Chapter 11: Voyage

The Duchess let out a soft, musical laugh, patting his cheek gently. "That is my sensible boy. Let the glory-seekers break their bones. You simply stay safe."

Duke Darius strode over, placing one heavy, unarmored hand on Lucien’s shoulder, giving it a firm, grounding squeeze that nearly drove Lucien’s knees into the cobblestones.

"Make our house proud, Ethan," the Duke said, his voice dropping into a low, private rumble. "The awakening ceremony is mere formality for you. Whatever the orb reveals—be it an administrative talent, a minor utility spark, or nothing at all—it does not change your standing. You are an Everhart. Never lower your head to those ancient house bastards."

’Those ancient house bastards,’ Lucien thought with a silent, hysterical wince. ’You mean the divinely blessed protagonist who could slice our entire carriage in half with a flick of his wrist? Yes, Father, I will be sure to scowl menacingly at him while hiding behind a pillar.’

"Understood, Father," Lucien said aloud, offering a crisp, respectful nod.

With a final round of embraces, farewells, and theatrical weeping from the junior maids lined up along the terrace, Lucien climbed the folding brass steps into the carriage.

The interior was a masterclass in absurd, decadent luxury.

The seats were upholstered in deep forest-green velvet, stuffed with griffin down and fitted with heating runes that radiated a soothing, gentle warmth against the small of his back.

A mahogany liquor cabinet was built into the side panel, alongside a fold-out writing desk and small shelves lined with travel novels.

Elara was already curled up in the corner seat opposite him, swaddled in a massive cloak of white ermine fur, a thick leather-bound grimoire resting upon her knees.

She glanced up as Lucien sat down, her frosty blue eyes lingering on his face for a long, quiet moment.

"You look ridiculous in charcoal black," she remarked casually, her tone entirely deadpan. "It makes you look like an undertaker."

"Thank you, Elara," Lucien said pleasantly, arranging his coat over his knees. "Your constant, heartwarming support sustains my will to live."

Caelan hoisted himself through the door with a loud grunt, the entire carriage rocking beneath his immense weight.

He collapsed onto the bench beside Elara, immediately kicking his long, leather-booted legs out across the center aisle, forcing Lucien to tuck his feet under his seat to avoid being crushed.

"Right!" Caelan barked, banging his fist twice against the wooden roof panel. "Let’s move! Four days on the Imperial Highway! If we don’t encounter at least two bandit ambushes or a rogue drake, I’m going to lose my mind from boredom!"

"If you attract bandits with your shouting, Caelan," Elara whispered without looking up from her book, "I will strip your trousers and freeze you to the roof of the carriage."

"I’d like to see you try, frosty!"

"Children," Lucien murmured, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the velvet headrest. "Please. The invalid requires quiet."

The carriage lurched forward with a deep, hydraulic creak of its enchanted suspension.

The massive ironwood wheels rumbled across the courtyard cobblestones, passing beneath the great portcullis of the Everhart fortress, and smoothly descended onto the broad, paved expanse of the Imperial Western Highway.

Outside the window, the sprawling green hills, ancient stone watchtowers, and peaceful vineyards of his family’s duchy began to slowly, inexorably slip away.

Lucien stared out through the beveled glass, watching the distant battlements of the manor fade into the morning mist.

’Seven days,’ he thought grimly. ’I had seven days of paradise. Seven days of hot soup, zero deadlines, and irrelevance to the story. And now, the plot is dragging me back by the scruff of my neck.’

He was returning to Astraea.

He was returning to the very epicenter of the narrative, the floating fortress where Cassian Valemont was currently brooding over the deaths from the Sunken Catacombs, where Rowan Ashford was drowning in guilt over Ethan’s supposed sacrifice, and where the entire upper-class student body was preparing for the awakening ceremony of the decade.

And as if to put the final, mocking nail into the coffin of his peaceful retirement, a familiar, crystalline sound chimed softly in the darkness behind his eyelids.

DING!

[ VOYAGE LOGGED ]

[Current Location: Imperial Western Highway

Destination: Imperial Capital Sol-Aeterna / Academy of Astraea

Spatial Resonance: Approaching High-Density Mana Convergence

Host Proximity to Narrative Nexus: Decreasing rapidly

Class Awakening Protocol: Armed and Waiting.]

[Message: Welcome back to the stage, Extra.]

Lucien stared at the floating silver text in the dim interior of the carriage.

Across from him, his older brother was picking his teeth with a polished silver dagger, while his younger sister was slowly turning the page of her grimoire, leaving a faint trail of frost across the parchment.

Lucien slowly reached into his interior coat pocket, withdrew a small, beautifully wrapped glass jar of strawberry pastry glaze that Edwin had secretly slipped him before departure, and unscrewed the lid with a quiet, resigned pop.

He dipped his thumb directly into the sticky, red jam, licked it clean, and glared at the glowing System notification with the venomous, exhausted fury of an underpaid developer staring at a production bug on a Sunday evening.

"Welcome back to the stage, my foot," Lucien muttered under his breath, leaning back against the vibrating velvet cushions as the carriage accelerated toward the capital. "If I see a single starlight sword, I am leaping out the window."

***

The four-day journey along the Imperial Western Highway had been a masterclass in psychological warfare, largely because Lucien spent ninety-six continuous hours trapped in a rolling velvet box with two volatile elementals who shared his last name.

By the second day, Caelan had grown so bored that he began attempting to juggle three charged electrical orbs using his knuckles, resulting in the carriage’s velvet curtains smelling of ozone and fried griffin down.

Elara had retaliated against Caelan’s perpetual twitching by slowly turning the carriage’s wine cooler into tundra, freezing Lucien’s leather riding boots solid that they could have been used to hammer railroad spikes into permafrost.