CHAPTER 249: ANEITHRA’S MARK

ERIS

I woke to soft light filtering through windows that weren’t mine.

Morning light. Pale and gentle, the kind that came after snowfall when the world was clean and quiet. It painted everything in shades of silver and white, turning the unfamiliar room into something from a winter painting.

My body felt heavy. Not painfully so, just... weighted. Like I’d been sleeping for days and my muscles had forgotten how to hold tension. I turned my head slowly, taking in the elegant chamber, ice-blue tapestries, frost-carved furniture, windows overlooking a snow-covered courtyard.

Soren’s chambers. I was in Soren’s bed.

Movement near the window caught my attention.

He stood silhouetted against the falling snow. His pale hair caught the morning light, making him look almost ethereal. Almost like something that shouldn’t exist in the mortal world.

The child who bears Aenithra’s mark.

Pyronox’s words echoed in my mind. The conversation in that impossible realm felt both distant and immediate, like a dream that had been too vivid to fade properly.

The dragon’s sadness. His admission about Aenithra. The way he’d known about Soren before I’d even spoken his name.

What did it mean? What mark did Soren carry? Was he tied to the Frostmother the way I was tied to Pyronox... A vessel, a prison, a partnership neither party had chosen?

Or was it something else entirely?

"Soren?" My voice came out rough, scraped raw. From exhaustion. From screaming divine words that had torn my throat apart. From channeling power that mortal vocal cords were never meant to shape.

He turned instantly.

For a moment, he just stared at me. Like he couldn’t quite believe I was awake, was real, was looking at him with conscious eyes. Then he crossed the room in three long strides and pulled me into his arms.

The embrace was tight. Desperate. The kind of hold that said I thought I lost you louder than words ever could.

"I missed you," he whispered against my hair. His voice cracked slightly on the last word. "Gods, Eris, I missed you."

I hugged him back, wrapping my arms around his waist and feeling the exhaustion radiating from him like heat from a dying fire. His shoulders sagged into me, some of the tension he’d been carrying finally releasing now that I was awake. How long had he been standing vigil? How many hours had he spent watching me sleep, waiting for me to open my eyes?

He pulled back slightly, just enough to look at my face. His hands came up to frame my cheeks, thumbs brushing over my cheekbones with a gentleness that contradicted the intensity in his gaze.

I remembered the kiss.

Heat flooded my face immediately, spreading down my neck in a blush I absolutely could not control. I looked away, breaking eye contact, suddenly very interested in the embroidery on his collar.

"What happened after?" I asked quickly, needing to fill the silence with something, anything other than the memory of his mouth on mine. "The casualties. The damage. I need to know what I’m about to face."

Because I would face consequences. I knew that much without asking. Demons had attacked the capital on the eve of my wedding to Soren. People had died. Districts had burned. And I, the fire queen, the villainess, the woman who carried Pyronox’s power had been there at the center of it all.

They would blame me. Some of them already did, probably. The whispers had likely started the moment I’d fallen unconscious.

"You shouldn’t worry about that right now," Soren said, his voice firm but gentle. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, still close enough that our knees touched. "You just woke up. You need to rest, to recover. The political aftermath can wait."

"How do you feel?" he asked before I could protest. His hand found mine, fingers intertwining with a familiarity that felt both new and ancient. "Truthfully."

I considered the question. Ran a mental inventory of my body, checking for damage, for pain, for the telltale signs of divine power burn that the physicians before now had warned about.

"Tired," I admitted. "Drained. Like I ran for days without stopping." I paused, then added with a small smile, "But alive. Thanks to you."

"I didn’t save you." Soren shook his head, his grip on my hand tightening slightly. "You saved yourself. Saved everyone. You were magnificent, Your Majesty."

His eyes sparkled when he said it... actual sparkles, like light catching on ice. Pride and wonder and something deeper, warmer, more dangerous.

I looked away again, but my mind was already spinning.

The child who bears Aenithra’s mark.

