Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

Leonidas, caught up in the flattery, completely missed the dynamic playing out across the table. ”Ha! Two pieces?! I could snap a drawbridge in half, little spark! Boris is a strong lad, but he lacks the explosive kinetic energy of the Flame!”

Kaelus stared at the bowl of Star-peaches.

He looked at Seraphina’s back.

He had spoken directly to her. He had offered her a highly prized resource, her favorite fruit.

And she had completely ignored him.

The cold panic in Kaelus’s chest blossomed into a localized, internal blizzard of pure, unadulterated terror.

’She knows,’ the realization hit him with the force of a physical blow to the stomach. ’She wasn’t asleep or distracted. She is avoiding me clearly because she knows what I did. She knows I left her alone to fight in the frontlines.’

Kaelus’s breath hitched.

He was prepared for yelling.

He had literally spent the entire ride back to the fortress mentally drafting a fifty-point apology to counter a screaming, crying, pillow-throwing tantrum. He knew how to handle a tantrum.

He could offer logic. He could offer bribes.

He could sit there and let her hit his chest until she tired herself out, and then he could hug her and tell her he was sorry.

But this?

This unyielding, chilling wall of invisible ice?

He had no defense against this.

”Seraphina,” Kaelus tried again, his voice dropping the casual tone entirely, adopting a note of desperate, raw pleading that he didn’t even try to hide. ”Mushroom. Look at me.”

Seraphina picked up her fork.

She elegantly stabbed a piece of sausage on her plate.

”Auntie Lysa,” Seraphina smiled, turning her back even further away from Kaelus, offering the Duchess a bright, sunny expression. ”This sausage is very good. It’s much better than the dry, boring rations they make in the North. The North is so dreary and lonely. I like it here in the South where people are nice and don’t lie about taking naps.”

CRACK!

The delicate, porcelain teacup Kaelus was holding in his left hand violently, instantly shattered into a dozen pieces.

Hot tea spilled over his black-gloved fingers, dripping onto the mahogany table, but Kaelus didn’t even flinch.

He didn’t feel the heat.

The words struck his soul like a barrage of poisoned daggers.

’The North is dreary and lonely. People here don’t lie.’

It was a flawless strike.

She wasn’t just ignoring him; she was actively, loudly praising his rivals, denouncing his homeland, and explicitly calling him out on his betrayal without ever once addressing him directly.

Archduke Leonidas, halfway through chewing a piece of bacon, finally realized what was happening.

The Fire Archduke stopped chewing.

He looked at Seraphina, who was happily swinging her legs and smiling at his wife. Then he looked across the table at Kaelus, who was staring at his daughter with an expression of such agonizing devastation that he looked as though he had just watched his own heart get ripped out of his chest and fed to a dog.

Leonidas’s amber eyes widened.

He swallowed the bacon.

A slow, wicked, unholy grin began to spread across Leonidas’s face. The realization of the power dynamic hit the boisterous warlord like a shot of pure adrenaline.

”Oh, ho ho ho,” Leonidas rumbled, a deep, vibrating chuckle building in his chest, unable to suppress the manic glee of witnessing his rival’s absolute destruction.

”Leonidas, do not,” Lysandra hissed softly, kicking him under the table, recognizing the fragility of the situation.

But Leonidas was a man who lived for chaos.

”Why, Lady Seraphina, you flatter us!” Leonidas boomed, leaning over the table, deliberately projecting his voice so Kaelus would hear every single syllable. ”The South is indeed a paradise of honesty and warmth! We would never dream of locking a Sovereign in a room while the adults had all the fun! We believe in transparent communication!”

Kaelus’s head snapped up. His violet eyes locked onto Leonidas, glowing with a terrifying, homicidal, desperate intensity.

The dark mana in the room spiked so violently the windows rattled in their frames.

”Leonidas,” Kaelus whispered, a ragged, guttural growl that promised eternal suffering. ”If you do not close your mouth, I will freeze your remaining ribs until they shatter like glass.”

Leonidas didn’t care. He was practically vibrating with joy.

”Oh, is someone speaking?” Leonidas mocked, cupping a hand to his ear, looking exaggeratedly around the room. ”I hear a faint, annoying buzzing sound! A chill wind from a lonely, dreary place! Do you hear anything, little spark?”

Seraphina took a delicate sip of her mango juice.

She placed the goblet back on the table. She looked directly at Leonidas, her dark eyes completely clear, innocent, and devoid of all mercy.

”No, Uncle Leo,” Seraphina said clearly, her voice echoing perfectly across the silent dining hall. ”I don’t hear anything. The air is completely empty. I think it’s just a draft.”

She turned back to her plate, dismissing the existence of the Archduke of the North.

Duke Kaelus von Nacht felt the very foundation of his universe crumble beneath his boots.

’She doesn’t hear me,’ Kaelus thought, the air rushing out of his lungs in a silent gasp. ’She called me a draft. I am just empty air to her.’

It was a punishment far more brutal, exquisitely tailored to his specific psychological weaknesses than any tantrum could ever be. Kaelus was a man who commanded the attention of the world.

He demanded obedience. He expected reactions.

By treating him as thin air, Seraphina wasn’t just expressing anger; she was brutally demonstrating exactly what he had communicated to her the night before.

’You thought you could handle the danger without me. You thought you didn’t need me. So fine. You don’t get me at all. You can live just fine without having me by your side, right? Enjoy the silence.’

The unspoken message was deafening.

It ate away at his soul, dissolving his arrogant confidence like acid. He had built his entire identity over the past months around being her protector, her anchor, her ’Papa’.