CHAPTER 252: WOLVES CIRCLING

(Dear reader, watch now as the viper strikes... not with fangs, but with tears.)

Vetra stood with the grace of mourning itself, one hand pressed to her heart as though the weight of yesterday’s losses physically pained her. Picture perfect grief, calculated down to the exact angle of her bowed head.

"Your Imperial Majesty," her voice trembled, each syllable quivering with what might have been genuine emotion if you didn’t know better. "May I speak?"

Soren gestured with one hand, his expression carved from ice. "Of course, Regent."

Regent. Not "Stepmother." Not "Your Grace." Just the title, formal and distant as the space between stars. Vetra didn’t miss it. Her eyes flickered briefly, registering the coldness, the deliberate removal of familial warmth.

Message received.

She turned to address the chamber, and reader, you should have seen the performance that unfolded.

"My heart breaks," she said, looking around the table, up at the galleries where courtiers leaned forward to catch every word. "For our people. For the innocent who suffered yesterday." She pulled a silk handkerchief from her sleeve, dabbing at dry eyes with the practiced motion of someone who’d rehearsed this moment. "Two hundred and twenty-four lives. Children among them."

Her voice broke on that word, cracked like Ice under spring thaw.

"How do we explain this to their families? How do we tell mothers that their sons burned while we sat safe in palace walls? How do we tell fathers that their daughters—" She cut herself off, overcome, one hand rising to her throat.

The nobles shifted in their seats. Some looked genuinely moved. Others watched with the calculating eyes of people who recognized theater when they saw it but appreciated skilled execution nonetheless.

Then came the shift.

Vetra paused, letting silence stretch just long enough to be uncomfortable. Then her gaze slid sideways, briefly, to where Eris sat in crimson and black like judgment itself.

"I cannot help but notice," her voice changed, subtly, grief cooling into something harder, "the... timing."

Another pause. Reader, she wielded silence like a blade.

"These fire demons. Servants of Pyronox, the Fire God himself." She wasn’t looking at Eris now, which made it worse somehow. Made it seem like she spoke reluctant truth rather than calculated accusation.

"They appeared in our city for the first time in recorded history. Our scholars have searched the archives... no demon attack on Nevareth’s soil in eight hundred years of empire."

She let that settle, let the weight of unprecedented sink into noble minds.

"And they appeared the day before a former queen of fire was to become empress."

The words hung in the air like poison crystallizing into solid form.

"I make no accusations," Vetra raised both hands in a gesture of innocence, of reluctant observation.

"Gods know I would never presume to accuse Lady Eris of deliberately bringing catastrophe to our doorstep. I merely observe what our people observe. What the survivors whispered to me this morning when I visited the ruins."

A lie, almost certainly. Vetra hadn’t visited any ruins. But who would contradict her?

"This catastrophe coincides precisely with her arrival. With the wedding preparations. With the moment our empire chose to bind itself to fire."

She finally turned to look at Eris directly, and reader, despite the tears still clinging to her lashes, her eyes were cold as winter’s deepest night.

"Perhaps Lady Eris can enlighten us on this... unfortunate timing."

And now, dear reader, the pack attacks. Watch how they’ve learned their choreography.

Duke Viktor Virelya stood immediately, so quickly it seemed spontaneous. But you and I know better, don’t we? This had been rehearsed, timed, orchestrated like a symphony of accusation.

"The Regent Empress speaks what we all think," his voice boomed across the chamber, authoritative and absolute.

"What we’ve been afraid to say aloud. The people believe she brought this curse upon us."

He pointed at Eris openly now, no pretense of courtesy remaining.

"Fire magic in an ice empire was always heresy. An offense against natural order. Now it’s proven dangerous."

He swept his gaze across the assembled nobles. "Two hundred dead prove it dangerous. How many more must die before we acknowledge the obvious?"

Lord Daemon Ravencrest rose beside Viktor, his military bearing making the movement seem like soldiers falling into formation.

His voice came out sharp, commanding, the tone of someone who’d ordered men to their deaths and slept soundly after.

