Chapter 314: “The Weight of What Was and What Will Be” pt 2

The silence in the Eastern Garden became a living thing, a predatory frost that crept between them until the only sound was the distant, melodic chime of Rael’s laughter as he chased the glowing frost-flies. It was a beautiful sound, the only warmth in this graveyard of ice, and yet it felt like a countdown.

When the quiet remained unbroken, Eris felt the familiar weight of her own isolation. She shifted, her silks hissing against the sapphire stone as she prepared to stand.

“If you have nothing to say, Caelen,” she said, her voice as flat as the frozen horizon, “then I would like to spend what remains of this evening with my son. I have little time left for such luxuries.”

She rose, the movement fluid and distant, but she didn’t make it three steps.

A hand shot out, fingers like iron manacles clamping around her wrist. Before she could summon the spark to burn him, Caelen surged upward. He didn’t just stop her; he pulled her toward him with a desperate, clumsy force. His arms wrapped around her waist, his strength sudden and overwhelming, and then he did something that made the air vanish from her lungs.

He dropped his head, pressing his face against her stomach, burying himself in the folds of her gown.

“Caelen,” she gasped, her hands flying up to push at his shoulders. “What do you think you’re doing? Release me.”

“Please,” he muffled against the fabric, his voice thick and trembling. “Just wait. Just a second. Let me… let me just be like this.”

His grip tightened, his fingers digging into the small of her back as if he were trying to anchor himself to a world that was rapidly spinning out of his reach.

Eris froze. She should have scorched him. She should have called the guards.

But the sheer, pathetic weight of his desperation held her still. She looked down at the crown of his dark head, at the way his shoulders shook, and felt a flicker of the woman she used to be, the one who would have traded her soul for this very moment.

But that woman was dead. Caelen had killed her himself.

He shifted, trying to pull her toward his lap, his movements frantic and devoid of his usual knightly grace. Eris planted her hands firmly on his shoulders, locking her elbows to stop her descent.

“Have you lost your mind?” she hissed, her glare sharp enough to draw blood. “Look at where we are. Who we are.”

He looked up then, his eyes bloodshot and haunted, searching her face for a ghost that no longer lived there.

“Eris, ”

“You are a married man, Caelen,” she said, each word a slow, deliberate strike. “You have a wife who is carrying your child. And I? I am to be married tomorrow morning. In a few hours, I will be the Empress of this realm. This is not just inappropriate; it is a delusion.”

The truth of It seemed to make it worse for him. He stared at her as if she were a vision of the sun he had finally realized he couldn’t live without, just as the sky was turning to permanent winter.

To him, she was a masterpiece he had thrown away, now framed in a gallery he could never afford. She looked unreal in the starlight, too beautiful, too untouchable, a dream he had woken up from far too late.

All he wanted was to pull her up, to bridge that agonizing inch, and kiss her until the world stopped turning, until neither of them could breathe.

Eris’s voice sliced through his thoughts like a shard of glass. “Release me.”

Caelen’s hold faltered, but he didn’t let go. He was a defeated man, but even defeat has its questions.

“Do you really want this?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Do you really want to marry Soren? To become the Empress of a people who barely tolerate your presence? Are these the people you want to rule over, Eris? People who see you as a monster?”

He took a jagged breath, his desperation turning into a bitter, frantic interrogation. “Is Soren really the one you want to move on to? A man who doesn’t get involved in anything that doesn’t benefit him? A man who treats the world like a game of chess?”

“You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing,” Eris cut him off.

Caelen froze, his fingers twitching against her waist. He looked as though she had slapped him. “You’re… you’re defending him?”

“Soren’s pragmatism is the reason I am still alive, Caelen,” she said, leaning down so her face was inches from his.

“It is the reason I have a throne to sit on instead of a pyre to burn on. As for the rest of your concerns, the people, the politics, the cold, they are my business. Not yours. You lost the right to worry about my happiness the moment you chose your ’heroic’ duty over your wife.”

She reached down and pried his fingers from her waist, one by one. “The only thing we have together is Rael. Nothing more. Don’t forget your place, King of Solmire. You are a guest in my palace. Behave like one.”

The words struck him deep. Caelen finally snapped. The hero’s mask fell away, revealing a man drowning in his own regrets.

