CHAPTER 84: GRIEF

The walk back to the palace felt longer than it ever had before.

Each step echoed hollow against marble, stripped of purpose, stripped of command. The air was heavy, too heavy, with the silence that follows something irreversible.

At the entrance to the royal wing, Caelen stopped. His guards halted behind him, uncertain.

"That will be all," he said quietly.

The men exchanged glances, but none dared to argue. They bowed, armor clinking faintly, and withdrew into the shadows until their footsteps vanished down the hall.

Only when the last sound faded did he move again.

He turned, slowly, toward the hall that had once belonged to her.

The Fire Queen’s wing.

Now nothing but ghosts.

He had avoided this place since she left their marriage bed for the last time. Even when she was alive and reigning, he’d found excuses not to come here. But now, as he crossed the threshold, it was as though the years between then and now had collapsed into one long, endless breath.

The scent met him first, faint but still there, lingering in the corners where sunlight never reached. Smoke and jasmine. A smell that used to fill his lungs until it became part of his own breath.

He pushed the door open.

The chamber greeted him in ruin and silence.

Maps lay strewn across the floor, their edges singed and curling. The desk was stained with ink, a quill snapped in half beside it. One of her cloaks was draped over the chair, untouched since that night, its hem scorched from her temper.

Everything looked the same.

Everything was wrong.

He stepped inside, his hand brushing against the table’s surface. The ink smeared faintly under his fingertips, still damp in places, as if time itself had stopped to remember her.

For a moment, he could almost see her, Eris, standing behind that desk, head bowed, firelight glinting along her hair as she plotted her next conquest. Her eyes alight with defiance, her lips curved in that half-smile that always made him forget what he was supposed to hate.

He remembered the countless times she’d summoned him here.

Sometimes with fury, sometimes with pleading.

Sometimes with both.

He would come, always. Pretending it was duty that guided him, not desire. Pretending her command forced him when, in truth, he had wanted to go. Wanted her voice, her anger, her touch. Even when it burned him. Especially when it burned him.

His gaze drifted to the corner by the bed.

That was where she’d told him she was with child.

The memory hit like sunlight breaking through smoke, bright, almost cruel.

He hadn’t smiled then, of course. He’d been too proud, too wary, too frightened of the feeling rising in his chest. But gods, he’d felt it.

That wild, dizzy rush of something pure.

He remembered her hand pressing his to her stomach, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "He’ll have your eyes," she’d said.

And when Rael was born, when that small, perfect weight was placed in his arms, the world itself seemed to shift.

He hadn’t known he could love something that much.

And she—Eris—had looked at their son as if he were the only thing in this world worth saving.

But he had taken that joy away from her, too.

Piece by piece.

With silence. With anger. With fear he never learned to master.

The realization hit him like a blade drawn from within.

She had given him a child, a future, a reason to believe in something beyond the throne.

And in return, he had taken it from her.

He had given her loneliness where there should have been love.

His knees gave way before he realized he was falling.

The marble was cold beneath him, unyielding. His hands pressed against it, trembling, the burn on his palm flaring as if the memory of her fire refused to let him forget.

For a long moment, he just stayed there, silent, still, his body bowed under the weight of everything he’d broken.

A sound escaped him, faint and raw.

Not a cry, not even a sob. Just breath that refused to steady.

Tears followed, quiet, steady, falling onto stone that had seen too much.

He did not wail.

He did not break apart the way others might.

He simply let it happen.

Because this grief was his alone to bear, the grief of a man who had loved the very fire that destroyed him, and in trying to extinguish it, had extinguished himself.

The room stayed silent, save for his uneven breathing.

Outside, dawn crept through the windows, pale and merciless. Its light touched the broken maps, the spilled ink, the empty bed, and the man kneeling at its center, mourning the ghost of a woman who had already burned her name into history.

.....

The carriage moved like a sigh through the morning.

