The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 320: THE SACRED VOWS PT 2

Serah paused.

The ancient woman’s eyes narrowed, her gaze dropping from the Codex to the couple before her. She didn’t stop, but the slight tightening of her jaw suggested she was well aware of the mutiny occurring at her altar.

Soren wasn’t finished. The relief of her smile had emboldened him. "Does this mean you forgive me?" he breathed, his eyes searching the side of her face. "For the memorial? For asking if you were sure?"

Eris went quiet. The silence stretched for several heartbeats, long enough that the nobles in the front pews began to lean forward, their ears straining. Serah’s patience was visibly evaporating, her staff tapping rhythmically against the ice floor.

"You should understand one thing about me, Soren," Eris said, her voice quiet but carrying the sharp edge of a blade. "No one can force me to do anything I do not want to do. Every choice I make is mine. I do not marry for obligation, and I do not stand here out of necessity." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

She turned her head then, finally meeting his gaze with a look that was both a challenge and a confession. "I’m standing here beside you because I want to be. Because I chose you."

The air seemed to leave Soren all at once. The tension that had held his spine rigid since dawn simply dissolved. Relief flooded him, so potent he felt lightheaded.

"Unless," Eris added, her eyes glinting with a spark of her old, wicked mischief, "you’re the one having second thoughts? If you want to end this before the binding is complete, now is the time to run."

"No," Soren said, his voice cracking with a sudden, forceful certainty. "God, no. Never."

The "never" rang out a bit too loudly, bouncing off the vaulted ice. A few guests gasped; others let out stifled titters of laughter.

High Priestess Serah stopped reading entirely. She lowered the Codex and stared at them over the bridge of her hooked nose with the unamused expression of a teacher dealing with wayward children.

"If the Emperor and the future Empress are quite finished with their private conversation?" she asked, her voice dry enough to catch fire.

The cathedral erupted in a ripple of genuine, lighthearted laughter.

It was a human moment in a divine ceremony, a break in the ice that made the grandiosity feel real.

Soren and Eris looked at each other and smiled, not the practiced smiles of monarchs, but something raw and shared.

She wants me, Soren thought, his heart finally settling into a steady, joyful rhythm. He knew he still had a lifetime of making it up to her... of proving he was worthy of that choice... but for now, the ghost of Caelen in the garden was finally laid to rest.

Serah cleared her throat, a sound like grinding stones, and resumed the rite. Her voice rose to a crescendo as she reached the binding verses.

"And so we bind not just two people, but two primal forces. Ice that never melts, and fire that never dies. Let them be forever intertwined."

She raised her staff high. The crystal at its peak erupted with a blinding, cold light. From the shadows of the pillars, the other priestesses began a low, guttural chant in a language that predated the First Empire.

The air In the cathedral began to shiver. The temperature plummeted until the breath of the guests hung in thick clouds, then surged with a sudden, dry heat. The magic was moving, the gods were listening.

Serah lowered the staff, placing the glowing crystal directly atop their joined hands.

The reaction was instantaneous.

Delicate, crystalline frost began to crawl from the staff, weaving its way around their wrists in intricate lace. At the same time, a pulse of pure, golden warmth surged from Eris’s palm.

Where the fire met the ice, a swirling vortex of steam and ember erupted, dancing between their fingers in a display of impossible physics.

The guests let out a collective gasp. It was the mark of the union... visual, magical proof that the elements had accepted the pact. As the light faded, faint, matching symbols remained etched into the skin of their hands, glowing briefly before sinking beneath the surface like a secret.

"Repeat after me," Serah commanded.

Their voices rose together, overlapping and harmonizing in the vast space. "I swear before Aenithra and Pyronox... before the Empire and its people... to honor this bond above all others. To protect what we have built. To stand as one against all that would divide us. From this day until my last breath."

Serah turned her focus to Soren. "Do you, Emperor Soren Nivarre, take this woman as your Empress? To stand beside her in power and in vulnerability? To bind your fate to hers, for all of your days?"

Soren didn’t even blink. "I do."

The words were a bell, certain and resonant.

The priestess turned to Eris. "Do you, Lady Eris Igniva, take this man as your Emperor? To stand beside him in power and in vulnerability? To bind your fate to his, for all of your days?"

Eris looked at Soren. She saw the man who had carried her through the ash, the man who had defended her against his own mother, and the man who was currently looking at her as if she were the only light in a dark world.

"I do," she said, her voice unwavering.

Serah turned to the congregation, her face setting into the traditional, grim mask of the final challenge. "If any here object to this union, speak now, or let the gods forever hold your silence."

The silence that followed was suffocating. It was a vacuum of tension. Every eye in the room seemed to pivot. Vetra, seated in the front row, turned her head with agonizing slowness. She didn’t look at the altar. She looked directly at Caelen.

She offered him a small, shark-like smile... a silent invitation to ruin, a dare to play the hero one last time.

Caelen felt the weight of her gaze like a physical heat. His knuckles were white, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. A scream was clawing at the back of his throat... a roar of denial, a claim on the woman who had once been his whole world. I object! his heart cried. She is mine! This is a mistake!

But he looked at Eris. He saw the way she stood, the way she looked at Soren, and the way the magic had settled into her skin. He saw the Empress he had made through his own betrayal.

He stayed silent. He sat there, dying a thousand small deaths in the span of five seconds, his head bowing as he accepted the finality of his loss.

Serah nodded, the tension breaking as she looked back to the couple. "Then we proceed. What the gods have joined, let no mortal dare to sever."

The moment was gone. The door to the past was locked, and the key had been melted in the fire.