Chapter 118: This is Illegal

Kaelus’s jaw tightened, his hand automatically coming up to shield the back of her head, his violet eyes flashing with a protective glare directed at the Baron, as if daring the man to agree with her self-condemnation.

He reached up, using his thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

"You did not let it happen," Kaelus stated firmly. "The monster chose to inflict cruelty. You made a choice to stop him. If you had not acted exactly when you did, that boy would already be dead. The other forty children in that cage would be dead. You saved them, Seraphina. You did not fail."

Seraphina sniffled, her lower lip trembling. "But... but he was bleeding so much, Papa. His chest was broken."

Kaelus’s expression softened into a look of gentle reassurance.

"He is alive, Seraphina," Kaelus revealed quietly.

Seraphina’s eyes widened, the tears stopping instantly. "What?"

"He is downstairs," Kaelus explained, a faint, proud smile touching his lips. "It was a close margin. But your interference prevented the demon from inflicting a lethal strike, and my ice stabilized his condition until Dr. Thorne and the local healers could intervene. He is currently resting. He will have scars, yes. But he will live to grow up, and that happened all because of you."

The crushing boulder of guilt sitting on Seraphina’s chest cracked, splintered, and dissolved into dust.

He was alive...

The boy was alive.

She hadn’t been too late.

A shuddering exhale escaped her lips, her shoulders dropping three inches as the tension finally left her body. She slumped forward, resting her forehead against Kaelus’s collarbone, exhausted but relieved.

"I want to see him," Seraphina mumbled into his shirt. "I want to make sure he’s actually okay."

Kaelus hesitated for a fraction of a second. The makeshift infirmary downstairs was still a grim sight, smelling of medicinal herbs and blood-stained bandages.

But he looked at the determined set of her small jaw and knew that seeing the boy breathing with her own eyes was the only way to truly banish her ghosts.

"Very well," Kaelus agreed. He stood up, lifting her effortlessly into his arms, refusing to let her bare feet touch the cold floor of the inn. "But we will be brief. The healers have mandated absolute quiet."

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Kaelus carried Seraphina out of the master suite, down the wide, carpeted stairs of the Emerald Crown.

The atmosphere in the inn was hushed and reverent. The junior knights of the Bastion, stationed at the landings, bowed deeply as they passed, their eyes filled with a mixture of awe and absolute devotion when they looked at the tiny girl in the Archduke’s arms.

Word had spread through the Vanguard of exactly what they had found in the catacombs. They knew their Liege Lord hadn’t killed the demon, who had protected the cage.

Kaelus pushed open the heavy oak doors to the grand dining room on the first floor.

The long dining tables had been pushed against the walls. In the center of the room, surrounded by glowing, sterile white magical barriers and trays of bubbling alchemical potions, lay a comfortable, pristine bed.

Sleeping in the bed, his chest rising and falling in a steady, slow, miraculously healthy rhythm, was the ten-year-old boy.

His upper torso and neck were heavily wrapped in thick, white bandages, which were stained with a faint, yellowish-green residue from the high-tier healing salves applied by Dr. Thorne. He looked incredibly pale, his face drawn and exhausted, but the frantic terror that had haunted his features in the cage was gone.

He looked peaceful.

Sitting in a simple wooden chair drawn directly against the side of the bed, holding the sleeping boy’s uninjured hand in both of his own, was a man.

He was dressed in garments that spoke of quiet, understated wealth, a tailored coat of deep forest-green velvet, embroidered with subtle silver vines, and a crisp white linen shirt beneath. He lacked the excessive, gaudy jewelry of Duke Voran or the theatrical flair of the capital nobles.

He looked like a man who valued function and elegance in equal measure.

Hearing the door open, the man slowly turned his head.

Seraphina, currently resting her chin on Kaelus’s shoulder, blinked. Her brain, still somewhat fragile from the trauma and the crying, completely short-circuited.