"My sister served Lady Eris as lady-in-waiting." He paused, letting everyone remember what had happened. "The foreign bride struck her."

Gasps rippled through the gallery. Courtiers who’d heard rumors now received confirmation from the victim’s own brother.

"Physically assaulted a noble lady of Nevareth. For a minor slight." Daemon looked around the table, making eye contact with each noble in turn.

"This is the temperament we’re welcoming as empress? A woman who resorts to violence when contradicted? Who beats servants for imagined insults?"

Reader, the truth was more complicated, but truth rarely survives in rooms like this.

Lord Kael Ravencrest, the youngest brother, stood with passionate energy barely contained. Where Daemon was controlled aggression, Kael burned with righteous fury... or a convincing performance of it.

"She’s violent. Unstable. Her magic is clearly uncontrolled." His words tumbled out rapidly, building momentum.

"We’ve all heard the reports from her journey here. How her power manifested on the road, nearly killing the Emperor himself. How she lost control and required His Majesty to subdue her before she incinerated their entire traveling party."

Soren’s jaw tightened visibly. His hands, resting on the table, clenched briefly into fists. But he stayed quiet, letting them speak, letting them reveal themselves.

Giving them rope to hang with.

Marquess Theron Ashveil rose next, and reader, this was where the attack turned clever.

"There’s also the financial matter to consider." His voice was reasonable, practical, concerned.

"The destruction will cost..." he pulled out a scroll, pretending to consult figures, "...approximately four hundred thousand gold marks to repair. Properly. Before winter."

He let that astronomical sum settle.

"That will bankrupt at least three noble houses whose properties were destroyed. Possibly more. The imperial treasury can absorb perhaps half that cost, but not without severe consequences."

He looked directly at Soren. "Your Majesty, the wedding expenses alone... the preparations already paid for, the celebration planned, could feed the displaced for six months. House them for three."

Clever indeed. Making it about resources, about practicality, about feeding hungry mouths rather than just fear and prejudice.

An argument that appealed to different sensibilities than Viktor’s religious fervor or Daemon’s wounded family honor.

And then came the hammer blow.

Duke Aldren Frostholm stood, ancient and traditional as the empire itself, his voice carrying the weight of centuries of conservative power.

"I move formally," he said, each word deliberate, final, "that the foreign bride be held for questioning."

The room exploded.

Shouts erupted from Soren’s allies. Gasps from the gallery. Scribes’ quills scratching frantically across parchment.

Nobles turning to each other, arguing, some nodding agreement, others shouting objection.

Aldren raised his voice over the chaos.

"Until her innocence can be proven or guilt established beyond doubt she should be confined to palace grounds under guard. For the empire’s safety. For the people’s peace of mind."

Vetra’s face remained perfectly composed, but reader, if you’d been watching closely, you would have seen her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. Victory was so close she could taste it, sweet as poisoned wine.

Duke Cassius Argentum stood next, his voice shaking but committed despite the terror visible in every line of his sweating face.

"I second the motion." The words came out rushed, desperate, a man trapped by circumstances beyond his control. By whatever blackmail Vetra held over him like a blade to his throat. "The empire’s safety must come before Your Majesty’s..."

He paused, swallowed hard, forced himself to finish.

"...personal feelings."

Dead silence.

Reader, you must understand what he’d just done. Not merely seconded a motion to imprison the future empress. He’d implied, directly, boldly, insultingly that Soren ruled by heart rather than head.

That the Emperor of Nevareth made decisions based on desire instead of duty. That he valued his bedmate more than his people.

It was the kind of insult that, in earlier eras, would have resulted in immediate execution.

Soren’s eyes went so cold that frost actually began forming on the table’s surface beneath his hands. The temperature in the chamber dropped ten degrees in as many seconds.

And Eris, reader?

Eris smiled.

Not the warm expression of someone trying to win hearts. Not the diplomatic smile of political maneuvering.

The smile of a predator who’d just realized her prey had made a fatal mistake.