“Release Eurus or I won't be so merciful the third time,” Vivia warned.

  Astaroth stared at her, momentarily speechless, then burst into a peal of mocking ughter. “Merciful? You believe a fme demon should bow to your threat? A human’s threat-”

  In the blink of an eye, Vivia drew out one of her hairpins and stabbed it straight into Astaroth's wrist, her wrath wedging it deep. The sharp painful jolt forced him to release his grip over Eurus. His eyes widened in shock, and he stumbled back.

  Vivia quickly caught the falling Eurus in her arms. “Eurus!”

  He coughed hard, trying to catch his breath. Throbbing pain seared in his neck. Seeing the vicious marks of Astaroth's fingers imprinted on his skin, her expression turned further frigid.

  “Young lord!” Lucian tried to help him stand steady.

  Astaroth harshly shoved him away, his gaze abze with fury. He stared at the lodged hairpin in his wrist, his jaw gnashing with hatred. The air grew hotter and unbearable.

  “The insolence…”

  “I warned you that I wouldn't be merciful the third time. Did you assume I was to keep quiet while you barge in and strangle a child?”

  Lucian stepped in to intervene, but Astaroth pushed him away yet again with an impatient growl.

  “There’ll be no next time Lucian because you’ll just be a pile of ashes.”

  “Young lord, please stop. Princess Cirette cannot be harmed-”

  With a powerful thrust of his palm, Lucian was hurled out of the pavilion. He nded hard on his back with the crack of the shattered bones piercing the air.

  “Sir Lucian!”

  Her heart dropped and she moved to rush over to his side, but Astaroth grabbed her hand, his eyes glowing inferno. A searing heat engulfed her wrist, as though fmes were licking her skin. She let out a faint hiss of pain, her eyes catching the deadly orange glow igniting along Astaroth’s fingers.

  “First, cousin Zerath brings filth like you in my realm and then that filth has the audacity to attack royalty? You should know your pce, human,” he spoke with a distinct bone-chilling growl.

  Eurus lifted his gaze, coughing painfully. He stared at the frightening tips of the fmes spewing from Astaroth's hands burning the flesh off Vivia’s wrist. The color rapidly drained from his face.

  Vivia struggled to break free. Holding Eurus with one arm against her chest, it proved difficult to fight Astaroth while also shielding him from his fmes.

  Astaroth smiled. “I can consider forgiving you if you kneel and bow your head before me.”

  Her breaths grew restless and agonizing as fire burned deeper into her skin.

  “I…feel gracious toward you, young lord Astaroth.”

  He blinked, puzzled.

  She chuckled, strained and broken with sweat dripping down her forehead. “You proved to me that I was right. Crown Prince Zerath deserves to become the King more than anybody else. He is beyond your reach, even in your wildest fantasies.”

  A sudden burst of tall, deadly fmes erupted around the pavilion. Butterflies desperately fluttered their wings to escape. Fire engulfed the delicate flowers, turning them into sorrowful ashes. It spread through the grass like wildfire that turned the once pleasant atmosphere into nothing but ashy smoke.

  Astaroth's rage knew no bounds. Vivia’s mocking gaze and the ridicule-filled chuckle lifting her lips stabbed his pride immensely. She had sided with his archenemy right in his face. The humiliation was beyond his tolerance.

  “I’ll punish you for this insolence!” he gritted his teeth.

  Eurus’s terror mounted upon witnessing the garden drowning in the sea of fmes. He hastily reached out to free her as his icy aura glowed on Vivia’s hand, snuffing out Astaroth's fmes. Relief flooded through her as she gasped for air, but it didn’t st for long.

  Astaroth sneered. “Ice always loses to fmes, remember?”

  With a sudden spark of another fme, the fragile ice yer formed on Vivia’s burning wounds melted. She closed her eyes, her jaw tightening.

  “I’m fine Eurus…You quickly escape…”

  She attempted to lower him to the ground, but he stubbornly clung to her. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he tried over and over again, but only defeat greeted his efforts.

  Astaroth ughed, the ring of menace heightening the tension. “Now I truly wonder if you were behind the eternal winter. A child to cause decades of endless winter cannot even match against my fmes at this moment?”

  Eurus’s misty eyes fixated on Vivia's burning hand, her unshed tears glistening in the corner of her eyes. He read the desperate plea within them to let Eurus be safe.

  ‘Go, Eurus, go. I’ll be okay.’

  'Eurus, stay safe here in this cave. Don't come out at any cost!’

  ‘I love you, Eurus. I promise I’ll come back for you.’

  As Eurus reminisced about his mother embracing him in her warmth one st time in that falling snow, he now saw Vivia’s face merging with hers, the fmes threatening to consume her alive.

  Astaroth snarled. “You should’ve kneeled when I gave you the chance. Now you-”

  An ominous rumble suddenly tore through high above, sending a wave of an unbearable chill. A shadow of grey cast upon the pace and puzzled, Astaroth looked up. His eyes widened at the sight before him.

  The blue sky was nowhere to be seen, and the sun that had been brightly shining until a few moments ago hid itself behind the stretch of dark and sinister clouds. The warmth in the air bled away so rapidly that it became harder to breathe.

  Astaroth recoiled as a piercing cry shattered the tense silence, its source unmistakably Eurus. His anguished voice reverberated sorrowfully, and the air around him grew sharp with an unnatural chill. Suddenly, a tall and unforgiving ice spike fred up from beneath the pavilion that stabbed through Astaroth’s hand.

  “AAAHHHH!!!”

  Freed from his vicious grip, Vivia colpsed backward, gasping for breath.

  The onsught of ice surged outward, consuming everything in its path with ruthless determination. It swept through the pavilion, coiling around its pilrs like frozen serpents. Frost spilled over the flowers. The burning greenery stiffened into statues of ice. The pond crackled violently, its surface solidifying into an expanse of freezing cold. Where the smoke from the fmes had crept into every crevice of the courtyard, a gust of chilly wind now bsted in every direction.

  “Eu-Eurus…?” She looked around, incredulous and aghast.

  As Eurus’s tears slid down his cheeks, his grief manifested in a torrent of ice that erupted from him like an unstoppable tide.