Chapter 305: Ghost at the feast

The Grand Dining Hall of Nevareth was a masterpiece of intimidation, a cavern of sapphire-veined marble and pillars of eternal frost that seemed to reach for the heavens.

Tonight, however, the palace staff had labored to soften its edges. Chandeliers of enchanted ice dripped with warm, amber light, and the long banquet table was draped in heavy Solmire silks… a crimson river cutting through a frozen landscape.

It was a feast Intended to bridge two worlds, yet the air felt as thin and brittle as a glass figurine.

Soren sat at the head of the table, his posture the very definition of imperial grace, though his eyes never strayed far from the empty chair to his right.

Caelen and Ophelia occupied the opposite side, a tableau of Southern domesticity. Rael was notably absent; the journey had finally claimed the boy’s strength, and Caelen had decided to let him sleep through the evening’s formalities.

Then, the doors groaned open.

Eris entered last, and for a moment, the clink of silverware died. She was draped in a gown of midnight blue… Nevarethian silk that shimmered like the depths of a frozen lake… but the embroidery at the collar was thread-of-gold, a subtle, stubborn nod to her desert roots. She looked every bit the future Empress, yet as she took her seat, she carried the silence with her.

“You look… beautiful, Eris,” Caelen said, his voice catching. It was the tone of a man realizing he had lost a treasure he never truly understood.

“Thank you, Caelen,” she replied, her voice a cool breeze.

The feast began. Course after course arrived with the mechanical precision of a military parade. Smoked venison with berry reductions, delicate chilled soups, and pastries that dissolved like sweet snow.

Conversation flowed, steered primarily by Soren and Caelen toward the safe harbors of politics… the stabilizing of trade routes, the rebuilding of Solmire’s infrastructure, the strange, shifting alliances of the north.

But Ophelia, seated beside her husband, seemed determined to steer the ship into more treacherous waters.

“Do you remember, Soren,” Ophelia began, her voice a melodic chime, “that summer when the three of us snuck out to the Great Oasis? Caelen had nearly drowned trying to catch that gold-finned carp, and you had to freeze the entire surface of the pool just so he could walk back to shore.”

Soren’s lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. “I remember. I spent three days in the infirmary with magic exhaustion, and Caelen spent three days being scolded by the tutors.”

“And that hunt in the Ash Ridges!” Ophelia laughed, leaning in. “When we got lost in the sandstorm and had to huddle in that cave. You told us stories of the Frostmother until the sun rose. We were so close then. It feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”

The table erupted into lighthearted banter. They spoke of inside jokes… of the “Great Scone Incident” in the royal kitchens and the time Caelen had tried to braid Soren’s hair while he was sleeping. They were a trio bound by a decade of shared sunlight and whispered secrets.

And Eris sat in the center of their laughter, a silent island.

She watched them. In her first life, this would have been a jagged blade to her heart. She had spent years trying to wedge herself into those memories, trying to be the third person in a circle that only had room for two.

She had been the “Villainess” because she had dared to demand a place where she wasn’t invited.

Tonight, she didn’t want to be invited, yet the exclusion stung with a phantom pain. She was the ghost at the feast, the outsider who had married the King of one and was marrying the Emperor of the other, yet belonged to neither.

Every “remember when” was a reminder that her history with these men was written in blood and resentment, while Ophelia’s was written in gold and laughter.

Old jealousies, long buried under the ash of her rebirth, began to stir. Not a jealousy of love, perhaps, but of belonging.

She looked at Soren… her Soren, or so she had begun to think… and saw him through the lens of Ophelia’s memories. They had a language she didn’t speak.

Her hand, resting on her lap, began to tremble. Her magic, ever sensitive to her inner turmoil, simmered just beneath her skin, threatening to turn the chilled wine in her glass to steam.

Suddenly, a large, cool hand slid under the table.

Soren gripped her hand firmly, his fingers interlacing with hers. The shock of his cold touch acted like a dousing of water on her internal flame.

She looked up, startled, to find him watching her. His expression wasn’t one of imperial distance; it was heavy with concern.

He leaned in, his breath a cool mist against her ear. “Are you feeling uncomfortable?” he whispered, his voice for her alone.

The intimacy of the gesture sent a different kind of heat through her. This was the man who had seen her at her worst, who had held her while she screamed into the void. The butterflies she had been trying to starve in her stomach suddenly took flight.

“I’m fine,” she whispered back, though she didn’t withdraw her hand.

But as the stories continued… Ophelia now recounting a trip to the southern coast… Eris felt the walls closing in.

She didn’t want to be the reason Soren’s laughter died. She didn’t want to be the “moody bride” who disrupted a reunion of old friends.

“Please enjoy your evening,” Eris said, standing abruptly. The chair scraped against the marble with a jarring sound. “The day has caught up with me. I must retire to my chambers.”

Soren was on his feet before she had even finished the sentence. “I must escort my bride-to-be and retire as well. The hour grows late.”

Ophelia’s smile faltered. “Oh, but Soren! We were just getting to the story about the winter plains! You can still stay with us for a little while longer. Eris is just going to sleep, after all.”

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