CHAPTER 243: PROMISES

SOREN

I caught her mid-fall.

Ice erupted from my palms on pure instinct, crystallizing into a platform beneath us both. It caught me too, keeping me from plummeting after her, then lowered us gently to the ground like a mother setting down a sleeping child.

The moment her weight settled fully in my arms, I felt it.

The dragon’s presence.

Not sealed anymore, not caged or chained or bound behind the barriers her father had carved into her soul. It was just there, vast and ancient and awake, coiled somewhere in the depths of her being. The seal was gone completely. It should have taken over but that divine presence, that overwhelming power that had no place in a mortal body stood utterly still.

And she was still here.

Eris. Not consumed, not devoured, not shoved aside by godhood. Her consciousness remained, tangled with Pyronox’s but distinct, separate.

I didn’t understand it. Couldn’t understand how she’d done something that should have been impossible. But there wasn’t time to question miracles.

"Eris." I pulled her tight against my chest, one hand cradling her head, the other wrapped around her waist. "Eris, look at me."

Nothing.

Her head lolled against my shoulder, limp and unresponsive. Panic clawed up my throat... sharp, vicious, the kind I hadn’t felt since childhood when fear meant survival. My fingers found her pulse point, pressed against the hollow of her throat.

There.

Faint. Too faint. A butterfly’s wings, barely distinguishing itself from stillness.

Her breathing came shallow and rapid, each exhale a whisper of warmth against my neck. Her skin burned beneath my touch... not the comfortable warmth humans carried but furnace heat, fever heat, the kind that cooked organs and boiled blood.

But alive. Definitely alive.

Relief flooded through me, followed immediately by terror. What had she done? How much power had she channeled through a body never meant to hold divinity? I’d seen the spell, watched her float with wings of black flame spreading behind her, heard her voice become something that wasn’t entirely human.

I’d watched her break herself to save my empire.

The cracks across her skin caught my eye.. fine lines glowing faint orange beneath the ash and sweat coating her face. I touched one gently, traced it from her temple to her jaw. It was healing already, sealing shut slowly, but the damage was new. Fresh. She’d burned herself from the inside out, mortal flesh unable to contain the power she’d forced through it.

My fingers moved lower, sliding beneath the collar of her dress, finding more cracks. Along her collarbone. Across her shoulders. Down her ribs where fabric had burned away in places. Everywhere the divine fire had tried to escape, had pressed against the prison of her body and left fractures in its wake.

She’d known. Had to have known this would happen. And she’d done it anyway.

For my people. For Nevarians who’d feared her, whispered about her, called her monster and villainess and worse. She’d spent herself completely, burned through her own life force to save strangers who would never thank her.

Stubborn woman. Impossible woman.

Mine.

I looked up, finally registering the world beyond her.

The demons were gone. All of them. Hundreds that had poured through Vetra’s summoning, that had killed and burned and destroyed... vanished. My barrier still stood in the distance, a translucent dome of ice containing the devastation, keeping it from spreading to the rest of the capital.

But inside the barrier, there was nothing living.

Just bodies sprawled in positions that spoke of sudden death. Just ash piles where people had been standing when the demons found them. Just the two of us in the center of a glass circle that reflected the smoke-stained sky.

She’d done it. Saved everyone still breathing. Sent hell’s army back to the abyss they’d crawled from.

The first snowflake landed on Eris’s cheek.

Then another. Another. I looked up as snow began falling, gentle and soft, completely at odds with the devastation below. My barrier was dissipating, melting back into the atmosphere now that it wasn’t needed. My appearance changed too, horns reverting, jewels disappearing, markings fade, everything except the fabric covering my lower half which I kept to avoid nudity.

The snow passed through where ice had been, settling on charred stone and cooling embers.

The sound of boots on broken cobblestones made me turn.

Ryse appeared first, sword still drawn, eyes scanning for threats. Aldric followed close behind, robes singed at the edges. They both stopped dead when they saw the district properly.

