CHAPTER 257: DECREE

Vetra was awfully calm.

That was the first thing one noticed, not rage, not desperation, not the flustered panic of someone caught in lies.

Just calm.

Fury radiated from her, yes, but contained.

Channeled into ice magic that dropped the temperature around her chair, frost forming on armrests where her hands gripped, icicles beginning to form from the edge of the table.

Aimed at intimidating Eris, at making the fire queen step back, retreat, recognize the danger she’d provoked.

Eris didn’t even flinch.

Stood there like she was immune to cold, like winter itself had no claim on her flesh.

Vetra began speaking, and her voice was soft. Deadly soft.

"I raised him." She looked at Soren, and reader, there was something almost like grief in that gaze. Almost.

"Protected this empire for twenty years while he learned to rule. I bled for Nevareth. Sacrificed everything... my youth, my freedom, my chance at my own family... to keep this throne stable."

She turned her gaze to Eris.

"And you. The infamous Tyrant of Solmire."

The room gasped. Someone saying it aloud, using that title, acknowledging what everyone whispered but none had spoken directly in council.

"Come here with your fire, your demons, your destruction, and accuse me?" Vetra’s laugh was bitter as poison.

"I, who held this empire together through plague and famine and border wars? I, who made the hard choices so he wouldn’t have to?"

She stood slowly, every eye tracking her movement.

"I call for a formal vote of no confidence in the Emperor’s judgment."

The words fell like executioner’s blade.

Nuclear option. The kind of political move that either succeeded completely or destroyed the person attempting it. No middle ground. No compromise. Just victory or annihilation.

Everyone in the chamber went absolutely still, understanding exactly what she’d just done.

"All in favor," Vetra’s voice carried across the stunned silence, "of investigating both Lady Eris and Emperor Soren for possible magical compulsion, for enchantment, for spell-work that may have compromised his ability to rule... raise your hands now."

This was coup. Barely disguised as concern, wrapped in procedure, but coup nonetheless.

Viktor Virelya’s hand rose immediately. "I vote yes."

Duke Aldren , followed. "Yes."

Marquess Theron Ashveil: "Yes."

Lord Daemon Ravencrest, military bearing making the gesture seem like salute: "Yes."

Lord Kael Ravencrest, younger, more hesitant but ultimately: "Yes."

Duke Cassius Argentum hesitated. Terror written across his face, but more terrified of Vetra than of his emperor. "Yes."

Plus fifteen lesser nobles... counts, viscounts, barons who owed Vetra patronage or feared her blackmail. Hands rising like forest growing from barren soil.

Twenty-one votes. Twenty-one nobles willing to formally question whether their emperor was mentally competent to rule.

Reader, this was the kind of moment that ended dynasties.

Duke Elian Stormwatch slammed his fist on the table, standing so violently his chair crashed backward. "Absolutely not. This is treason."

General Aldrik Winterbane stepped forward, hand on sword hilt. "I stand with my Emperor. This council has no authority to question his mental fitness without overwhelming evidence of actual incapacity."

Duke Konstantin Vael, merchant-mind working frantically: "This oversteps all precedent. Vote no."

Duchess Maren Kristoff who’s presence was barely registered, surprised everyone by standing. "No." Breaking from Vetra, her voice hard as winter steel. "I’ve served two emperors. This one is the stronger. I will not question his judgment based on who he chooses to love."

Plus Soren’s faction... younger nobles, reformists, those who believed in the emperor’s vision rather than the regent’s control. Twenty hands against.

The room divided almost evenly.

Twenty-one for investigating the emperor for magical compulsion.

Twenty against.

Dangerous. Very, very dangerous. The kind of split that led to civil war, to noble houses burning each other’s estates, to an empire tearing itself apart from within.

High Priestess Serah Winterborn’s staff slammed against marble floor with force that cracked ice, that sent shockwaves through stone itself.

"ENOUGH!"

Her voice boomed with divine authority.

"This council has devolved into madness!" Ice spread from where her staff struck, patterns radiating outward like frozen lightning.

"You nearly voted for civil war! Twenty-one nobles willing to question their emperor’s competence, twenty defending him... do you understand what you’ve done?"

She turned in a slow circle, her ancient eyes finding each noble in turn.

"You’ve shown the empire is divided. Shown our enemies that Nevareth can be broken from within. Shown that personal ambition matters more than imperial stability."

Her staff slammed again.

"Step back from this edge before we all fall over it. Before noble houses go to war, before cities burn, before everything our ancestors built crumbles because none of you could set aside pride and power-lust long enough to see past your own ambitions."

Silence. Absolute, terrified silence.

Reader, even the scribes had stopped writing, quills frozen above parchment as they tried to process what they’d just witnessed. The moment when an empire nearly chose destruction over compromise, when pride nearly trumped survival.

Vetra remained standing, expression unreadable.

Soren sat perfectly still, eyes tracking every face, every noble who’d voted against him, cataloging betrayals he would neither forget nor forgive.

