Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

It looked as though the box was simply surrendering to her touch.

Click-clack-slide.

”Almost got it,” Seraphina mumbled, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in a display of intense toddler concentration, though her mind was practically yawning with boredom. ’Honestly, the Dwarves need to upgrade their security. This algorithm is completely linear.’

Click-SNAP!

Exactly two minutes and forty-five seconds after Kaelus had placed the box on the floor, the final rune locked into place.

The heavy, internal mythril tumblers within the Dwarven Vault groaned, turning smoothly. With a soft hiss of depressurizing air, the lid of the box popped open.

Seraphina reached inside, her tiny hand retrieving a small, polished wooden token bearing the crest of the Vanguard.

She held it up, offering Kaelus a bright, sunny, missing-tooth smile.

”I did it, Papa!” Seraphina chirped happily. ”Do I get the fruit tarts now? Can one of them be blueberry?”

Duke Kaelus von Nacht stared at the wooden token. He stared at the open box, then he stared at the six-year-old child.

His breathing completely stopped.

The silence in the carriage was deafening, broken only by the rhythmic clattering of the wheels on the paved road outside.

’Two minutes,’ Kaelus’s mind whispered, plunging into a state of profound, reality-shattering shock. ’Two minutes and forty-five seconds. My top intelligence commanders take two days. They use chalkboards. They complain about migraines. She did it in under three minutes, while making a face like a confused rabbit, and her only motivation was baked goods.’

A massive, overwhelming, utterly terrifying emotion began to swell within the deepest, darkest caverns of the Archduke’s soul.

It was pride.

But it wasn’t normal fatherly pride.

It was the arrogant, megalomaniacal pride of a warlord who had just realized he was in possession of the ultimate superweapon of the century.

The vinegar jar of his protective jealousy didn’t shatter; it transformed into a vat of boiling, triumphant adrenaline.

’Leonidas was right,’ Kaelus realized, his violet eyes igniting with a blinding, radioactive flare of pure ecstasy. ’My daughter is not just a magical anomaly. My daughter is a terrifying, undisputed, world-class intellectual genius! She is going to completely dismantle the entire Imperial Academy! She is going to conquer the continent using only her brain and a demand for pastries!’

Kaelus’s hands actually trembled as he reached out and took the wooden token from her small fingers.

He didn’t praise her immediately.

He needed to be sure. He needed to verify that this wasn’t a fluke, a stroke of astronomical luck. He needed to test her in the ultimate crucible of the mind.

”You shall have your tarts, Seraphina,” Kaelus said, his voice dropping into a low, intense, vibrating rumble that betrayed his soaring excitement. ”But the tarts are merely a preliminary reward. Are you... interested in a true challenge?”

Seraphina tilted her head, her adult instincts suddenly feeling a very distinct, very dangerous shift in the atmosphere.

’Uh oh,’ she thought, looking at the manic, glowing intensity in Kaelus’s eyes. ’He’s making that face. The face he makes when he’s about to freeze a continent. Did I solve the box too fast? Did I break my toddler cover? What is he going to do?’

Kaelus stood up.

He walked back to his heavy mahogany desk.

He swept his arm across the surface, unceremoniously pushing hundreds of highly important, classified bureaucratic documents onto the floor in a chaotic cascade of parchment.

He reached under the desk, pressing a hidden switch. A secret compartment slid open, revealing a large, heavy, velvet-wrapped board.

He pulled it out, setting it gently, reverently onto the cleared desk.

He turned back to Seraphina.

”Leave the ducks, Sovereign,” Kaelus commanded softly, pulling up a secondary, plush velvet chair to the opposite side of his desk. ”Come sit. It is time you learned the art of war.”

***

Seraphina scrambled up from the floor, leaving Sir Quacks-a-lot to guard the perimeter, and hopped into the plush chair opposite Kaelus.

She leaned over the edge of the mahogany desk, looking at the object he had unveiled.

It was a chessboard.

But it was not a normal, mundane chessboard made of wood and plastic.

This was Imperial Chess, a game played exclusively by the highest echelons of the Empire’s nobility and the Grandmasters of the military. The board itself was a masterpiece, forged from alternating squares of polished white marble and deep, lightless obsidian.

The pieces were exquisite, miniature, magically enchanted statues, carved from solid mythril and gold.

As Kaelus began to arrange the pieces on the board, they didn’t just sit there. They hummed with faint magical energy.

The pieces were not abstract shapes; they were highly detailed, animated figures.

The pawns were tiny, armored knights holding shields. The rooks were miniature stone towers that emitted faint puffs of smoke.

The knights were rearing, armored warhorses. The bishops were elegant Mages holding glowing staves. The Queen piece was represented as a cloaked Spy, holding twin daggers.

And the King piece, the most vital, fragile piece on the board, was the Emperor, sitting on a tiny golden throne, looking thoroughly useless.

”This is called Imperial Chess, Seraphina,” Kaelus explained, his voice taking on the solemn, instructional tone of a professor. ”It is not a game of chance. It is a game of pure, tactical superiority. Two armies. One battlefield. The objective is absolute.”

”To kill the other Emperor?” Seraphina asked innocently, pointing a small finger at the golden king-piece.

Kaelus’s lips twitched into a vicious, approving smirk. ”Precisely. The Emperor is weak, but his survival is paramount. You must maneuver your forces, sacrifice your pawns when necessary, and corner the enemy ruler until he has no avenues of escape.”

Seraphina stared at the board.

In her previous life, she had been the president of her high school chess club.

She had spent countless hours studying the immortal games of Kasparov, Fischer, and Carlsen. She knew the Sicilian Defense, the Queen’s Gambit, and the Ruy Lopez like the back of her hand.

’