voice of a ruler.

"...then you become liable to be tried for your crimes."

Gasps rippled through the hall. The nobles froze. The priests stopped whispering.

"And by my newly vested authority," Caelen continued, "Eris Igniva, you are not allowed to leave Solmire. Not until you’ve faced the full wrath of justice for all the souls and flesh you’ve burned without pity."

The entire room seemed to inhale at once. Even the firelight dimmed, as though it knew danger when it saw it.

Eris didn’t flinch. She had seen this coming long before he spoke.

Of course he would do this.

Of course justice would be demanded from the monster who had ruled too long.

Her eyes lifted to meet his, calm as the moment before a storm breaks.

"Do you really want that to happen?"

Her tone was quiet, almost gentle... but the threat beneath it was unmistakable.

"Do you truly want to sacrifice more people just to bring me to justice? I wonder how your subjects would take it."

A warning cloaked in silk.

Because if they tried to cage her, she would burn her way out.

And everyone knew what happened when the Queen of Fire decided she had nothing left to lose.

Caelen’s reply came cold and final, each word spat like frost.

"I knew you’d never really change." he spat.

"You’ll always be the same."

There was disgust in his voice, yes... but beneath it, resignation.

And something worse.

Disappointment.

Eris’s response was soft enough to wound.

"How tragic for you."

No anger.

No fury.

Only a sadness that clung to her voice like ashes clinging to flame.

For a moment they stood in the eye of a storm they had made together: his legal authority at odds with her unspent and terrible will. The court could not tell which way the wind would tilt. Some faces in the crowd reddened with zeal for retribution; others paled at the thought of the conflagration she promised.

A queen no longer on paper but queen nonetheless in aura and menace, did not flinch. The flame in the Eternal Pyre climbed higher, as if incensed by the edicts of men. It painted her silhouette in living gold and made her appear, paradoxically, both vulnerable and infinite.

‎

‎"Make your choice." she said, low and unbowed. "Bring me to trial, if you will. Call the guards, seat the council, read the charges aloud. But know this, Caelen Caldrith: you will not have a kingdom when this is over if you drag me before them."

‎

‎Her hand brushed the edge of the dais, the move almost casual, and for a breath the room felt less like a court and more like a hearth that could be stoked or snuffed by the whim of a woman whose hands still charred the air.

‎

‎Caelen’s jaw set. Around them a thousand small dramas prepared to unfold, alliances shifting, wagers reforming, the priests whispering half-legal prayers. No one in that glittering chamber believed for a second that the matter would resolve itself without blood, without law, or without the cunning that had always bound power to flame.

Ah, but fate does have a sense of theater, doesn’t it? Just when the air itself seemed on the verge of shattering, when the Queen of Fire and her once-beloved stood frozen in a tableau of pride and ruin, a voice cut through the tension like silk drawn across a blade.

Smooth. Calm. Unhurried.

Soren’s.

Heads turned as though pulled by invisible strings

The crowd parted for him as if by instinct, a sea of glittering silk and trembling breath. Because when Emperor Soren Nivarre decided to move, one did not simply stand in his way. He moved through them like a storm in disguise, smiling.

The smile he wore wasn’t the charming kind that had made half the Solmiran court swoon earlier in the night. No, this was something else entirely. Mocking. Measured. Dangerous.

The smile of a predator pretending it still had patience, lazy, almost amused, as though the unraveling of a kingdom were nothing more than a diverting spectacle arranged for his entertainment.

When he stopped, only a few paces from the dais, the smile vanished.

What remained was a look that could have frozen fire itself.

It was that expression every diplomat in Nevareth prayed they’d never see again. A stillness so absolute it promised ruin.

It reminded every trembling courtier present that the Emperor of Nevareth was not merely handsome... he was lethal.

Caelen’s jaw tightened. His instincts screamed. He knew Soren well enough to recognize the gathering storm.

"Forgive me," Soren said lightly, voice carrying just enough to hush the room again, "for intruding on this very delicate moment between members of the royal family.

Polite. Cordial. Poisoned.

Caelen’s reply was strained, as if he were already tasting disaster.

"Soren. Back off."

A command dressed as a plea.

But the Emperor did not even glance at him. His eyes... those glacial, calculating eyes... were fixed solely on Eris.

"Congratulations on your newly acquired position, Caelen," he murmured, without sparing him a single look.

Dismissive. Cutting.

A flick of the tongue that reduced kingship itself to a passing inconvenience.

And then he stepped closer to the Queen, his attention turned fully, devastatingly, to her.

The crowd held its breath.

"Tell me, Your Majesty," he asked softly, "did you mean it? Every word."

Eris tilted her head, unbothered, her tone light as smoke.

"I did."

Her words clinical, almost bored.

But one could almost feel the shiver that passed through the crowd, like wind whispering across dry leaves before a fire.

Caelen took a step forward, his voice sharp with warning.

"Soren," he began again, voice rising, "what are you doing?"

But again, no acknowledgment. Soren continued, unblinking.

"So," Soren continued, gaze never leaving hers, "you are no longer bound to Caelen by marriage? Legally, officially... in every sense?"

Each word fell precise and deliberate, like a man checking the last links of a chain before pulling it taut, the way one might confirm the terms of a spell. Each word deliberate, final, sealing something unseen.

Eris’s eyes narrowed, the first flicker of irritation breaking through her mask.

"What are you getting at, exactly?"

And oh, that smile. It returned, not playful now, but sharp with inevitability.

"Forgive me your majesty," he said, voice velveted and dangerous. "I merely wanted to be certain before I bring forth my own request."

"Which would be...?"

Her tone was careful now. Cautious. Even she could feel the ground shifting beneath her feet.

The question hung between them, taut as a bowstring.

Soren took one step closer. His tone softened, almost reverent.

"To seek your hand in marriage."

The words fell into the silence like a spark into oil.

For a heartbeat... silence. Utter, suffocating silence. The kind that makes the soul forget it lives inside a body.

Then the world exploded.

Gasps tore through the hall. Goblets fell. A priest fainted into his neighbor’s arms.

The orchestra faltered, strings whining in protest as if the instruments themselves refused to believe what they’d heard.

"What?!"

"The Ice Emperor—?"

"Marriage? To her?"

Voices overlapped, shrill and disbelieving. Mages clutched their relics. Nobles fanned themselves furiously, some from heat, others from hysteria. The entire ballroom erupted in pandemonium.

Caelen went rigid, pale as marble, every drop of blood draining from his face. He looked at Soren like he was seeing a stranger wearing his best friend’s skin. Shock, fury, betrayal...all wrestling across his face until none could win.

Ophelia clutched her pearls, eyes wide, as if she’d stumbled into a nightmare written in gold and fire.

And Eris... ah, Eris.

She stood perfectly still. The only flame untouched by wind.

Her gaze lifted to meet Soren’s, steady, assessing, almost curious. She searched his face for mockery, for politics, for the faintest twitch of deceit. But his eyes... his eyes were steady. Cold. Serious.

And for the first time that night, for the first time in a long time,

Eris Igniva... Queen of Fire, was completely and utterly, speechless.