Amidst the glitter and the murmurs and the thousand watching eyes, two monarchs... fire and frost... spun in their own private orbit, as if the ballroom, the crowd, and the gods themselves had ceased to exist.
And if one could step inside that circle of flame and silk, one might feel it too... that almost sacrilegious intimacy blooming between them.
Soren Nivarre, Emperor of Ice, slayer of beasts, breaker of northern storms, was suffering.
Truly, exquisitely suffering.
For holding Queen Eris this close was not unlike standing on the edge of a volcano, knowing full well that one misstep meant ruin... and taking the step anyway.
Her scent, that dangerous alchemy of jasmine, amber, and smoke, wrapped around him like a spell he had no intention of breaking. Every inhalation scorched him from the inside out.