Buildings reduced to skeletal frames, walls collapsed inward, roofs caved into rubble. Bodies everywhere... some intact, some not, some just vague shapes beneath debris. And the ash piles. Gods, the ash piles. Dozens of them scattered across the district, small gray mounds that had been people moments ago.

Children’s ashes mixed with mothers’ ashes mixed with fathers’ ashes. No distinction. No way to tell who was who, who they’d loved, what dreams had died with them.

No one spoke.

What words existed for this? For loss measured in hundreds, for horror that turned living people into dust, for the weight of knowing we’d failed to protect them?

Around me, guards began removing their helmets. Heads bowed. Some wept openly, not bothering to hide tears that cut clean tracks through soot on their faces. These weren’t just casualties. These were neighbors, friends, family. People they’d grown up with, trained beside, loved.

All gone.

I let them mourn for a moment. Just one moment, because that was all we could afford.

"Ryse."

My commander stepped forward immediately, grief hardening into duty. "Your Majesty."

"Begin recovery." My voice came out quiet but steady, each word precise. "Collect the fallen. Mark each location. Every single one. I want to know exactly who we lost."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Aldric."

My advisor approached, face gray beneath his beard. "Your Majesty."

"Survivor count. Casualties. Damage assessment." I looked directly at him. "Within the hour."

He bowed. "Of course, Your Majesty."

I looked down at Eris in my arms. Her face was peaceful despite the cracks spider-webbing across her skin, despite the golden blood dried at the corners of her mouth. She looked like she was sleeping. Like she might wake at any moment and tell me I worried too much.

"But first." I stood, lifting her carefully, cradling her against my chest with the kind of care usually reserved for spun glass. "I need a physician. The best healers we have. My chambers. Now."

Men scrambled to obey, boots pounding cobblestones as they ran to fulfill orders.

I started walking.

Through the ash. Through the death. Through the snow that kept falling, blanketing everything in white like the world was trying to hide its own horror. My boots crunched on broken glass and shattered stone. Past bodies that deserved proper burial, past devastation that would take months to repair, past evidence of my failure to protect my people.

Eris’s head rested against my shoulder, her breathing a faint whisper against my neck.

She’d saved them. The ones who survived... they breathed because of her. Lived because she’d been willing to burn herself to ash if that’s what saving them required.

And I’d let her do it. Had stood there and watched her walk away, watched her float into the air with wings of divine flame, watched her crack apart under godhood’s weight. I’d promised to stay close, to be ready, but when she’d fallen I’d nearly been too far.

Nearly lost her.

The thought made something violent twist in my chest. Not anger... I was too tired for anger. Just a bone-deep certainty that I would never let her go again. Never let her sacrifice herself alone. If she burned, I would burn with her. If she fell, I would fall beside her.

That was the promise I should have made.

Guards flanked me as I walked, forming a protective circle without being asked. They didn’t look at me, didn’t speak, just moved in synchronized patterns they’d drilled a thousand times. Professional. Efficient. But I saw their eyes slide to the woman in my arms, saw the questions there.

...

The palace gates loomed ahead, untouched by the attack, serene and beautiful and completely ignorant of the horror barely half a mile away. Guards snapped to attention as I passed, eyes widening when they registered my condition... armor cracked, hair disheveled, face streaked with soot and blood.

And Eris, unconscious and broken and beautiful in my arms.

"Clear the halls," I ordered, not slowing. "I want a path to my chambers. No interruptions. No exceptions."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

The doors swung open. I carried her inside, through corridors I’d walked a thousand times, past servants who pressed themselves against walls and bowed as I passed. The snow followed me in through open doors, melting in my wake, leaving wet footprints on marble floors.

My chambers. Finally. I kicked the door open rather than fumble with the handle, moved straight to the bed, laid her down with a gentleness that contradicted the violence still humming through my veins.

Her eyes remained closed. Her chest rose and fell with those shallow, rapid breaths that spoke of a body struggling to survive itself.

"Hold on," I whispered, brushing ash-darkened hair from her face. "Just hold on a little longer."

Because she’d promised to come back to me. And I’d promised to wait.

And neither of us broke our promises.