CHAPTER 212: BURN

Vetra’s smile was approving, but there was something else beneath it... a knowing quality, like a teacher watching a student confidently march toward an inevitable lesson.

"I’m certain you’ll do your best, my dear. Your devotion to Soren has always been admirable."

She didn’t mention tomorrow’s plan. Didn’t explain the ritual they’d already prepared, the spell that would crack open hell itself and paint Eris as the architect of mass destruction. Let Bianca believe seduction was the primary strategy, that winning Soren’s heart was the path to victory.

The girl’s confidence was useful, even if it was built on delusion.

"The Star-Shard ritual is tomorrow," Vetra continued conversationally. "Soren and his... bride will be away from the palace for most of the day, participating in the ceremony at the Rifted Glacier Forest.

Traditional pre-wedding custom, meant to bless the union." Her tone suggested exactly what she thought of blessing this particular union. "They’ll be quite isolated. Vulnerable."

"Vulnerable to what?" Bianca asked, suspicion flickering across her features.

"To doubt," Vetra replied smoothly. "To questioning whether this marriage is truly what either of them wants. Sometimes distance provides clarity."

From her shadowed corner, Aira spoke, her ruined voice cutting through the pleasantries. "The fire queen recognized the blood magic immediately. She’s more attuned than we expected, more sensitive to magical intrusions."

Her hood shifted as she turned to face them more fully, and in the firelight, her scarred features were a grotesque map of old burns, skin melted and reformed into something barely human. "Tomorrow’s spell will need to be flawless. No room for error, no chance for her to sense it coming before it’s too late."

"It will be perfect," Vetra assured her with absolute confidence. "We’ve tested the theory. We know the seal can be cracked. Tomorrow, we’ll shatter it completely."

Bianca frowned, confusion evident in her expression. "What seal? What are you talking about?"

Vetra waved a dismissive hand. "Technical matters. Magic beyond what noble ladies typically concern themselves with."

Her smile was patronizing, treating Bianca like a child who couldn’t be trusted with adult conversations. "Focus on what you do best... reminding Soren of who you are, of what your families planned, of the life you should have had together."

Isolde moved to stand beside Vetra, her own expression shifting to something calculating. "And when the foreign witch shows her true colors, when she reveals herself to be the monster we all know she is, Soren will need someone familiar to turn to. Someone pure, uncorrupted by fire magic and foreign ways."

"Someone like you," Vetra finished, her hand coming to rest on Bianca’s shoulder in a gesture that could have been maternal if it weren’t so clearly manipulative. "You’ll be his salvation, my dear. The light that guides him back from the darkness she’s led him into."

Bianca’s burned hand throbbed, a constant pulse of pain that fed her determination rather than weakening it. She thought of Eris’s mocking smile, her crude comments, the casual way she’d dismissed Bianca’s claims to Soren like they meant nothing.

"I’ll be ready," she said, her voice hardening into something closer to steel than the sweetness she’d displayed in the garden.

"Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever truth comes out about her, I’ll be there for Soren. I’ll prove to him that I’m the one who truly cares, who truly understands him."

Vetra’s smile widened with approval, though her eyes remained cold as winter ice. "That’s the spirit, darling. Tomorrow, everything changes. By the time the sun sets, the empire will see Eris Igniva for what she really is... a danger, a threat, a monster wearing a crown she has no right to possess."

She glanced toward the window, where the last rays of sunlight were fading into twilight, painting the ice palace in shades of purple and deep blue.

"And when the people demand justice, when they cry out for protection from the fire that threatens to consume them, Soren will have no choice but to act. Emperor first, husband second. Always."

Aira rose from her seat in the corner, the movement slow and careful, as though her scarred body pained her with every motion. "I’ll make the final preparations," she said to Vetra, ignoring the other two women entirely.

"The prisoners are already selected, the site prepared. At tomorrow’s zenith, when the barrier between worlds is thinnest, we’ll begin."

"Prisoners?" Bianca’s frown deepened. "What are you not telling me Your grace?"

"Justice," Vetra replied simply. "And revelation. Sometimes the truth needs... dramatic presentation to be properly believed."

She guided Bianca toward the door with gentle but firm pressure, clearly ending the conversation.

"Go rest, my dear. Have your hand properly treated by the palace healers... tell them you burned it on a brazier, something mundane and believable. Tomorrow will be a very important day, and you’ll need your strength."

Isolde moved to follow, but Vetra caught her arm. "You stay. We have details to review."

Bianca paused at the doorway, looking back at the three women... Vetra with her cold beauty and colder ambitions, Isolde with her barely concealed resentment and desperation, Aira with her scarred face and darker-than-dark magic. Three very different women, united only by their hatred of a fourth.

"She’ll pay for this," Bianca said quietly, lifting her wrapped hand. "For the humiliation, for the pain, for stealing what should have been mine. I’ll make certain of it."

"I know you will," Vetra assured her, her voice warm with false affection. "Now go. Rest. Tomorrow, we change everything."

After Bianca left, silence settled over the chamber like snow. Isolde moved to pour wine from a crystal decanter, her movements sharp with barely contained excitement. "She has no idea what you’re actually planning, does she?"

"Of course not," Vetra replied, accepting the offered glass. "She’s useful precisely because she believes in love and destiny and other such fairy tales. We should let her think seduction is our strategy. Her genuine feelings for Soren make her convincing in a way calculated manipulation never could be."

Aira returned to her corner, pulling her hood forward again to hide her ruined features. "The girl is a fool if she thinks the Emperor’s affection can be swayed by childhood memories and pretty smiles. He’s chosen the fire queen. That choice won’t be unmade by sentiment."

"No," Vetra agreed, swirling her wine thoughtfully. "But it can be unmade by necessity. By survival. By the very real threat of a woman whose power could destroy the empire." She took a delicate sip.

"Tomorrow, when demons pour through the cracks we’ve opened, when innocent people die screaming, when Eris’s own sealed dragon responds to the chaos by trying to break free and level the capital... Soren will have no choice."

"He’ll have to kill her," Isolde finished, satisfaction evident in every word. "Or watch his empire burn."

"Precisely." Vetra set down her glass with deliberate care. "And after, when he’s grieving and guilt-ridden and desperate for comfort, Bianca will be there. Pure, devoted, familiar. The perfect replacement for the monster he was forced to destroy."

Aira’s laugh was a harsh, grating sound. "You’ve thought of everything, Your Grace. Every piece positioned perfectly on the board."

"I’ve had enough time to plan," Vetra replied. "Enough patience to watch that foreign savage infiltrate my empire, corrupt my son, dismantle everything I’ve built. Tomorrow, I take it all back."

She moved to the window again, looking out over the darkening city, over the palace grounds where somewhere Soren and Eris likely prepared for tomorrow’s ritual with no idea of what awaited them.

"The fire queen thinks she’s so clever," Vetra murmured. "Thinks she can outmaneuver me, out-think me, survive through cunning and cruelty. But she’s forgotten something crucial."

"What’s that?" Isolde asked.

Vetra’s reflection in the glass smiled, cold and terrible. "I’ve been playing this game since before she was born. And I never lose."

In the corner, Aira pulled out the black grimoire, its pages rustling with ancient hunger. Tomorrow’s spell would be her masterwork, the culmination of years studying forbidden magic, decades researching the seal that held demons in their prison realm.

Tomorrow, she would crack that seal wide open.

Tomorrow, the empire would burn.

And the fire queen would finally face a fire she couldn’t control.