Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

Kaelus moved to her ornate wooden wardrobe, pulling out her favorite sleeping garments: a soft, loose-fitting, long-sleeved nightgown made of pale blue silk, embroidered with tiny, white clouds.

He returned to the bed. With the practiced, gentle ease of a father who had done this a hundred times in the Bastion, he slipped the heavy, wet cape away, guiding her arms through the sleeves of the silk nightgown, pulling it down over her knees.

He lifted the heavy, down-filled duvet of the bed and slid her small body into the very center of the mattress.

He didn’t just throw the covers over her. Kaelus meticulously arranged the blankets, tucking the edges firmly around her sides, ensuring the warmth-to-airflow was achieved. He fluffed the silk pillow, resting her head perfectly in the center.

Seraphina rolled onto her side, pulling her knees up slightly, her breathing falling back into a deep, peaceful, rhythmic slumber.

Kaelus sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.

He didn’t move, read his ledgers, simply watched her sleep.

The suffocating, toxic heat of the Obsidian Gate, the political machinations of the Emperor, the terrifying threat of the ancient anomaly buried in the Ashen Forest, all of it faded into complete insignificance.

In this room, in this quiet, dimly lit space, he was not the Reaper. He was just a man guarding his entire world.

He reached out, his hand gently brushing a stray lock of dark hair from her forehead.

”Sleep well, Mushroom,” Kaelus whispered, his voice a raw, incredibly tender rasp. ”I will keep the monsters at bay.”

Kaelus stood up.

He adjusted his damp tunic, his face smoothing over, the warmth and vulnerability draining from his features like water retreating from a shore.

He turned his back on the bed and walked toward the heavy oak doors.

The moment Kaelus von Nacht placed his hand on the brass handle, the transformation was absolute.

The doting, panicked father who had just spent forty-five minutes executing a stealth toothbrushing operation ceased to exist.

The temperature in the room dropped.

The shadows lengthened, stretching across the floor, drawn to his boots like iron filings to a magnet. His violet eyes ignited, glowing with a cold light that promised absolute slaughter to anyone who dared to stand in his path.

He pulled the door open and stepped out into the corridor.

Sir Lucas and Sir Gallahan immediately snapped to attention, feeling the shift in their Liege Lord’s aura.

”Your Grace,” Lucas said, his voice dropping into a serious, military register. ”The Lady is secure?”

”The Lady is resting,” Kaelus replied, his voice a low, terrifying rumble of pure ice and iron. He didn’t look back at the room. He looked down the corridor, his mind locking onto the map of the Archduchy.

”Assemble the Vanguard, Lucas,” the Reaper of the North commanded, his dark cape billowing behind him as he began to march down the hall. ”We have a filth to eradicate before dinner. And I do not intend to be late.”

***

The landscape of the human subconscious is a bizarre, untamed frontier.

For a normal six-year-old child, dreams might consist of riding fluffy ponies across marshmallow clouds or playing hide-and-seek with friendly woodland creatures.

But Seraphina von Nacht was not a normal six-year-old.

She was a reincarnated soul trapped in a toddler’s body, who possessed a Dark Core and had endured a massive sugar crash.

Therefore, her dreamscape was an intense battleground of food!

In the vivid, hyper-realistic theater of her sleeping mind, Seraphina was currently engaged in a desperate, high-stakes marathon across a vast plain made of graham-cracker crumbs.

The sky above was a swirling vortex of spun sugar, raining down tiny, colorful sprinkles that bounced off her head.

But she wasn’t admiring the scenery.

She was hunting.

Running ahead of her, possessing tiny, muscular, incredibly fast little legs of their own, were her favorite foods.

”Get back here!” Seraphina roared in her dream, her tiny leather boots kicking up clouds of graham-cracker dust as she sprinted with all her might.

A perfectly glazed strawberry eclair was currently executing a flawless, parkour-style backflip over a river of molten chocolate. To its left, a roasted drumstick, dripping with savory, herbed gravy, was mocking her, doing a little taunting jig before sprinting away at Mach speed.

Even the extra-butter cookies from Marquess Julian’s estate had sprouted tiny, translucent fairy wings and were buzzing just out of reach, giggling with high-pitched, incredibly irritating little voices.

”You are legally required to enter my digestive tract!” Seraphina shrieked, her chubby cheeks flushed with exertion. ”I am the Sovereign of the North! I command you to get in my belly!”

But the food was completely insubordinate.

The strawberry eclair blew a raspberry at her, kicking up a cloud of powdered sugar that temporarily blinded her.

Dream-Seraphina was furious.

The frustration of seeing the most magnificent, calorie-dense delicacies in the universe actively evading her grasp was too much to bear. Her soul, starved of autonomy, and her child body, driven by pure gluttony, merged into a single entity of predatory focus.

’I am not losing to a pastry!’ she thought, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

She dug her heels into the graham-cracker dirt, lowered her center of gravity, channeled all of her stamina into her legs, and prepared to launch herself.

The giant strawberry eclair paused, looking over its shoulder to gloat.

It was a big mistake.

Seraphina exploded forward like a cannonball. She flew through the air, her mouth opening to an impossibly, comically massive width, her teeth flashing in the sugary sunlight.

”GOTCHA!” she shrieked in triumph of her win.

She tackled the giant eclair mid-air. She didn’t bother using her hands; she simply threw her arms around its massive, doughy circumference, opened her jaws widely, and bit down with every single ounce of strength she possessed.

She expected the glorious explosion of sweet strawberry glaze and rich vanilla cream and the soft, pillowy yield of perfectly baked pastry.