Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

Sister Elara stood frozen in absolute, paralyzed shock, her mouth hanging open as she stared at the thrashing senior clergyman.

Seraphina didn’t waste a single second.

She reached up, grabbed Sister Elara’s trembling hand, and gave it an urgent yank.

”Run, Sister Elara!” Seraphina squeaked, her voice perfectly pitched into a tone of panicked, childish terror. ”The clumsy man is drowning the holy fish! We have to go back to my Papa!”

Snapping out of her shock, Sister Elara didn’t hesitate.

She squeezed Seraphina’s hand, lifted the hem of her novitiate robes, and bolted down the hallway, dragging the tiny Sovereign with her, leaving the cursing, spitting, soaking-wet pervert thrashing in the koi pond.

Back in the main nave of the Spire, Duke Kaelus von Nacht was currently glaring at the giant hourglass resting on the High Priest’s altar.

Four minutes and thirty seconds.

His hand was hovering dangerously close to the hilt of Requiem. If that sand ran out, he was going to start freezing priests to the ceiling.

Suddenly, the sound of frantic, slapping footsteps echoed from the side corridor.

Sister Elara burst into the main hall, her face flushed, clutching Seraphina’s hand.

Kaelus didn’t even wait for them to cross the floor.

He crossed the nave in three massive strides, dropping to one knee, ignoring the High Priest and the assembled clerics.

The moment Seraphina saw Kaelus, the mischievous mastermind who had just successfully executed a flawless stealth-takedown vanished entirely.

She summoned the tears.

She didn’t just squeeze out a few drops; she weaponized her tear ducts, flooding her dark eyes with glistening pools of liquid heartbreak.

Her lower lip wobbled with the intensity of an impending earthquake.

”PAPA!”

Seraphina let go of Sister Elara’s hand, threw herself forward, and crashed into Kaelus’s chest, burying her face into his mythril armor, bursting into loud, hiccuping, completely devastating sobs.

Sister Elara stumbled to a halt, staring at the little girl in utter bewilderment.

’Wait,’ the junior priestess’s brain short-circuited. ’Ten seconds ago, she was perfectly calm. She grabbed my hand and pointed out that the Bishop was drowning the fish. Where did this hysterical, traumatized weeping come from? It’s like a completely different child!’

But as Sister Elara looked at the tiny, trembling shoulders of the child clinging to the Archduke, her own protective instincts overrode her confusion. ’She’s just a little girl. The shock of the creepy Bishop must have finally set in!’

Kaelus caught Seraphina, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her tightly against his chest.

The change in the Archduke’s aura was not gradual.

It was instantaneous, and violent.

The temperature in the cathedral dropped below freezing in a single heartbeat. The holy water fonts nearest to them instantly shattered as the water inside them flash-froze and expanded.

A creeping layer of black frost began to rapidly spread across the pristine white marble floor, radiating outward from Kaelus’s boots.

He didn’t look at Seraphina.

He looked up at Sister Elara, his glowing violet eyes burning with a killing intent so pure and dense, it practically had a gravitational pull.

”What happened?” Kaelus whispered.

The sound wasn’t a question. It was the sound of a guillotine blade being raised.

”A-A-A man!” Seraphina wailed into his chest, her voice muffled but perfectly audible to the entire room, executing her childish, innocent script to perfection. ”An ugly, sweaty man in a big shiny dress blocked the hallway! He looked at me like a creepy goblin! He tried to grab my dress, Papa! He was so gross! He tried to touch my hair!”

The silence in the cathedral was absolute.

The High Priest, standing by the altar, turned the color of ash.

”He... he tried to grab her?” Kaelus’s voice was completely devoid of emotion, which somehow made it ten thousand times more terrifying than a scream.

The black frost on the floor accelerated, racing toward the pillars.

Seraphina sniffled loudly, dramatically wiping her eyes on his velvet coat. ”Yes! But then he was super clumsy! He slipped on nothing and fell into the fishy-pool! And Sister Elara protected me and we ran away!”

Kaelus slowly turned his head, his violet eyes locking onto the High Priest.

The Archduke of the North stood up.

He kept Seraphina securely wrapped in his left arm, holding her to his chest. His right hand dropped to the hilt of Requiem.

”High Priest,” Kaelus said, his voice echoing through the freezing cathedral. ”A member of your clergy just attempted to assault my daughter in the sacred halls of the Goddess. Provide his name. Now. So that I may sever his head and mount it on your altar.”

”Your Grace! Please! There must be a misunderstanding!” the High Priest panicked, holding his hands up, taking a terrified step backward as the frost reached his sandals. ”A priest of the Spire would never—!”

”It was Bishop Thorne, Your Eminence!”

Everyone turned.

Sister Elara, the timid, eighteen-year-old junior priestess, stepped forward.

Her knees were visibly knocking together, and she looked like she was about to faint from the terror of the Archduke’s aura, but she stood her ground, her jaw set with righteous, protective fury.

”Bishop Thorne... a-ambushed us in the eastern corridor,” Sister Elara testified loudly, her voice trembling but clear. ”He ignored my protests. He called the Lady Seraphina a ’stray’ and attempted to lay his hands upon her person. If he had not slipped and fallen into the reflection pool, he would have... grabbed her. The child speaks the absolute truth.”

Seraphina peeked over Kaelus’s shoulder, looking at the brave, trembling junior priestess.

’Sister Elara, you are an absolute legend,’ Seraphina cheered internally, instantly adding the girl to her mental list of protected assets. ’You have secured a permanent, VIP position in my future empire.’

The High Priest looked at Sister Elara, then at the terrifying Archduke, whose sword was now halfway drawn from its scabbard, the blade humming with a lethal, icy-blue light.

The High Priest was a politician who has been in power for years.