Chapter 37: Shadows of Jealousy

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: Shadows of Jealousy

The fire in the northern residence crackled softly, throwing warm orange light across walls that had clearly not seen visitors in years. Dust still clung to the corners of the ceiling, and the furniture, though clean, carried the stiff, untouched look of a room kept ready for a guest who never came.

Outside, snow drifted through the dark sky, settling over the hidden wing of the palace in complete silence, burying the old stone paths under a thin white blanket that no servant would sweep away until morning.

Inside, no one spoke.

Theon remained standing exactly where his father’s words had left him, his mind still tangled in the truth of what had happened five years ago. He kept turning it over, again and again, trying to find a version of the story that hurt less.

Raven had not been robbed of the throne.

He had been rejected.

That single realization changed everything Theon thought he understood about his family, about the war simmering quietly beneath the palace floors, about the man who had plotted to freeze his sister alive without a flicker of guilt.

Lyra sat quietly beside Lazeria on the worn wooden bench near the fire, both of them watching the two men in the room with careful, uncertain eyes, as though speaking too soon might shatter whatever fragile understanding had just been reached. Fen rested near the doorway, his massive body curled loosely, eyes half closed, though the slow twitch of his ears betrayed how closely he was still listening. Ifrith stood with his arms folded, his dark-crimson gaze fixed steadily on Ragnar, unreadable and patient.

For several long moments, only the wind could be heard pressing softly against the old stone walls, slipping through the cracks with a low, mournful sound.

Then Ifrith finally broke the silence.

"As of now," he said, his voice calm but pointed, "why are we hiding in this place instead of returning to our chambers?"

Ragnar looked at him for a moment, then let his gaze drift slowly toward Theon, as though weighing how much his son could carry tonight.

"Because his siblings are after his life."

The words struck the room like a blade dropped onto stone, sharp and final. Theon blinked, certain for a moment that he had simply misheard.

"What?" His voice came out barely above a whisper, thin and disbelieving.

Ragnar did not look away from him. "Your brothers and sisters see you as a threat."

"A threat?" Theon shook his head at once, the denial rising in him before he could stop it. "No. That can’t be true." He took a step forward, his voice climbing with disbelief. "Brother Styr would never try to kill me. He taught me how to hold a sword when I was six."

Ragnar’s expression stayed calm, composed in the way only a man who had buried this pain long ago could manage, but something colder settled behind his eyes.

"You still don’t understand."

Theon frowned, his chest tightening. "Understand what?"

"That this is no longer a matter of family affection." The emperor’s voice carried the weight of years, of things seen and buried and never spoken of again. "In the history of the Glaciara Empire, no human has ever contracted a demon."

Theon’s breath slowed.

Ragnar continued, each word measured and deliberate. "Not a low demon. Not a high demon. Never once, in a thousand years of recorded history, a primordial demon." His gaze drifted briefly toward Fen, resting quietly by the doorway. "And no one, in all that time, has ever contracted a Primordial Thunder Fenrir either."

Silence stretched through the room, thick enough to feel.

Theon let the meaning settle into him piece by piece, slow and heavy, the way snow gathers weight on a branch until it finally bends. He looked at Fen, then at the empty space where Ifrith’s shadow stretched long against the wall, and understood just how strange he must look to everyone around him.

Ragnar stepped closer, his voice dropping lower. "You are no longer merely A seventh prince." He paused, choosing his next words with care. "You are a possibility."

Theon’s eyes widened. "A possibility of what?"

"A future no one can predict."

The room fell silent again, and Theon looked down at his own hands, turning them over slowly, searching for some kind of answer written there, he understood that the fear surrounding him was not only about power, not only about swords or mana or ancient blades sleeping inside storage rings.

It was about the simple, quiet terror of not knowing what he might become.

Ifrith was the one to break the stillness this time. "What do we do about Raven?"

Ragnar’s gaze hardened instantly, the softness from a moment ago gone entirely. "Leave Raven to me." The answer came without a trace of hesitation, final and closed.

Theon looked up, wanting to press further, wanting to demand more than that single sentence, but Ifrith spoke again before he could find the words.

"And the assassins?"

Ragnar did not react at first. He simply stood there, staring into the fire as though it held something worth reading. Then, quietly, he said, "I already know who smuggle them into the empire."

Theon looked at him sharply, his heart lurching. "You know?"

Ragnar nodded once, his expression giving nothing away. "I know Duke Aldric is behind it."

The room seemed to freeze around the words, as though the fire itself had paused to listen. Ifrith’s eyes widened, and then, all at once, anger tore through him. Crimson flames burst around his body without warning, forcing Lyra and Lazeria to raise their arms and shield their faces from the sudden wall of heat.

"You knew?" Ifrith’s voice came out as a low growl, dangerous in a way Theon had never heard from him before. "You knew all along?"

Ragnar remained perfectly still, unmoved by the flames licking dangerously close to him. "Yes."

