CHAPTER 89: GRUDGE

ERIS

It was quiet. The kind of quiet that swallowed its own echo.

The inn had gone still hours ago.

Somewhere down the hall, I could hear the faint, uneven rhythm of someone snoring, probably one of the knights who’d drunk too much.

Mira was curled up in the adjoining room, breathing softly, and Jorel had passed out on the floor by the hearth before I even finished writing my notes.

But I was still awake.

No matter how heavy my body felt, my eyes refused to close.

The candle at my desk had burned low, the wax pooling unevenly. My fingers were stained with ink. I’d been scribbling nonsense for the better part of an hour, thoughts, fragments, half-formed lists of what I’d need to prepare once we reached Nevareth.

Vetra. Diplomats. Adjusting to their customs. How to keep myself from accidentally offending an entire court before breakfast.

But concentration was impossible.

The room felt too warm, not the pleasant kind of warmth, but the restless, clinging kind. My skin prickled, my pulse too loud in my ears. It wasn’t the candle or the air. It was me.

It was always me.

Fire lived under my skin. It hummed when I was restless, flared when I remembered things best left buried. Tonight, it felt impossible to contain.

I leaned back in my chair and sighed, pressing the quill to my lips. My gaze drifted to the window, where the glass reflected the faintest ghost of my face, the same face people had learned to fear. And soon, it would be their problem. The people of Nevareth.

How would they see me?

Nevarians.

Would they whisper "Fire Queen" the same way Solmire did, with awe tangled in disgust?

Would they flinch when I passed? Or would they simply look away?

I told myself it didn’t matter. I’d survived worse than rejection.

Still... it gnawed at me.

My thoughts wandered to Soren. The ridiculous conversation we hadn’t yet had, the rules, the boundaries, the expectations of our arrangement. We’d agreed to marry, yes, but we hadn’t decided what kind of marriage that would actually be.

A strategic one, surely. But what about the details that weren’t political?

Would he want... proximity?

Would he expect more than I could give?

If there was something Soren was. It was unpredictable. Wild. Cute... maybe.

I shook my head, annoyed at myself.

And then, stupidly, I remembered his voice outside my chamber earlier, that smug suggestion of sharing a room.

The heat under my skin deepened.

And of course my treacherous mind wandered further, to that moment days ago, when I’d commanded him to kneel, to kiss my feet... and he had, obediently. But then his lips had moved higher, to my thigh, to the place where my composure had almost shattered...

"That’s it!" I muttered under my breath, slamming the quill down.

The candle flickered violently, as if in warning. I exhaled, slow and controlled, forcing the warmth in my chest to settle before it burned through my self-control.

I stood, pushing the chair back. My muscles ached from sitting too long. The parchment on the desk was covered in nothing useful, words and worry, a portrait of my own disorder.

Maybe sleep would come if I walked.

Maybe if I stepped into the cold, it would quiet the heat.

I told myself it wasn’t a terrible idea. Everyone was asleep anyway. The night guards wouldn’t care.

So I slipped into my cloak, fastened the clasp, and opened the door quietly. The corridor was dim and silent, lit only by the occasional wall torch. My footsteps made no sound against the wood.

Outside, the air hit me, cool, sharp, merciful.

The courtyard was half-lit by the moon. Sky vast and dotted with many stars too pretty to ignore.

Horses shifted softly in their stalls. The river murmured beyond the walls, a faint lullaby under the stillness.

I took a deep breath.

My mind briefly venturing into that unforbidden thought.

Was all this really just someone’s imagination?

If so then could I perharps create a world of my own. From my mind. And play god too.

I shook my mind off it. That was another thought for another day.

The gentle breeze swept by me slightly. It helped. A little.

Then I saw him.

Sitting on one of the low stone ledges near the stables, head bent, absently tossing a small rock between his hands. A loose strand of pale gold hair caught the moonlight. His cloak, half-unfastened, rippled faintly in the wind.

Soren.

Of course.

My mind wandered back into that unbidden territory.

It seemed almost funny how I never spared him a glance in the past.

Even though he was almost impossibly hard to ignore.

Still I chased blindly after Caelen. Oblivious to everyone else.

But just like Caelen, Soren had also treated me like a monster. Not directly... But kept enough distance that the words didn’t need to be said out loud.

But I couldn’t even blame him. He was merely following the script too.

And yet I couldn’t deny a flicker of grudge that sparked within me.

He too helped in taking me down. He was Caelen’s friend after all.

He helped Caelen craft the spells woven into the enchanted sword that took my last breath.

A cluster of Winter Knights stood nearby, murmuring quietly over maps and route charts. They noticed me first, froze mid-sentence, their eyes darting toward their emperor.

The silence rippled like water.

Soren turned his head. His expression shifted from focus to faint amusement in an instant.

"Couldn’t sleep?" he asked, his voice soft but carrying easily in the quiet.

I felt every pair of eyes shift toward me.

I turned slightly, intending to leave before this became a spectacle, but the knights, sensing the tension (or perhaps sensing my temper), quickly found reasons to not be there.

Within seconds, the map was folded, the conversation abandoned, and the courtyard conveniently cleared.

Which, of course, left me alone.

With him.

Soren looked far too pleased with himself for a man caught in the middle of the night tossing rocks at gravel.

And suddenly I found my little grudge melting away like snowflakes.

I crossed my arms. "You scared them off."

He shrugged, that infuriating smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "They’re learning to recognize danger when they see it."

"And you stayed out here to... toss stones?"

"To think." His tone softened, gaze lifting toward the sky. "And to wait."

"For what?"

His eyes found mine again, steady, unreadable, glinting faintly with moonlight. "You."

For a moment, the warmth under my skin flared again, and I hated it. Hated how easily he did that, how quickly one word from him could make me feel like the world was leaning too close.

I told myself to leave. To turn, to go back to my room, to forget the pull of his voice and the look in his eyes.

But the night was too still, and I was too awake.

And somehow, I stayed.