’Oh no,’ Seraphina thought, a sudden, highly inappropriate wave of pure, aesthetic panic washing over her. ’Oh my god. No. This is illegal. The character designer of this world needs to be arrested!’

The man sitting in the chair was not just handsome.

He was devastating.

Where Kaelus was the embodiment of sharp, lethal, brooding Northern perfection, razor-sharp jawlines, pale skin, raven hair, and violet, glowing intensity, this man was the diametric opposite, yet equally lethal to the human ocular system.

He had soft, slightly wavy hair the color of warm, roasted chestnuts, falling casually across his forehead. His face possessed a rugged, classic, aristocratic symmetry, a strong, noble nose, warm, sun-kissed skin that spoke of time spent outdoors, and a jawline that looked like it had been sculpted by Renaissance angels.

But it was his eyes that truly paralyzed her.

They were a brilliant, striking shade of deep, luminous emerald green, framed by incredibly thick, dark lashes. They radiated an earthy warmth, currently swimming with the exhausted tears of a father who had almost lost everything.

He looked exactly like the charming, slightly tragic, impossibly attractive secondary male lead in a high-budget romance webtoon.

The kind of character specifically designed to give readers "Second Lead Syndrome."

Seraphina’s intellect experienced a catastrophic, hilarious breakdown.

’So I actually have a type after all,’ Seraphina’s inner monologue shrieked in self-deprecating horror. ’I thought I was immune. I thought I was a cynical survivor. But I am weak! I am a shallow, pathetic, aesthetically driven goblin! First it was Kaelus, then Marquess Julian, and now this guy?! If a kidnapper with a good jawline comes and offers me candy, I am doomed! I will simply climb into the carriage! I have absolutely no survival instincts against good lighting and facial symmetry!’

She was an old soul trapped in a six-year-old’s body, currently having a mid-life crisis over the volume of attractive fictional aristocrats occupying her immediate vicinity.

The man stood up, carefully releasing his son’s hand. He turned to fully face Kaelus, offering a deep, flawless, incredibly respectful bow, placing his right hand over his heart.

"Your Grace," the man said. His voice matched his appearance, rich, warm, and carrying a melodic, soothing timbre. "Words are ashes in my mouth. I cannot possibly articulate the depth of the debt I owe you or your Vanguard. You brought my Leo back to me. You spared no expense and saved his life."

"The medical intervention was standard procedure, Baron Vance," Kaelus replied, his voice slipping back into the cool, aloof, aristocratic rumble of the Archduke. He nodded toward the bed. "I am satisfied to see the boy is stabilizing."

’Baron Vance,’ Seraphina noted mentally, desperately trying to regain her composure, attempting to forcibly shut down her internal swooning. ’Okay. So he’s a Baron. Probably a vassal of the Verdant Reach. Focus, Mira. Focus on the traumatized kid, not the hot dad!’

Baron Elian Vance lifted his head, his emerald eyes shifting from Kaelus to the small, dark-haired child resting in the Archduke’s arms.

The Baron’s expression instantly melted. The formal, polite respect he offered Kaelus was washed away by a look of tender awe. He took a slow, hesitant step forward, as if approaching a skittish, sacred animal.

"And you must be Lady Seraphina," Baron Vance murmured softly, dropping gracefully to one knee to bring his face level with hers.

He looked at her with such pure reverence that Seraphina felt her cheeks flush a sudden, bright pink.

"The other children... the ones your knights escorted back to the surface," Elian continued, his voice trembling slightly with emotion. "They told us what happened in the dark. They told us about the tiny girl in the red dress who stood up to the nightmare. They said you told them not to be afraid and kept the monster away."

The memories of the cage surged back to the forefront of Seraphina’s mind.

The blood. The screaming.

The flush of embarrassment vanished, immediately replaced by the heavy blanket of her residual guilt. She looked past the handsome Baron, her eyes locking onto the heavily bandaged chest of the sleeping ten-year-old boy.