Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

Valerius stated, puffing his chest out, completely oblivious to the danger he was in. ”The noble houses are already whispering. They question her legitimacy. They question your sanity. If you refuse to provide the Spire of Arcana with a formal, magical blood-resonance test to prove she carries our blood, the Senate will undoubtedly move to invalidate her claim to the Heirship!”

Valerius leaned forward, steepling his thick fingers, offering a sickeningly sweet, incredibly greedy smile.

”But we are your family, Kaelus,” Valerius cooed. ”We wish to protect the Duchy’s reputation. We wish to save you from this political embarrassment. If you are truly desperate for an heir, there is no need to rely on a nobody.”

He gestured vaguely toward the door.

”My eldest son has recently sired a third boy. A true Nacht. Strong, possessing the violet eyes, raised in the proper, civilized traditions of the Capital. Legally adopt my grandson, Kaelus. Name him your successor. Send this... this little stray back to whatever provincial orphanage she crawled out of, and we can heal the rift in this family. We can govern the North together.”

The silence in the study was heavy.

Seraphina sat on Kaelus’s lap, perfectly still.

She didn’t need to look at Kaelus’s face to know what was happening. She could feel the chest against her back vibrating with the terrifying force of his rage.

The dark mana did not explode outward in a chaotic hurricane.

It condensed.

It compressed into a freezing aura of pure execution. The inkwells on the desk instantly froze and shattered with sharp cracks. The frost on the floor expanded, climbing the legs of Uncle Valerius’s chair.

Elara and Caspian, sensing the incoming magical detonation, both took a terrified step backward, pressing themselves against the bookshelves.

Kaelus von Nacht slowly leaned forward.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t roar.

His voice was a soft, sibilant, incredibly gentle whisper.

It was the whisper of the Reaper standing directly behind your ear.

”You suggest I discard my daughter,” Kaelus murmured, the words slipping into the freezing air like daggers of ice. ”You suggest I cast her into the street, and replace her with the bloated, undoubtedly incompetent offspring of your treacherous, cowardly lineage.”

Valerius finally realized he had miscalculated.

The pompous confidence drained from his face as the frost crept up the velvet of his chair, chilling him to the bone.

”K-Kaelus, be reasonable!” Valerius stammered, his teeth beginning to chatter. ”It is for the good of the bloodline! The purity of the North!”

”The purity of the North,” Kaelus repeated softly.

With a motion so fast the human eye couldn’t track it, Kaelus’s right hand whipped out from behind the desk.

He didn’t draw Requiem or use a spell.

He backhanded the heavy, solid mahogany desk.

The impact sounded like a cannon firing inside the room. A violently splintering crack spider-webbed directly down the center of the priceless antique wood, tearing the desk nearly in half.

Valerius shrieked, throwing his arms over his head, flinching away from the shattering wood.

”My daughter is the Sovereign of the North,” Kaelus stated, his violet eyes burning with a terrifying light, his voice rising from a whisper to a deep, earth-shattering roar. ”Her blood is irrelevant. Her appearance is irrelevant. She is mine. She is the only true, pure, unbroken thing this cursed family has ever produced.”

Kaelus stood up, lifting Seraphina effortlessly onto his hip, holding her securely against his chest. He towered over the cowering Uncle, projecting an aura of uncompromising annihilation.

”If you ever question her legitimacy again,” Kaelus promised, his voice dripping with pure venom. ”If you ever utter the word ’stray’ in her presence again. If you so much as look at her with anything less than absolute, groveling reverence... I will not demand a blood test, Count Valerius. I will simply sever your head from your shoulders, and feed your precious grandson to the dire-wolves. Get out of my house.”

****

Uncle Valerius scrambled backward, actually falling out of the freezing chair and landing undignified on the carpet. He scrambled to his feet, his face purple with rage, humiliation, and undeniable terror.

”You are mad!” Valerius spat, clutching his walking stick, backing quickly toward the ruined, shattered double doors. ”You have lost your mind, Kaelus! You choose a mudblood brat over your own flesh and blood! You will ruin the Duchy! The Emperor will hear of this! You will burn for this arrogance!”

”Let him hear,” Kaelus sneered, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. ”Tell him the Reaper is waiting. Now run, before I decide the carpets need a new coat of crimson.”

Valerius didn’t wait for a second invitation.

He turned and practically sprinted down the hallway, screaming for his paralyzed mercenary guards to attend him, his pompous dignity entirely shattered.

Caspian and Elara remained by the bookshelves.

They didn’t move immediately.

They stood there, looking at Kaelus, and then looking at the tiny girl held securely in his arms.

Seraphina watched them carefully.

For a single, fleeting second, the masks of haughty disdain slipped off.

Elara looked at Seraphina, her emerald eyes swimming with a beautiful, deeply tragic sorrow.

Her lips parted slightly, as if she desperately wanted to say something, to reach out, to apologize for the cruelty of the Uncle. Caspian’s gray aura pulsed with a heavy wave of pure regret, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

They looked like hostages, prisoners trapped in a war they didn’t want to fight.

But then, the moment passed.

”Elara! Caspian! What are you doing standing there?! Come over, we are leaving!” Uncle Valerius’s furious voice echoed from down the hall.

The siblings flinched.

The masks slammed back into place.

Elara raised her chin, adopting an expression of bored, aristocratic superiority. Caspian rolled his shoulders, putting on a fake, arrogant swagger.

They didn’t say a word to Kaelus.

They turned on their heels and trailed out of the study, following the pompous Uncle back, leaving the Archduke standing in the ruins of his office.