ERIS
If there had ever been a heart built for ruin... it had been mine.
It was almost cruel, how the mind insisted on remembering what the heart had long begged to forget. One moment I was in the ballroom, turning in Caelen's arms like a specter bound by ceremony, and the next… I was elsewhere. Back then. Back when his eyes still looked at me like I was something worth saving.
He had been just a boy then. Dirt-streaked, starved, wild. I had found him crouched by my carriage, a hand in the fruit basket and the other frozen mid-theft. The guards had him by the collar, ready to drag him away.
And I, foolish, curious creature that I was, had told them to wait.
He had lifted his head then.
Gods, those eyes. Defiant, frightened, and yet... steady. No trembling, no flinching from my gaze. I was Eris Igniva, the cursed child, the fireborn disaster. Men older and braver had bowed, trembling, before me. But he... he had looked straight into me.