"Then why didn’t you stop it?" The flames intensified, curling higher around his shoulders. "Why did you let it happen? Why did you let them walk beneath your own palace and put a blade to your children’s throats?"

The emperor finally turned to face him fully, and in that single motion he no longer looked like a ruler standing before his court, and no longer like an old ally standing beside a friend. He looked like something far older, far colder, something that had made peace with terrible decisions a long time ago and carried the weight of them without complaint.

His blue eyes darkened. "You already know why."

The words struck harder than the flames ever could have. Ifrith’s jaw tightened, and for one brief, unguarded moment, the Flame Lord demon looked genuinely shaken, something close to old guilt flickering behind the fury in his eyes.

Ragnar held his gaze without flinching, without softening. "So why ask again?"

The fire in the room seemed to dim on its own, as though even the flames understood they had lost. Ifrit slowly looked away, his own flames retreating like a tide pulling back from a shore it no longer wished to touch.

Theon stared between the two of them, lost entirely in whatever silent history was passing over his head. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice smaller now. "What is it that you both keep dancing around?"

Neither of them answered.

The silence that followed felt heavier than any explanation could have been, pressing down on the room until even the crackle of the fire sounded muted. Irritation rose sharply in Theon’s chest, hot and sudden.

"Can someone please stop talking in riddles for once?" His voice cracked with frustration. "I am so tired of being the only one in the room who doesn’t understand what’s happening to my own life."

Ragnar’s expression softened, just slightly, something almost like sympathy crossing his tired face. "You do not need to know that yet."

That only made Theon more suspicious, and he opened his mouth to argue, to demand the truth outright, but Ifrith exhaled slowly first, forcing the last of his flames back under careful control.

" It’s the first princess," Ifrith said quietly, almost to himself.

Theon turned to him, startled by the sudden shift. "What?"

"The one most likely to move first."

"What do you mean by that?"

Ifrith’s gaze turned distant, as though he were replaying a memory he hadn’t meant to revisit tonight. "When I carried you back to the palace after the Awakening, I passed near her quarters." He paused, choosing his next words with unusual care. "Her aura was not merely angry."

His Dark-crimson eyes narrowed, the memory clearly still sharp in his mind. "It was wounded."

Theon said nothing, waiting, dread pooling slowly in his stomach.

"I felt jealousy," Ifrith continued. "Deep jealousy. The kind that doesn’t explode all at once, but festers quietly for years, buried under duty and pride, until it finally breaks something it can no longer hold."

Lyra’s expression darkened, her fingers tightening around the edge of the bench. "Jealous of him?"

Ifrith nodded slowly. "She has spent her entire life being praised as the greatest child of this empire. The prodigy. The pride of the throne room." His eyes moved to Theon, softer now, almost apologetic. "And then you appeared, and everything she had spent her whole life building her worth around began, quietly, to crack."

Theon swallowed hard, the words settling into him like stones. The room suddenly felt far smaller than it had a moment ago, the walls pressing closer, the fire burning too bright against his skin.

He opened his mouth to speak, to ask something, anything, that might make this easier to carry.

BOOOOOOM!

The entire building exploded around them.

The wall beside them shattered inward in a violent storm of fire, ice, and stone, the sound so loud it swallowed every other thought in Theon’s head. Lazeria screamed as debris flew past her, narrowly missing her shoulder. Lyra grabbed the edge of the table with both hands, holding on as the floor bucked and shook beneath her feet. Theon was thrown backward through the air, the breath knocked completely from his lungs the moment he hit the ground.

Ifrith moved instantly, faster than thought could follow. A crimson barrier erupted around the group, absorbing the wave of destruction a heartbeat before it could reach them. Fen roared, and thunder exploded through the ruined room, shaking loose whatever remained of the ceiling above. Snow and broken stone rained down around them in a blinding storm of white and gray.

For several long seconds, chaos swallowed everything whole, and Theon could hear nothing but ringing in his own ears.

Then, slowly, the dust began to settle.

Theon coughed hard, forcing himself upright enough to look around. The northern wing was gone. Half the residence had been torn apart in a single, devastating blow, leaving nothing behind but broken stone, twisted beams, and cold night air rushing freely through what used to be walls.

Above them, suspended in the dark and snow filled sky, stood a figure wrapped entirely in crimson flames. Long red hair whipped violently around her like a living fire given shape. Her eyes burned with a heat so intense that the falling snow evaporated the moment it drew near her, hissing into steam before it could ever touch her skin.

The first princess (Astrid Nivaris).

Theon’s breath caught painfully in his throat.

Her gaze locked onto him, sharp and merciless, stripped of every trace of warmth he remembered from his childhood. For once, since he had returned to the palace, he felt nothing familiar in his sister’s eyes. Only fury, raw and unrestrained, years in the making.

Crimson fire swirled around her like a gathering storm, and the ground beneath her began to blacken from the heat alone.

Then her voice echoed across the shattered northern wing, cold enough to freeze the air itself despite the fire wrapped around her.

"Hand over Theon, or I will take his head myself."