CHAPTER 57: DECREE

Amidst the glitter and the murmurs and the thousand watching eyes, two monarchs... fire and frost... spun in their own private orbit, as if the ballroom, the crowd, and the gods themselves had ceased to exist.

And if one could step inside that circle of flame and silk, one might feel it too... that almost sacrilegious intimacy blooming between them.

Soren Nivarre, Emperor of Ice, slayer of beasts, breaker of northern storms, was suffering.

Truly, exquisitely suffering.

For holding Queen Eris this close was not unlike standing on the edge of a volcano, knowing full well that one misstep meant ruin... and taking the step anyway.

Her scent, that dangerous alchemy of jasmine, amber, and smoke, wrapped around him like a spell he had no intention of breaking. Every inhalation scorched him from the inside out.

Her warmth seeped through the thin barrier of fabric at her waist where his gloved hand rested. It wasn’t heat... it was life, pure and pulsing, steady and unrelenting. Gods help him, he wanted to pull her closer. He wanted to bury his face against her neck, sink his teeth into the warm, soft, flesh, to taste and drown in the scent and sound of her.

He had fought monsters of the old world... Draugr with their rotted magic, wyverns with wings sharp as blades, yet none of them had demanded such control from him as this single dance.

So he did the only thing left to a desperate man: he talked.

"You dance well," he murmured, voice low and lazy, "for someone who hates being touched."

Her eyebrow arched... a small, imperious motion that could have cut glass. "And you’re surprisingly graceful for a man reckless as you are."

A grin curved his lips. "I have hidden depths."

"Clearly." Her tone was dry as desert wind. "Though I’m still deciding if they’re fascinating or merely irritating."

He leaned closer as they turned, the firelight gilding his sharp smile. "Can’t they be both?"

Ah, the exchange of words... the true duel of sovereigns. Their teasing flickered like swordplay: elegant, dangerous, each strike a caress wrapped in wit. Around them, the air grew warmer; the Eternal Pyre itself seemed to lean nearer, listening.

And then... he said something absurd, something utterly, gloriously ridiculous.

Something about Solmire’s summers being "charmingly excessive, like a kingdom desperately trying to impress its guests."

And against all reason, she laughed.

Not the careful, measured sound of a queen performing grace for her court... but a real laugh. Warm, rich, unguarded. It slipped from her like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, and for a heartbeat, she wasn’t the radiant sovereign, nor the flame-bound monarch everyone feared... she was just Eris.

And oh, how beautiful she was in that unguarded moment.

Her face softened; her eyes, so often blades of molten gold, became firelight through glass. The sound rippled through him, igniting something deep and dangerous in his chest.

He smiled, but it was softer now, helpless. The room around them blurred, dimmed, burned away... until all that was left was her laughter echoing like a promise he didn’t yet understand.

And somewhere, in the great orchestration of fate, the gods themselves leaned forward... because this was how it always began.

With a spark.

And a man foolish enough to reach for fire.

Across the glittering expanse of the Grand Ballroom of Cinders, where laughter rang like chimes and gowns swept like rivers of light, her laugh rose above the rest... clear, unrestrained, alive.

Queen Eris Igniva, who had not truly laughed in years, not since the world soured and the heart beside her turned to stone, was laughing again. And that, dear reader, was enough to stop a man’s heart mid-beat.

King Consort Caelen heard it. He didn’t mean to... the melody of her joy cut through the orchestra, threading itself through the waltz he shared with another woman, catching him unaware.

The sound wrapped around him like smoke from a fire he’d long sworn he’d extinguished.

A single note, and memory flooded back. The days before crowns, before duty, before ruin. The way she’d used to laugh with him, reckless and golden, back when they’d believed the world might forgive their youth.

And now? Now that laugh was for another man.

Caelen’s chest tightened, a dull ache blooming where he thought there was only ash left. His hand at Ophelia’s waist stiffened once more. The smile on his lips faltered, forgotten. He frowned before he even knew he was doing it... a quiet, involuntary betrayal.

That laugh used to be his.

But tonight, it belonged to Soren.

Oh, jealousy... that treacherous old ghost. It slipped between his ribs without invitation, whispering truths he refused to name.

He was a man who had no right to feel this, and yet the feeling burned just the same.

Ophelia, poor creature of grace and patience, felt the change immediately. His body, once fluid in rhythm, turned rigid beneath her touch. His hand grew heavy in hers.

