Chapter 370: Lose

I woke slowly, the velvet weight of the Nevarian night pressing against the windowpanes.

Awareness returned in a dull, thrumming ache. It was dark outside, that deep indigo that suggests the hour is late but the world hasn’t quite surrendered to midnight. I could hear the muffled activity of the palace beyond the heavy oak doors.

I shifted beneath the heavy furs, and a sharp, familiar discomfort flared through my lower body.

I felt full, absurdly, uncomfortably full. Soren’s evidence was a warm, sticky weight still settling inside me, a visceral reminder of the frantic, almost desperate hunger he had displayed earlier.

I was tender in places I hadn’t known existed, my entire life force exhausted, from the sheer, unrelenting force of him.

I looked beside me. Soren was sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic cadence.

He looked like he’d just finished the greatest feast of his life, completely satisfied, his features smoothed into a rare, untroubled peace.

He looked oblivious to the world, anchored by the heavy exhaustion that only comes after total release.

This motherfucker, I thought, a mix of exasperation and lingering heat blooming in my chest. Where does he get the stamina?

At least this time it hadn’t been an all-night marathon. Two pumps, three, and the Emperor of the North had been out like a light.

He’d filled me to the brink and then passed out as if he’d run across the entire tundra. Meanwhile, I was the one left dealing with the messy, aching aftermath.

I couldn’t just lie here. My body needed to adapt to this new, brutal routine of being pounded mercilessly by a particularly ravenous mage.

If I stayed in bed, the soreness would only settle into my bones, making it impossible to move tomorrow. I needed to walk. I needed to breathe.

Carefully, I slid out of bed, holding my breath until I was sure Soren wouldn’t stir. He didn’t. I grabbed a thick robe, wrapping it tight around my waist, pointedly ignoring the sensation of him dripping out of me. I’d deal with the bath and the potion later; right now, I needed the bite of the winter air to clear the fog from my brain.

The corridors were still active. Servants bowed as I passed, their eyes darting to my disheveled hair and the robe clutched at my throat.

I could feel their curiosity, the whispers that started the moment my heels moved out of earshot. I ignored them all, focusing on the rhythmic click of my steps until I reached the heavy iron doors leading to the lower gardens.

Outside, the cold was a physical blow. The snow fell in lazy, fat flakes, and the wind bit at any exposed skin with icy teeth. But as a fire mage, the chill never reached my core.

Heat radiated from within me, a steady, pulsing ember in my chest that turned the freezing air into nothing more than a refreshing caress. I headed to for the eastern gardens.

I walked along the frosted path, my mind drifting back to Rael’s nightmare. Darkness. Me being hurt. Was it just the lingering trauma of a child caught between two warring parents, or was it something more?

I turned a sharp corner, the frost-blooms crunching beneath my boots, and froze.

Caelen was there. He was sitting on a stone bench, looking small against the vast, dark backdrop of the palace. He held a single white rose in his hand, his thumb tracing the frozen edges of the petals.

He was staring into the distance, his eyes glazed with a profound, shattered melancholy. In the moonlight, the shadows across his face made him look older, hollowed out by a grief he couldn’t name.

He looked broken. He looked lonely.

My first instinct was a visceral, immediate NO. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want the weight of his regret or the sight of his vulnerability. I turned on my heel, ready to vanish back into the warmth of the palace before he could see me.

“Eris. Wait.”

His voice was rough, a desperate rasp that cut through the sound of the wind. I froze, my jaw tightening.

“Please,” he pleaded, his voice breaking slightly. “Don’t go. Just… just a moment.”

I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, praying for patience I didn’t possess.

Slowly, I turned around. Caelen was standing now, still clutching that rose like a talisman.

His eyes were wide, pleading with me like a lost puppy. He looked so vulnerable it was almost insulting. I didn’t return that energy.

My face remained a blank, cold mask of imperial assessment.

“What do you want, Caelen?” my voice was flat, devoid of even the warmth of anger.

He took a step forward, his boots dragging in the snow. “I just wanted to talk.”

“Talk about what?” I crossed my arms, the silk of my robe rustling.