And Eris smiled.

Small, satisfied, the expression of someone who’d just proven exactly what she’d set out to prove, that Vetra would rather burn the empire than surrender power, that she’d push to the very edge of coup rather than accept a new empress.

The villainess had forced her enemy to reveal herself completely.

Now came the question of what price that revelation would carry.

For everyone involved.

Soren stood, and the world itself seemed to bow.

Power radiated from him like light from dying stars... visible, tangible, the kind of force that didn’t merely cool the air but rewrote it.

Once again reader,

The warmth fled. Not gradually, but as though heat itself had been banished by imperial decree, exiled from the space Soren occupied.

Frost spread from beneath his feet in patterns too perfect to be natural spiraling outward across obsidian marble, climbing walls in delicate lacework that would have been beautiful if it weren’t so clearly threatening. Ice crept up noble seats, encasing armrests, threatening to trap those sitting in crystalline prisons.

Some nobles couldn’t move, literally frozen to their chairs by ice that had formed too quickly to escape.

"This council," his voice was winter itself... not cold, but the absence of warmth, the void where heat used to live, "has revealed much today."

His gaze swept the chamber, marking each face, cataloging every expression of fear or defiance or calculation.

"Revealed divisions that run deeper than I knew. Revealed ambitions that value personal power over imperial stability."

He paused, and the weight that fell on his next word could have crushed mountains. "Revealed traitors among my nobles who would rather tear this empire apart than accept my authority. My choice. My bride. My rule."

Ice spread faster now, racing across floor and walls like living thing, like winter given purpose and rage.

"You speak of evidence, investigation, justice." His voice rose, not to shout but to command, each word carrying force that made lesser nobles flinch.

"But I see only power struggle disguised as concern. Political maneuvering wrapped in false grief for citizens you’ve never cared about except as tools for manipulation."

He looked directly at Vetra.

"Regent Empress. Your care for the empire is noted." His smile could have frozen blood in veins. "And rejected."

Her face went absolutely white... not from cold, but from shock, from the realization that she’d miscalculated catastrophically.

He turned to address the full chamber.

"There will be an investigation, as Duke Konstantin suggested. Joint committee, mixed loyalties, thorough examination of all evidence." He paused. "But... it investigates everyone."

Murmurs erupted. Some relieved, others terrified.

"Every noble in this room will account for their movements the day of the attack and the days preceding it. Including—" his eyes found Vetra again, "—the Regent. Her ladies-in-waiting. Her household staff. Her agents, known and hidden. All of them."

The ice barrier he’d been building reached the chamber’s edges, sealing them in.

"The wedding," he said, and everyone tensed, "will be delayed."

Eris looked at him. He met her eyes, and reader, the spark between them could have melted glaciers.

"Five days." Not a week. Not two weeks. "Five days for investigation, for mourning, for rebuilding, for truth to surface from whatever depths it’s been buried in."

His voice hardened into something that brooked no argument, accepted no dissent.

"But understand this... in five days, Eris Igniva will walk through these halls as my empress. Will take her place beside this throne. Will rule Nevareth with authority second only to mine."

The ice barrier grew taller, encompassing the room entirely.

"Anyone who obstructs this obstructs me. And will face imperial justice."

"You cannot—" Vetra began.

Soren’s hand rose, single gesture silencing her mid-word.

"Silence."

It wasn’t request or suggestion. It was command, spoken with authority that compelled obedience on instinctual level.

He walked toward her, ice parting before him like subject bowing to sovereign. Each step deliberate, measured, inexorable as winter’s advance.

"You loved your position more than me. Always did." His voice was quiet now, personal, the kind of hurt that came from childhood wounds never properly healed.

"Used me to maintain power. Controlled me through guilt, through obligation, through reminders of debt I supposedly owed you for not abandoning me."

He stopped directly before her chair.

"It’s time I stopped pretending to be blindfolded don’t you think?"

The words struck like physical blows. Vetra’s composure cracked, just slightly, just enough to show the fury and fear warring beneath.

Soren turned away, addressing the full chamber one final time.

"This council is adjourned." Absolute finality. Then, almost as afterthought: "One last thing. Anyone absent from my wedding declares themselves enemy of the crown and will be treated accordingly."

He gestured toward the doors, and the ice blocking them began to melt, creating path to exit.

"Now leave. All of you."

People scrambled to stand, bowing hastily, backing toward doors without turning their backs on the emperor who’d just threatened them all. Viktor glaring with barely suppressed rage.

Isolde trembling, Daemon angry but controlled, already planning next moves. Aldren shocked into silence, old certainties shattered. Cassius terrified, sweating despite the cold. Konstantin calculating odds with merchant’s precision. Maren impressed despite herself. Elian proud of his emperor.

Vetra stood frozen... not by ice, but by disbelief. Staring at the man she’d raised, who’d just destroyed twenty years of carefully constructed control in single council session.

"You too," Soren said, voice dropping to something almost sad. "Regent." The title emerged like curse, like weapon.