What mark? Where? How? I’d seen Soren without his shirt in the sacred cave, had watched ice magic flow through him with a power that seemed almost divine in its own right. But I hadn’t noticed any physical mark, any brand or sigil that would indicate direct connection to a god.

Was it metaphorical? Or was there something literal I’d missed?

And Pyronox had been about to tell me something else. Something about who had taken him away from Aenithra.

The dragon’s sadness had been so profound, so ancient, that it had hurt to witness. Centuries of loss carried in a single admission.

Before they took me away from her.

Who? Who had the power to separate gods? To tear apart beings who’d shaped the world together, who’d given humanity the gifts of fire and frost?

Was Soren somehow connected to that separation? Was he...

"Eris."

Soren’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. I blinked, focusing on him again. He was watching me with concern now, reading the worry in my expression with the ease of someone who’d learned to translate my silences.

"Sorry," I muttered. "Just thinking."

"About?"

About you. About gods and marks and ancient separations. About whether you’re in danger I don’t understand yet. About whether loving you means condemning you to the same cursed fate I carry.

But I couldn’t say any of that. Not yet. Not when I didn’t have answers, just questions that bred more questions.

"Tell me," I said instead, circling back to safer territory. "I need to know what happened. How many casualties. What districts were destroyed. What the nobles are saying. What political storms are brewing." I met his eyes directly. "I need to know what I’m walking into, Soren."

His jaw tightened. "You shouldn’t have to walk into anything. You just woke up. Your body barely survived channeling that much divine power. The physicians said—"

"I don’t care what the physicians said." My voice came out sharper than intended. "I’m awake. I’m conscious. And I know how politics work. The moment I open my eyes, I become a player again. So tell me what pieces are on the board."

Soren was quiet for a long moment, clearly weighing how much to share, how much to burden me with while I was still recovering. Finally, he sighed.

"Two hundred and seventeen confirmed dead. Another thirty-three missing, presumed casualties. Two districts suffered major damage... One is a complete loss that will need to be rebuilt from foundation up."

His voice remained steady, clinical, but I heard the pain underneath. "The eastern market is gone. Just glass and ash now."

I absorbed that. Two hundred and seventeen lives. Families destroyed. Children orphaned. Futures erased.

"What are people saying?" I asked quietly.

"Some blame you. Some call you a savior." He shrugged, the gesture tired. "Most are just trying to process what happened. They saw demons. Real demons from hell itself, tearing through their streets. That kind of situation doesn’t leave room for political analysis."

"And the nobility?"

His expression darkened. "Vetra must be already moving. She—"

A sharp knock interrupted him.

We both turned toward the door. Soren’s entire demeanor shifted instantly... from concerned lover to imperial authority in the space of a heartbeat.

He stood, straightening his wrinkled clothes, running a hand through disheveled hair in a futile attempt at presentability.

"Enter."

The door opened to reveal Aldric. The advisor looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, robes hastily thrown on and slightly askew. He bowed deeply, gaze flickering briefly to me in surprise.

"It’s good to see you alive, Lady Eris." He said before settling on Soren.

"Your Imperial Majesty."

"What is it?" Soren’s voice was cool, controlled, every inch the emperor.

"The Regent Empress has called an emergency council session." Aldric’s tone was carefully neutral, but I heard the warning underneath. "To address yesterday’s attack and its... implications."

Soren’s jaw tightened. I watched a muscle jump beneath his cheek, watched his hands clench into fists at his sides before deliberately relaxing.

"Of course she has." The words came out flat, unsurprised. "When?"

"Within the hour, Your Majesty."

He glanced back at me, and I saw the calculation in his eyes. Weighing options. Considering whether to leave me here, whether to face Vetra’s political maneuvering alone.

"Tell her I’ll be there," he said finally.

Aldric hesitated. Just for a moment, but it was enough to telegraph bad news coming.

"She’s requested Lady Eris’s presence as well."