“You’re not thinking this through Eris!” he shouted, the sound echoing off the glass trees. “You’re making a reckless decision! You’re trying to prove something to a world that doesn’t care!”

He grabbed her again, pressing his face back against her, his voice weakening into a sob that shook his entire frame.

“Your heart… it only belongs to me, Eris. Why would you try to forget that? You loved me. You loved me more than anything.”

Eris felt a bubble of laughter rise in her throat, dark, hollow, and utterly devoid of joy. She chuckled, the sound chilling the air further. “You seem to have a profound misunderstanding of the situation, Caelen.”

He froze, looking up at her with a desperate, pathetic hope. “What do you mean?”

Eris looked down at him, letting a smirk pull at the corners of her mouth, the kind of look a predator gives its prey just before the final strike.

“I no longer love you, Caelen.”

The air left his lungs completely. He recoiled as if she had doused him in ice water. The world seemed to stop spinning. The blue frost-lilies blurred. The weight of her words was a physical blow to his solar plexus.

“You’re lying,” he whispered, shaking his head. “You’re saying it to hurt me. You have to be lying.”

“Believe what you want,” she said.

“Mother! Look!”

Rael came running back toward them, a tiny light dancing between his palms. He skidded to a halt, sensing the jagged tension in the air. He looked at Caelen, who was still half-collapsed on the bench, and then at Eris.

The Interruption caught Caelen off guard, and his grip finally loosened. Eris pulled away immediately, her movements sharp and decisive.

She stepped toward Rael and swept him into her arms, the boy’s warmth a grounding force against the wreckage she was leaving behind. She kissed his face, her heart aching with a fierce, possessive love.

Caelen stood up slowly, his legs looking weak. He looked like his entire world had crumbled into the dust beneath his boots.

“You’re lying,” he repeated, his voice a ghost of itself. “I know you’re saying it to hurt me… and it’s working. It’s working because I know how pathetic I’m being.”

Eris stared at him in silence for a long moment, the moonlight catching the gold in her eyes. “You have a wife, Caelen,” she reminded him. “You have a second child on the way. How entirely inappropriate you are being. To Rael. To Ophelia. To yourself.”

Before he could offer another excuse, she kissed Rael one last time. “Goodnight, my sweet flame,” she whispered. She handed the boy over to Caelen, who took him instinctively, his arms trembling.

“I am tired,” she said, her voice final. “I need to rest for my wedding.”

Without another word, she turned and walked away.

Rael watched her go, then looked at his father’s shattered face. “Papa? Why do you look like that? Does your tummy hurt?”

Caelen forced the emotions down, swallowing the bile and the grief. He forced a small, jagged smile for his son. “I’m just tired, Rael. I’m just… very tired. Let’s go back. It’s past your bedtime.”

ERIS

The walk back to my chambers felt like a march toward a final judgment.

My body felt heavy, every step a labor, but my heart weighed more. Everything was raw, the touch of Rael’s hair, the smell of Caelen’s desperation, the cold, biting reality of the crown waiting for me.

I reached my room and collapsed onto the bed, not even bothering to call for my maids. My mind was a whirlwind. I had held my son.

After so long, after a lifetime of grief, I had held him and he hadn’t been afraid of me.

The happiness was there, a bright, fragile thing in my chest, but Caelen’s face kept flickering in my thoughts like a dying ember. His words… the way he had looked at me… it was a haunting echo of a life I had finally managed to escape.

I hadn’t been lying when I told him I didn’t love him anymore. Not entirely. The girl who would have died for him was gone. But seeing his pain… it bothered me. Not because I wanted him back, but because it was a reminder of how much we had both destroyed in the name of a story that was never ours to begin with.

And then there was Soren.

The man who had occupied my heart in a way I never thought possible. But recently… he had been different. Distant. Unsure. I thought of his question at the memorial, if I was sure about the marriage.

Is he reconsidering? The thought was a needle of ice in my brain. Is he realizing that a Fire Queen is too much for his empire to hold? Tomorrow would tell. Regardless of what happened, I knew one thing: I would not be a victim again. I would choose myself. I would choose my power. I would choose my son.

I closed my eyes, the silence of the room absolute. Tomorrow was my wedding day. Tomorrow, I would become an Empress. Or I would become a ghost.

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