Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

”Look at this! If you agree to remain in the Obsidian Gate permanently, I am prepared to offer you the title of Honorary Warden of the Flame! This comes with an annual stipend of fifty thousand gold pieces, a personal guard of twenty elite fire mages, and—”

He paused for dramatic effect, leaning in close, his amber eyes burning with manic enthusiasm.

”—your very own, personally registered volcano!”

Seraphina stopped chewing her pastry. She looked at the parchment, then at the warlord offering her geological landmarks as if they were candy.

Her mind, accustomed to the absurdity of the Archdukes by now, failed to suppress a bright, bubbly giggle.

’He is trying to bribe me with a volcano,’ Seraphina thought, highly amused. ’Papa Duke bought me a stuffed bear, and Uncle Leo is countering with tectonic instability. The inflation rate on my affection is skyrocketing.’

”Thank you, Uncle Leo,” Seraphina smiled, politely pushing the parchment back toward him. ”But I don’t know how to drive a volcano. And besides, it’s too hot here. I would melt down and turn into a puddle of Seraphina the Jelly! I don’t want to become a jelly. So Papa’s ice is much better.”

Leonidas gasped, clutching his massive chest as if he had been shot with a crossbow. ”Melt?! You wouldn’t melt! We have cooling runes! I will install a personal glacier in your bedroom! If you need it, I will kidnap an ice-mage to stand in the corner and blow cold air on you! Just don’t go back to the freezing, dreary North! That guy, Kaelus doesn’t even know how to tell a joke!”

”That’s not true, Daddy’s very funny,” Seraphina defended loyally, taking a sip of tea. ”Yesterday he told Sir Boris that his head was hollow enough to store winter grain. Sir Boris laughed for ten minutes.”

”That is not a joke! That is an insult!” Leonidas wailed, throwing his hands into the air, pacing the sunlit tiles of the solarium. ”Lysa, help me! She is being brainwashed by that idiot! The icicle has brainwashed her into enjoying his miserable, brooding company! If she leaves, the fortress will be boring again! The pink dog will leave, too!”

At the mention of the dog, Ignis let out a tiny, warning growl at his former master, nuzzling closer into Seraphina’s stomach.

”Even the elemental spirits prefer the North!” Leonidas wept dramatically, dropping to his knees beside his wife’s chair.

Lysandra gently patted her husband’s broad, muscular shoulder, her amber eyes sparkling with fond amusement. ”You cannot keep her, my love. She belongs to Kaelus. They are bound together. And besides, if you attempted to physically prevent her departure, Kaelus would undoubtedly freeze our fortress and shatter it into gravel. Wouldn’t that be much worse of a situation? Surely you don’t want to make us become homeless?”

”I could take him on,” Leonidas grumbled petulantly, resting his chin on his wife’s knee.

”You currently have three fractured ribs because you tried to punch a mountain,” Lysandra reminded him sweetly. ”You could not take him.”

Leonidas sighed, a long, heavy, genuinely sorrowful sound. He looked up at Seraphina, his feral, boisterous demeanor softening into something incredibly warm and sincere.

”It’s a tragedy, little spark, that is what it is,” Leonidas murmured, offering her a soft, wistful smile. ”I truly wish you could have met my boys. Castor and Pollux. They are away at the Imperial Academy, probably blowing up alchemical cauldrons and undoubtedly giving their professors ulcers. If they were here... by the Light, they would have adored you. They would have carried you on their shoulders and built you a fortress of fire.”

Seraphina smiled back, feeling a genuine wave of affection for the loud, chaotic Archduke, and also amused because for some reason, he seemed proud of the fact that his sons were blowing up cauldrons at the Academy. ”Maybe I will meet them at the Academy, Uncle Leo. Cedric said he would save me a seat at the lunch table. We can sit together and play.”

”Ha! I pity the fools who try to sit at a table commanded by you,” Leonidas laughed, his spirits lifting slightly.

He stood up, dusting off his leather trousers, a sudden, calculating glint appearing in his amber eyes.

”Well,” Leonidas declared, placing his hands on his hips. ”If I cannot keep you, and my sons are not here to entertain you, I cannot simply leave you to read dusty books all afternoon while Kaelus finishes his tedious paperwork. You require an escort! A peer! Someone to trot around the duchy with!”

Seraphina tilted her head. ”A peer?”

”Indeed!” Leonidas grinned wickedly, turning toward the heavy glass doors of the solarium. ”GUARDS! Fetch the little zealot! Tell him the Archduke commands his presence immediately!”

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Ten minutes later, the glass doors of the solarium slid open with a sharp, disciplined snap.

Standing in the threshold, looking as though he were marching to his own execution, was Cassian.

The twelve-year-old Paladin-in-training was immaculately dressed in his pristine white tunic and azure cape, the silver crests of the Sun God gleaming on his shoulders. His silver hair was perfectly combed, his posture was rigidly, painfully straight, and his icy-blue eyes were fixed determinedly on the wall just above Archduke Leonidas’s head, actively avoiding looking anywhere near Seraphina.

Ever since the catastrophic ’hamster-cheek’ incident in the patisserie, Cassian had been actively avoiding the tiny Sovereign of the North as if she carried a highly contagious, embarrassing plague.

”Ah, Cassian! Excellent timing!” Leonidas boomed, marching over and clapping a hand onto the boy’s shoulder, nearly buckling the twelve-year-old’s knees.

Leonidas turned to Seraphina. ”Little spark, allow me to formally introduce Cassian. He is the son of a distant cousin of Lysa’s, sent here to toughen up before he takes his final vows at the Holy Sea. He is and incredibly stiff, humorless little peanut, and recites scripture in his sleep. From today on, I am assigning him as your personal escort for the remainder of your stay!”