Chapter 104 The green eyed monster
The atmosphere in the royal library was heavy with the scent of aged parchment and beeswax. Tall, arched windows allowed the pale Arctic sun to spill across the mahogany tables, but for Orion, the room felt like another kind of cage.
He sat beside Esperanza, his large frame looking out of place among the delicate scrolls. He was staring at a map of the Arctic Flaming Descend, his brow furrowed in a deep, frustrated line. To him, the elegant script of the scholars looked like tangled briars—sharp, mocking, and impossible to navigate.
"This symbol here," Esperanza whispered softly, pointing to a jagged rune near the center of the map. "It marks the Sulfur Veins. We have to avoid them, or the heat will melt our boots before we even reach the inner sanctum."
Orion grunted, his finger hovering over the parchment but never touching it. "It all looks the same to me," he muttered, his voice thick with a rare flash of shame. "Just ink and vanity."
"Of course it does," a sharp, clipped voice rang out.
"A man who can tear iron bars apart with his bare hands, yet is defeated by a simple cartographer’s stroke," Ezra remarked, his tone dripping with a cold, academic condescension. "How classic. The 'monster' has the strength of a titan and the mind of a peasant."
"Ezra, stop it," Esperanza warned, her eyes snapping toward him.
"Why should I?" Ezra retorted, pacing around the table. "We are heading into the deadliest coordinates of the Drakon world. If he cannot read the warnings of those who died before us, he is a liability. It’s pathetic, really. You carry the blood of a 'psychic demon,' yet you haven't the wit to decode a basic travel log."
Orion’s jaw tightened, the wood of the chair creaking under his grip. He didn't roar this time; he just looked up at Ezra with those pitch-black eyes, a dangerous stillness settling over him.
"I spent my childhood learning how to survive the teeth of your father’s hounds," Orion said, his voice a low, lethal vibration. "I didn't have the luxury of sitting in silk robes, memorizing the poems of dead men."
"And now that lack of 'luxury' might get us killed," Ezra snapped back, leaning down until he was eye-to-level with Orion. "Reading is not a luxury, you baseborn fool. It is a weapon. And right now, you are unarmed."
Esperanza stood up, placing herself firmly between the two men, her hand resting on the map. "He isn't unarmed, Ezra. He has me. And he has instincts that your books could never describe. If you spend this entire journey scolding him for what he wasn't taught, you'll be the one who leads us into a trap out of pure arrogance."
Ezra rolled his eyes, but he fell silent, the sharp edge of his scolding dulled by her defense. He tossed a smaller, simpler book onto the table in front of Orion.
"Fine," Ezra muttered, turning to walk away. "Start with the icons. Even a beast can recognize a picture of fire."
"This is enough, Ezra!" she shouted, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "You have gone too far."
Ezra’s smug expression didn't just fade it stiffened. He gripped the mahogany railing, his knuckles whitening as she continued, her words cutting through his royal ego.
"You sit up there and mock him for what he doesn't know, yet you act like a petulant child. We are preparing to walk into a graveyard, and you are worried about who can read a poem?" Esperanza’s eyes flashed with a fire that made even Orion blink in surprise. "It is unacceptable. It is childish. And if you cannot find the dignity to be a leader instead of a bully, then perhaps you are the one who isn't fit for this journey."
The library fell into a tense, vibrating silence after Ezra’s departure. The heavy scent of old paper and cold stone seemed to press down on Orion, whose hands were still balled into white-knuckled fists on the table. He looked at the intricate maps and the swirling Drakon script as if they were enemies he couldn't strike.
"I can make you read," Esperanza said softly, breaking the quiet.
She reached out, covering his large, scarred hand with her own. Her touch was like a cooling balm on his rising temper. When Orion finally looked up, he didn't see the judgment of a king or the fear of a soldier; he saw Esperanza’s caring and loving eyes fixed entirely on him.
"It’s all going to be fine, Orion," she promised, her voice a soothing anchor. "Ezra sees the world in ink and laws, but you see the world in blood and survival. One isn't better than the other. But I will teach you. We will do this together."
She pulled the map closer, her finger tracing a series of jagged, glowing symbols that rep
resented the elemental forces of the Arctic Flaming Descend.
"Look here," she whispered, her head leaning close to his. "Don't try to see them as letters. See them as shapes. This one, with the three sharp points? That is the symbol for Flash-Freeze. It looks like a jagged icicle, doesn't it?"
Orion followed her finger, his breathing slowing. For the first time, the "briars" of the script started to untangle. With Esperanza beside him, the shame Ezra had tried to plant didn't have room to grow.
"Again," Orion rasped, his voice regaining its strength. "The one for the burning ice. Show me again."
Esperanza smiled, a flash of genuine pride lighting up her face. "That’s it. You’re already faster"
The tension is definitely thick enough to cut with a blade. It’s that classic, uncomfortable friction where the arrival of a hero (or a rival) starts to feel like a personal eclipse for whoever was there first.
To help you lean into that emotional weight, here are a few ways we could explore Ezra’s internal "green-eyed monster" as the gap between Orion and Esperanza closes: