CHAPTER 76: ICE AND FIRE

The fire queen was into herself, knees drawn to her chest, arms locked tight around her body like she was holding herself together by sheer will. Her hair hung forward, pale strands sticking to sweat-slick skin, concealing her face entirely. Her dress clung to her, half-singed, the hem still glowing faintly as embers crawled along the seams.

The flames around her moved with consciousness, not wild, not random, but alive. It circled her, an incandescent barrier, coiling and uncoiling like a dragon’s breath, keeping the world — him — out.

Soren stilled. The frost along his arms crackled faintly as instinct urged him closer, but the barrier flared in warning. The wave of heat that followed was strong enough to melt steel.

He stopped inches from it, the ice beneath his boots hissing into steam.

"Eris."

This time, it was softer. A whisper meant for the woman, not the queen.

No response.

Only the trembling.

And then,

A sound.

Faint. Fragile.

A whisper so small he almost missed it beneath the roar of fire.

"No... no... no..."

The words came in broken loops, a child’s mantra, a prayer of refusal muttered into her own arms.

His chest tightened, not from the heat, but from the sound of it.

He took another cautious step forward, extending his hand into the blaze. Ice bloomed from his skin in fractal bursts, clashing with the fire’s pulse.

Steam erupted between them, screaming into the silence.

He didn’t withdraw.

He waited.

Because beneath that fire, beneath the ruin and fury, was her.

And he would not leave without her.

The flames met him again, terrifying, blinding, alive.

They surged outward in one blistering wave, hungry enough to strip flesh from bone. The heat was absolute, suffocating, divine in its cruelty. Any mortal man would’ve turned to ash before he even drew breath.

But Soren was not mortal.

His magic rose instinctively as well, cold, pure, ancient.

The air around him thickened with frost, crystals forming midair, refracting the firelight into shards of blue and white.

The temperature plummeted.

He took another careful , calculated step.

The flames retaliated, hissing, twisting upward into serpentine coils that lashed at him with molten tongues.

His powers answered in kind, unfurling in elegant, serpentine whorls that met the fire head-on. It was a clash of opposites, elemental forces locked in violent choreography.

Fire burned across his skin, blistering in an instant...

and frozen again the next second, the wounds sealing beneath crystalline frost.

It was pain and restoration, destruction and rebirth, again and again and again.

Each step forward was agony.

Each inch a battle.

The ground beneath him fractured, half-frozen, half-charred, a tapestry of ruin marking his path.

Still, he kept walking.

Until his ice finally touched her fire.

The two magics met like lovers long estranged, resisting at first, then twining together in hesitant recognition. Frost coiled around the barrier, whispering against the inferno’s pulse, cooling it, soothing it, taming it. The flames flickered, faltered, then bent inward, as though bowing to something greater than themselves.

And there she was.

Wrapped in her own embrace on the floor, trembling, small in a way that Eris should never be. The fire queen reduced to embers.

He crouched before her, reaching through the last whisper of flame.

Then he heard it.

The sound that cut through every roar, every crackle of dying fire...

a voice, thin and fractured, spilling out like a confession.

"No, no, no... please don’t go... don’t leave me"

The words scraped raw against the air, desperate, childlike.

Soren’s throat tightened.

He crossed the final distance, slipping past the dying barrier, and gathered her against him.

She resisted at first, body rigid, skin blistering hot, but his arms were relentless, steady. His magic flowed into her without hesitation, wrapping them both in a cocoon of frost.

The fire roared one last time, then exhaled.

And then it was gone.

The room fell silent except for the faint hiss of cooling stone and her ragged breaths against his chest.

"I’m here," he murmured, voice low, careful. "I’m not going anywhere, Your Majesty. Not ever."

His fingers threaded through her hair, stroking, grounding. The ice enveloped them fully, spreading outward in thin crystalline sheets that quieted what remained of the inferno.

And slowly, impossibly, she began to calm.

The tremors eased.

Her fire dimmed to embers.

Her breathing softened against him, her body yielding, trusting the cold that had once been her enemy.

Then he saw them.

The marks.

Dark, fresh, angry against her pale throat, bruises shaped like kisses, ownership branded in flesh.

And just like that, the pieces fell into place.

The scent of her perfume on Caelen.

The burn seared into his palm.

The message sent in haste.

And now this, Eris trembling, broken, marked.

Understanding struck like lightning.

Caelen had touched her.

Caelen had kissed her.

And then Caelen had left her.

For Ophelia.

The realization hit hard, a rush of cold rage that seared deeper than any flame. His jaw clenched, the muscle ticking beneath his skin. Ice spread from his hands without command, crawling across the floor, up the walls, freezing what little fire remained.

But he didn’t let her go.

He only held her tighter.

Her head rested against his shoulder, her breathing soft and uneven. He felt her heat bleeding into him, still too high, still burning from the inside out. His magic flowed instinctively, cooling her from within, steadying the rhythm of her pulse until her body finally stopped trembling.

When he was sure she wouldn’t burn herself again, he shifted his hold and rose to his feet, lifting her easily into his arms.

The air in the chamber shifted once more. Wind returned. The frost hissed against the stone, spreading outward in quiet waves.

Soren turned toward the door, his steps sure, deliberate.

He didn’t glance back.

Behind him, the room continued to cool, smoke curling upward, the last remnants of her fury dissolving into fragile mist.

He carried her out into the corridor, the firelight bowing away from him as he passed.

Not to her chambers.

Never again.

He took her to his.

Where the walls would not burn.

Where no one, not even Caelen, could reach her.