Chapter 329: Kristina

Even as the other lords settled into their “men’s hour,” the Emperor remained anchored to his wife. He was flirting shamelessly, his hand resting with a heavy, possessive warmth on her waist.

He leaned into her space, whispering something into her ear that made her wine-flushed face tilt back in a genuine, melodic laugh. She pushed him away playfully, her fingers lingering on his chest for a second too long for propriety, and the interaction sent a ripple of quiet gossip through the men below.

“The Emperor is utterly besotted,” Duke Konstantin murmured, pausing his story to watch the pair.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” another noble added, shaking his head. “He’s like a different man. The ice has finally cracked.”

Ryse, jolted awake by a particularly loud laugh from the high table, squinted through his bleary eyes. “He’s been like this for weeks, months now,” he muttered, his voice thick. “We’ve all had to suffer through it. Every council meeting, every strategy session… he just stares at her.”

Aldric snorted, draining his cup. “Suffered is an understatement. It’s sickening.”

The men chuckled, but the mood shifted as someone noticed Caelen’s oppressive silence. The King of Solmire was a dark blot on the celebration, his discomfort radiating off him in waves. The uncomfortable awareness of the history between the three of them settled over the table like a fog.

Aldric, getting progressively more drunk and significantly more irritated, finally snapped. He had been watching Soren lean into Eris again, his Emperor looking less like a sovereign and more like a lovesick stable boy. Aldric couldn’t stand the lack of composure. To him, the Emperor should be leading the men, not trailing after a woman like a lapdog, even if that woman was the Empress.

“Can he not control himself for even one evening?” Aldric grumbled. He watched Soren murmur something that made Eris flush a deep, lovely pink, and that was the final straw.

The man stood abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the stone. “That’s it.”

He marched toward the high table with the stride of a man going into battle. He didn’t bother with the full imperial protocol; he simply bowed a fraction and barked, “Your Majesty.”

He looked at Eris first. “Is the Emperor bothering you? You look as though you’ve been subjected to enough of his nonsense for one lifetime.”

Eris looked up, her golden eyes bright with relief and exhaustion. “Yes,” she said, her voice teasing but grateful. “Terribly. He hasn’t stopped talking for hours.”

Soren bristled, his hand tightening slightly on her waist. “I am not—”

“Come with me,” Aldric interrupted, his hand clamping onto Soren’s arm with a grip that brook no argument.

Soren looked at his secretary in genuine shock. “Wait, I wasn’t finished—”

“You haven’t given the Empress a single moment of breathing room all night,” Aldric scowled, beginning to physically drag the Emperor away from the table. “She’s exhausted. She has endured the ceremony, the walk, the dance, and your endless prattle. Let her retire in peace.”

“But I—” Soren protested, stumbling as he was pulled down the steps of the dais.

“No,” Aldric said firmly, steering him toward the group of men. “You are coming to sit with us. You are going to drink like a man of the North and listen to Konstantin’s story about the mountain cat, and you are going to let your wife sleep before she decides to set you on fire just for some quiet.”

Soren looked back at Eris, his expression one of a man being led to his doom, but Eris just offered him a small, wicked wave of her fingers before turning to her attendants to signal her own departure.

Aldric shoved Soren into the seat next to Ryse. “Sit. Drink. Behave.”

Soren huffed, adjusting his robe and glaring at the empty seat beside him. “Fine. But if he mentions the cat’s claws one more time, I’m leaving.”

The corridor leading to the sovereign’s private wing was a tunnel of silence, the air here stilled by thick tapestries and the sheer weight of the stone.

Eris moved toward the end of the hall, her sapphire skirts whispering against the floor like a retreating tide. Ahead, the massive doors of the suite stood like sentinels… heavy slabs of pale, carved ice reinforced with filigree silver that glinted in the flickering torchlight.

The guards stationed there were not the same men who had patrolled the palace earlier. These men wore the crest of the Empress’s personal guard, a unit freshly sworn to her name.

As she approached, they snapped to attention, the rhythmic click of their spears hitting the floor echoing through the empty space.

“Your Majesty,” they intoned in a single, gravelly breath.

The doors groaned open, revealing the warmth of the antechamber beyond. Eris stepped inside, the heat of the interior rooms washing over her skin as the doors swung shut, sealing out the echoes of the banquet hall.

Immediately, the atmosphere shifted. The guards remained outside the threshold; the junior staff who had been preparing the lamps bowed low and withdrew into the shadows, granting her the sanctuary she had craved since dawn.

Only one woman remained, standing in the center of the plush, silver-threaded rug.

She was young, perhaps no more than twenty, with an elegant bearing that suggested a lifetime of refined education.

Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and held a depth of composure that was rare for one so young. She dipped into a bow that was technically perfect, every line of her body showing a mastery of courtly grace.

“Your Majesty,” she said, her voice like clear water.

Eris paused, her golden eyes narrowing as she studied the girl’s face. There was a haunting familiarity in the curve of her jaw, the straight bridge of her nose. Something about her face sparked a memory in the back of Eris’s mind… a cold, jagged recollection of the council chambers.

“I am Kristina Kristoff,” the woman began, rising from her bow. “Mistress of the Empress’s Household. Daughter of Duchess Maren Kristoff.”

Eris froze, her breath hitching in her throat. Kristina. The daughter of the woman who currently sat in the bowels of the palace dungeons, awaiting a trial that would likely end in a permanent stay of execution. If Eris doesn’t turn the tide that is.

Maren Kristoff, the Duchess who had ended up a victim of Vetra against Soren, now had a daughter standing in Eris’s private sanctum.

Kristina didn’t flinch at the silence. “Your chambers, your personal staff, and your internal security are now under my charge,” she continued, her expression a mask of professional calm.

“I have sworn my oath of service to you, and to the crown you wear.”

Eris watched her, intrigued. She had never known Maren possessed a daughter, and she certainly hadn’t expected to find her here. Eris gave a slow, measured nod, her gaze never leaving the girl’s.

“Show me,” Eris commanded.

Kristina turned, her movements fluid and efficient as she began the tour of the sprawling suite. She led Eris through the antechamber, where foreign dignitaries and favored nobles would wait for a rare private audience.

From there, they transitioned into the sitting room, a space designed for comfort, filled with low-slung velvet chairs, a crackling hearth of white stone, and windows that offered a sweeping view of the snow-draped capital.

They passed through the dressing room, which felt more like a cathedral dedicated to silk and fur. Massive wardrobes of dark wood lined the walls, already filled with the heavy winter finery of the North.

Beyond lay the bathing chamber, where a sunken pool of heated water steamed under a ceiling of refractive glass.

Then, Kristina showed her the study, a workspace of quiet dignity featuring a heavy desk of black oak and shelves waiting to be filled with the weight of imperial decrees.

“Your belongings from Solmire have been arranged as you requested,” Kristina noted, gesturing toward a side table in the private dining room.

Eris stopped, her fingers reaching out to touch the spine of a familiar book, the cool gold of a jewelry box she had owned since she was a girl. These small treasures… displaced things in a strange, frozen land, provided a sudden, sharp ache of grounding reality.

“If anything has been misplaced, or if you find the arrangement lacking, we will correct it immediately,” Kristina added.

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