CHAPTER 54: HEARTBEAT

Ah, dear reader, if love were a flame, then this was the moment it finally began to devour its vessel.

They were still dancing, the Queen and her Consort, orbiting the Eternal Pyre like two stars long past the point of burning for one another, and yet still bound by gravity’s cruel insistence. The fire between them flickered... not bright, not warm... but strained and desperate, like an ember refusing to die even when the wind howled for its extinction.

Caelen’s steps were steady, practiced, the kind of motion that came not from affection but from obligation. His gaze, however, was faithless. It drifted, again and again, over her shoulder, toward the woman who waited in white and gold at the edge of the crowd.

Ophelia.

Her eyes flickering with unease as she watched them. Despite Caelen’s watch over her, a silent defiance, a declaration of his unshaken love. That he saw her and her only. Yet... She could see something he didn’t realize himself.

And though Eris’s face remained a flawless mask of royal calm, inside, something fragile began to tremble.

Ever since she woke up again, aware of her own fabricated world... she had told herself she no longer cared where his eyes wandered... that she, the Queen of Fire, had scorched such weaknesses to ash.

But one can only lie to one’s own heart for so long before the truth claws its way through the cracks.

And so it came. Softly. Unexpectedly. Barely a breath between them, but enough to set the world alight.

"Am I truly so painful to look at?"

The words left her lips like a confession disguised as air. They were not the words of a queen, nor even a woman accustomed to being feared. They were the words of a child asking the flame why it burns her still.

Caelen froze. The music went on, but he did not. For a heartbeat... perhaps two... the world forgot to turn. His head snapped down, grey eyes meeting hers for the first time that night, and he saw what no one else ever had.

Not fury. Not pride. Not the infamous blaze of her power.

But sorrow. In its purest form.

Raw, trembling sorrow that gleamed in her eyes like liquid glass on the verge of shattering.

And then... gods help him... he heard it. The quietest chuckle, brittle as dying embers.

She looked away, the mask already rebuilding itself, piece by painful piece. But the damage was done.

In that flicker of unguarded humanity, she was no longer the Queen of Fire. She was simply Eris... the girl who had once loved him so fiercely she forgot to love herself.

And Caelen... stoic, loyal, unyielding Caelen... felt his heart skip a beat in protest. Once. Twice. Again. As if it, too, remembered that it had once belonged to her.

No. It couldn’t. He couldn’t.

But the body is a traitorous thing, and his chest was a battlefield he could no longer command. And his pride was far too gone to save him. What was left was a meaningless pretense.

The final note of the dance arrived like mercy. The musicians drew breath, the fire dimmed, and the ceremony demanded its ritual end.

Tradition decreed that the Consort must take the Queen’s hand, turn to face their people, and receive the applause together... united, radiant, divine.

But tradition, that delicate fiction, shattered in a single, merciless act.

He dropped her hand.

Just like that. As though her touch scalded him. As though her love were poison.

And then he turned, without a word, and walked away.

The sound of his footsteps echoed through the silence like a verdict.

Eris stood alone by the Eternal Pyre, her skirts glimmering red and gold beneath the firelight, the applause she’d earned dissolving into a rising murmur.

Soft talks spread like wildfire through the ballroom... soft, eager, cruel.

"He left her."

"Before the court... before everyone!"

"Poor queen."

"Poor fool."

"She deserves it!"

"What did she expect?"

But she did not flinch. Not once. She stood tall, her chin high, her eyes.. those infernal, burning eyes.... glimmering with a calm that could only come from ruin perfected into art.

Ah, but not everyone was fooled.

Across the ballroom, another watched all along. The Ice Emperor, his composure cracked by something far more volatile than curiosity.

Soren had been watching from the first note of the dance. First, in awe, how could one not be, when Eris Igniva moved as though the fire itself bowed in worship? Her every motion was a benediction, her every glance a sin dressed in silk.

But then came that question. That small, trembling wound of a question.

Am I truly so painful to look at?

And in that instant, when Eris spoke, her mask broke and his world, so carefully constructed, went with it.

He never heard the words but he saw the love in her eyes. Not the dangerous kind that conquers or commands but the ancient, aching kind that begs, quietly, simply, to be seen.

And it filled him with something far uglier than desire.

Jealousy.

Fierce, wretched jealousy that gripped his throat like a hand.

How could Caelen look at her and not see it? How could he turn from that kind of devotion, as consuming and tragic as the flame she worshipped, and walk away untouched?

He wanted to strike him. Shake him. Force his foolish friend to see.

Or worse... he wanted to be him.

No, not be him. He wanted her to look at him that way... to burn for him the way she burned for another.

A treacherous wish, even for a man who’d built his empire on restraint.

But Soren’s restraint was slipping, cracking like ice under the weight of a fire it could no longer contain.

And as Eris stood alone before her people, the flames behind her bowing low as if mourning their mistress, he understood something terrible and undeniable:

The Queen of Fire was already burning.

And he... cold, calculating, unshakable Soren... had never wanted to burn so badly in his entire life.