"The Azarion I know would never agree to annul the engagement," Neris said, his voice low but firm, eyes sharp as the edge of a blade. "He clings to oaths like a dragon to its hoard."
Lady Morwenna Winterbourne, seated in her velvet chair, scoffed softly, lifting her goblet with a hand adorned in rings of sapphire and bone. "You're right. He refused."
Neris turned his head sharply. "What?"
She smiled coldly. "The envoys I sent to Emberhold returned just yesterday. Azarion not only refused ..... he threatened war if we did not honor the agreement."
Neris's lips parted slightly in disbelief. "He would risk war over this?"
"Of course he would," she sneered, setting her goblet down with a gentle clink.
"I never liked that man," she continued, voice tightening like the pull of a bowstring. "
"That man has always been dangerous. He walks on the edge of a blade and smiles at the drop.
A warhound who thrives on the scent of blood and flame. A man who doesn't yield, a power-hungry fool. Dominion is in his blood."
"No fire burns eternal," Neris murmured, quoting an old northern saying.
Morwenna arched a brow. "Perhaps. But the Flamebornes think otherwise. It's written in their bones....even carved into their family words: From ash, we burn eternal."
She rolled her eyes and tisked. "Arrogant, flame-kissed vipers."
Neris turned to her then, gaze glinting with restrained frustration. "You've always called them that. Yet here we are, bound to them by a promise our house made, one you would see undone."
Neris exhaled deeply and turned from her, walking toward the tall window that looked out over the snow-laced courtyard.
"And what would you have me do then, Mother? Fight fire with ice?"
"I've already begun," she replied smoothly. "I've sent a marriage proposal to Sir Lucen Icewyn. In your name."
Neris's head snapped back toward her. "You did what?"
"For his daughter, Lady Rhea," Morwenna continued. "A fine young woman. Noble, untainted, and....."
"You what?" Neris' voice dropped, low and dangerous. "You sent a proposal without my consent?"
"I did what had to be done."
"I will not tolerate this," Neris cut in, his voice laced with warning. "You will not act on matters of state behind my back. I am king of Aiseryn, not you."
Morwenna tilted her chin, a flicker of pride flaring in her cold gaze. "Forgive me, my son, if you feel I've overstepped. But I will not sit by and allow a cursed bloodline to corrupt the Winterbourne name. You cannot say I haven't presented a solution."
Neris turned away from her, fists clenched at his sides. "A solution?" His voice sharpened. "You call this chaos a solution?"
"You call this solving a problem? Does anything about this situation seem solved to you, Mother?"
"As far as I'm concerned, yes. To me, it is a matter resolved," she said simply, leaning back into her seat.
"There are only three paths forward now."
She held up a single finger. "One: Azarion demands you marry his daughter. Over my dead body will that girl bear Winterbourne heirs. So we allow you to marry Lady Rhea as your first wife. Let her birth your heirs.
As for Aurelia… you may take her as a concubine if you must, lock her away as her father did. Technically, you'll have honored your father's oath."
She raised a second finger. "Two: If Azarion insists on war, then we give it to him. Fire may burn, but water swallows flame. Ice withstands.
We'll remind the south why the Winterbourne words are In Stillness, Power Flows. We will suffer losses, yes. But we will not lose."
Then she raised her third and final finger. "Three: We bring it before Caelmont. Let the Calestarch pass judgment. The Council of six is neutral. They will listen to reason. No kingdom wants war in this age."
She lowered her hand, her voice cooling further. "So think on it, my son. We need not rush. While we wait for Lucen's reply, you must decide what kind of king you intend to be."
Morwenna said no more. She reclined into her plush seat as though her role had been fulfilled, her words planted like seeds in winter soil, waiting to bloom.
But Neris stood frozen, his mind turning like a mill in storm winds.
He had already known.
Long before the whispers reached his court, long before his mother's spies uncovered the truth, he had known.
He had been there .... in Ashmere, on the night of the siege. He had seen it with his own eyes.
The curse. The fire. The blood. The way Aurelia's golden beauty had been scorched into something else entirely.
He'd seen her fall. He'd heard her screams....raw, primal, broken.....as the cursed magic wrapped itself around her like chains forged in shadow.
He had witnessed the magic claw through her flesh and twist it into something unrecognizable. Something the world would call monstrous.
And he had seen her afterward. Gods… her eyes.
And yet, despite everything…
He had not forgotten her letters.
Each one arrived in shaky handwriting. She never wrote of her pain. She only asked about the snows of Frostmere, of the wolves that ran through the forest, of the first winter frost and if he still remembered the games they played as children.
He never wrote back.
Not once.
He couldn't.
The memory still haunted him.
Every time he picked up the quill, guilt and grief warred inside him until the ink froze in its well.
Before the curse… She was radiant. A flame that danced without fear. She was the daughter of fire .....proud, powerful, untouchable.
She bested knights in duels and walked barefoot across embers. She made him laugh....truly laugh, with joy, not cold amusement.
He had loved her. Or at least, the idea of her.
And when his father arranged the betrothal, his joy knew no bounds.
He remembered racing to Emberhold, young and headstrong, eager to court her with no kingdom to bind him, only the wild beat of a heart in love.
He had counted the years, the months, the days until she came of age. He had planned to make her his queen. He had journeyed to Emberhold just to spend time with her. Just to breathe her fire.
But the gods had turned their backs on them the night Ashmere fell.
the gods were cruel.
On the night of hell, when she was just fourteen, the night he had come to see her because he missed her so much ...Ashmere burned, and everything changed.
Since then, he had asked the god of winter, Neryth, whether this was his punishment. Whether losing her was some twisted trial to test his worth. If so… then he had already failed.
He'd buried her letters in a locked box beneath stone.
He had buried her in his heart.
Now, with his mother weaving politics like spider silk and the war drums of Emberhold on the horizon, Neris Winterbourne ... the Warden of Winter, the man who had never once faltered in war .... stood adrift, helpless.
He didn't know what to do.
And that frightened him more than any flame.