But how cruelly fleeting are moments touched by divinity.

The final note drifted into silence, shimmering in the air like the last breath of a dying flame. The orchestra’s bows stilled, the dancers halted mid-step, and for one suspended heartbeat, time itself seemed to hold its breath.

At the center of the world’s attention stood Eris and Soren... still locked in one another’s orbit. His hand lingered at her waist; her fingers rested lightly in his. Neither moved. Neither dared to.

It was as if the Eternal Pyre itself waited, curious, wondering what the gods would have them do next.

Then the applause came.

A thunderous swell that shattered the trance, bringing mortals and monarchs alike back to the gilded, gossip-soaked present.

Eris was the first to step back.

Graceful. Controlled. A queen once more.

The faintest smile ghosted across her lips... an apology, or perhaps a warning, as she inclined her head.

"Thank you for the dance, Emperor," she said, voice cool and measured, though her eyes—oh, her eyes—still flickered with residual warmth, betraying what the rest of her would not.

Soren bowed low, the silver in his coat catching the firelight like shards of winter sun. "The pleasure," he murmured, "was entirely mine, Your Majesty."

And for once, there was no trace of teasing in his tone. Only sincerity. A quiet reverence that made even his smile seem fragile.

"If you’ll excuse me," she said, turning without waiting for a response, already moving toward the dais, her presence commanding the room’s attention once again. "I have matters to attend to."

The crowd parted instinctively, awed and obedient, as she passed.

At the far end of the hall, the High Keeper awaitedm... robes shimmering with the light of the Eternal Pyre, a scroll clasped reverently in his hands. The Fire Testament.

And as Eris ascended the steps toward him, the flames around the ballroom flickered in unison, as though recognizing the weight of what was to come.

For this was no longer a night of music and laughter.

It was the night Solmire’s queen would burn her name into history one final time.

The first toll struck like the opening note of an omen.

Low, sonorous, ancient.

The kind of sound that didn’t merely echo, it settled in one’s bones and demanded reverence.

The Midnight Bells.

Twelve resounding chimes for Pyrosanct’s closing hour. The hour when laughter usually softened into fond farewells, when goblets clinked and nobles congratulated themselves on surviving another year of Solmire’s mercurial splendor.

But not this year.

This year, the bells did not signal an ending.

They heralded something far greater... something terrible in its quiet dignity.

Queen Eris Igniva stood before her throne, tall and still as a statue cast from living flame. She did not sit; she would not rest. Her chin lifted, her gaze sweeping over the glittering assembly like a blade over silk.

At her side, High Keeper Dareth emerged from the shadows, his ceremonial robes a cascade of scarlet and gold. In his hands lay a scroll bound with blood-red wax, her crest gleaming in the light. The air seemed to tighten with every step he took toward her.

This was not in the program.

Even the most jaded noble stiffened, wine forgotten mid-sip. Fans stopped fluttering. Laughter died unfinished on painted lips.

"What is that?" someone whispered.

"Why is Dareth carrying the scroll?" another murmured.

"Is this... part of the blessing?"

No one knew. And that was the problem.

Eris did not move.

Her expression... serene, unreadable, was the calm before a firestorm.

When Dareth reached the foot of the dais, he turned to the gathered masses. His voice, trained for temple acoustics, carried effortlessly through the cavernous ballroom.

"By decree of Her Majesty, Queen Eris Igniva, Keeper of the Eternal Flame," he began, his words slicing through the tension like polished steel, "I present to you The Fire Testament."

Gasps rippled through the court like sparks on dry kindling.

He broke the seal. Slowly. Deliberately. The wax cracked with a sound far too loud for something so small.

And then... he read.

Each word carried the rhythm of finality, the tone of law older than the crown itself.

Eris Igniva, Queen of Solmire, of her own will and sound mind, relinquish her claim to the throne.

She cedes all power, all authority, all divine right. Effective at dawn, the crown... and every burden it carries, will pass to King Consort Caelen Caldrith. She releases herself from all royal titles, all duties, all debts owed by her bloodline.

The decree, written in her own hand and sealed with her own blood, is irrevocable by the laws of Pyronox."

By the time the last word fell into silence, even the fire had forgotten to move.

No one spoke. No one dared.

It was as though the entire ballroom had turned to stone, every noble, every knight, every servant suspended between disbelief and horror.

And then...

A single goblet slipped from trembling fingers, shattering against the obsidian floor.

That was all it took for chaos to begin.