“About Rael,” he said, using the boy as a shield the way he always did. “His nightmares. You seemed concerned earlier. I wanted to explain. Properly.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You said it was nothing. You said they pass.”

“I did. But I didn’t want to worry you in the moment. There’s… more to it. They started a month ago. Right after you left Solmire.”

He took another step closer, his gaze searching mine for a flicker of sympathy.

“He’d wake up crying, Eris. Asking for you. Saying he saw you in danger, that the sky was falling.”

He took another step. He was getting too close. I could see the dampness of the snow in his hair, the way his hands shook. I took a deliberate step back.

Caelen stopped as if I’d struck him. His face crumpled, that wounded puppy look returning with a vengeance. “You really can’t stand me anymore, can you?” he whispered.

“Yes,” I said. No hesitation. Just the brutal, honest truth.

Caelen recoiled, letting out a short, bitter laugh that wasn’t even remotely humorous. It was the sound of a man realizing the floor had dropped out from under him.

“It’s not entirely my fault, you know,” he said, his voice dropping into a defensive growl.

“It’s not my fault that I tried to hate you. You made it so easy, Eris. You were cruel, you were unpredictable, you hurt people I cared—”

“Stop,” I cut him off, my voice like a serrated blade. I wasn’t doing this. I wasn’t about to discuss our marriage in a frozen garden at nine at night.

I needed to leave.

I turned away, my cloak snapping in the wind, but I only made it two steps before a hand clamped around my wrist. It wasn’t a gentle touch.

He pulled, spinning me around with a desperate strength that caught me off guard. Before I could summon the fire to my palms, I was pressed against him.

Caelen’s arms wrapped around my waist, pinning me close, chest to chest, hip to hip. I could feel the cold dampness of his clothes against my robe.

“What are you doing, Caelen?” I hissed, my voice shaking with a mix of shock and rising fury. I pushed against his shoulders, but he didn’t budge. He held me with a possessive, suffocating grip.

“I can’t let you walk away,” he rasped into my hair. “Not again. Just listen. Please, just listen to me.”

“You have three seconds before I set you on fire,” I warned, my eyes beginning to glow with a dangerous, flickering amber. I wasn’t joking. I could feel the heat rising in my blood, the air around us beginning to shimmer.

“I made mistakes,” Caelen said, ignoring the threat, his voice breaking entirely. “So many mistakes. But you, you were supposed to love me. You said you did. For years, you said I was everything.”

I went still in his arms, the fire in my veins turning to ice. “I did,” I said. I made sure the past tense was as heavy as a tombstone.

Caelen flinched, his grip tightening as he pulled me even closer, trying to bridge a gap that was already miles wide. “And now?”

I met his eyes, unflinching. “Now I don’t.”

“I don’t believe you,” he choked out, shaking his head. “You loved me obsessively. That doesn’t just disappear in a month because of a new crown.”

“It does when the person I loved never existed,” I said, my voice hard and clear. “I loved an idea, Caelen. I loved a fantasy of a man who would see me, who would protect me. I loved a lie. And now that I see clearly? There’s nothing left but ash.”

He was too close. I could smell him, that familiar scent of cedar and Solmire rain that had once meant home. But it felt wrong now. It felt like a violation. His hands on my waist were claiming me, trying to re-establish a bond I had already severed with a ritual blade.

“Do you love him?” Caelen whispered, his face inches from mine.

I didn’t need him to name the man. We both knew who he meant. I went silent, the question hanging in the freezing air between us. I hadn’t said it aloud, not to Soren, not even to myself.

But the silence was its own confession. The way my heart skipped at Soren’s touch, the way I felt safe in his terrifying shadow, it was an answer Caelen could read in the very line of my shoulders.

“You do—” Caelen whispered, devastation washing over his features. “You love the monster.”

“That is none of your business,” I spat. “You have no right to ask me anything about my life. You’re the man who kept my son from me. You poisoned him against me for years. You have no rights here, Caelen. None.”

“I can’t lose you,” he whispered, his eyes searching mine one last time, looking for a ghost that had already departed.

“You already did,” I said, my voice flat and final.

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