Beyond the glass, Solmire’s horizon stretched in slow retreat, the towers paling against the first sweep of gold. The wheels hummed a low rhythm beneath them, steady and soothing, the sound of distance being quietly rewritten.

Inside, the world was hushed.

Eris sat by the window, spine straight, gaze fixed outward. Her hands rested loosely in her lap, her posture that of a queen who refused to show weariness. But her eyes betrayed her, heavy-lidded, rimmed faintly in fatigue. Every breath she drew trembled on the edge of collapse.

Soren watched her.

Carefully. Too carefully.

Pretending not to.

The morning light fell over her face, gilding the bruised hollows of her exhaustion into something achingly delicate. Each rise and fall of her chest, each tiny motion of her fingers, he took it in as if memorizing proof that she was still there, alive, within reach.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

With every passing mile, the tension he’d carried for weeks loosened, replaced by a slow, simmering contentment. They were leaving Solmire. Leaving its ghosts behind.

For the first time in years, the thought of tomorrow didn’t feel like a threat.

"You really don’t know how to be subtle with your gaze," she said suddenly, her voice low, almost lazy, but sharp enough to cut through the quiet.

He smiled, not even pretending to be caught off guard. "Apologies," he murmured. "I can’t help it. Especially now that you are one of the North."

Her eyes slid to him, unimpressed. "Will be," she corrected.

Soren tilted his head slightly, that familiar hint of arrogance glinting in his expression. "My word," he said, "is absolute."

She looked at him like he’d just declared the moon his property. Then, without another word, turned back toward the window.

Outside, the day had fully arrived. The fields were waking in color and motion. Birds darted between branches, scattering dew from the leaves. The sun spilled over the plains in ribbons of gold, lighting the edges of the carriage path until it looked like a road woven from fire.

In the distance, the city stirred.

Smoke rose from the early bakeries. Children ran barefoot through the narrow streets, laughing as they waved at the procession. Farmers bent to their fields, the rhythm of their movements calm, steady, eternal.

A world she had once ruled, now rolling away behind her like an old memory.

The scent of bread drifted faintly through the open window.

And still, she tried to stay awake.

Her head tilted once, caught itself, lifted again. Her eyelids fluttered, heavy and stubborn. She fought the pull with silent defiance, because surrender, even to sleep, felt like weakness.

"You don’t have to fight it," Soren said at last, amusement softening his tone.

"I’m fine," she replied without turning. "I’m not sleepy."

He laughed under his breath, a quiet, knowing sound. "You don’t know how to hide it either. Your sleepiness."

Before she could retort, the carriage shifted slightly as he rose from his seat. He moved with deliberate grace, the way he always did, crossing the small space until he sat beside her.

She stiffened immediately. "I don’t remember permitting you to sit beside me."

"Then I suppose," he said, his voice low, almost a whisper, "you’re about to learn how disobedient I can be."

Eris shot him a look, equal parts disbelief and irritation, and then turned her face back toward the window with a huff that only made his smile deepen.

For a few heartbeats, neither spoke. The sound of the wheels and the rustle of the wind filled the silence between them.

Then her body leaned, just barely. Her shoulder brushed his arm.

He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

The contact was fleeting at first, accidental, stubbornly ignored, but as the carriage swayed with the road, it became inevitable. Her head tilted, her weight shifted, and finally, slowly, she let herself drift sideways.

Her cheek came to rest against his shoulder.

Sleep claimed her quietly, like a tide pulling the shore into stillness.

Soren sat there, motionless, a faint smile touching his lips as he felt her breath warm through the fabric of his coat. His hand twitched once, the temptation to reach up, to cradle the back of her head, to draw her closer , but he restrained himself.

This, he thought, was enough.

The world outside rolled onward, a blur of gold and green, and for the first time in a very long while, the Ice Emperor of Nevareth felt... at peace.

She slept beside him.

And that was all the victory he needed.