Chapter 135: Appease Him

The vinegar jar inside the Reaper’s soul did not just tip over; it exploded, flooding his entire being with a wave of pure, crippling jealousy.

’She called my lap hard,’ Kaelus’s internal monologue screamed in agony. ’She abandoned me. She left me at the table to sit in Lysandra’s lap. Because Lysandra’s lap is made of silk and smells like vanilla...’

The ambient temperature in the solarium began to drop.

The warm, tropical air radiating from the volcanic vents was actively warring with the freezing, deathly chill bleeding uncontrollably from Kaelus’s aura.

He stared at the two of them. Seraphina was giggling as Lysandra gently braided a stray lock of her dark hair.

’I can also braid her hair,’ Kaelus fumed, his violet eyes burning with a manic intensity. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the arms of his iron chair. ’I braided her hair perfectly this morning. I utilized the overlapping weave of the Ice-Troll hunters! It was structurally flawless! Lysandra’s braid is loose! It lacks structural integrity! Why is she smiling at a loose braid?! Does it feel more good than the one I made?!’

Leonidas, having recovered from his own breakdown, stood up and dusted off his leather trousers. He looked at Kaelus, intending to make a joke about the map.

He stopped.

Kaelus was staring at Lysandra and Seraphina with a look of such betrayed intensity that Leonidas legitimately thought Kaelus was about to draw his sword and assassinate his wife.

"Kaelus?" Leonidas asked cautiously, taking a step back. "Are you... are you perhaps having a stroke?"

Kaelus did not blink.

His eyes remained locked on Seraphina, who was currently nuzzling her face into the soft fabric of Lysandra’s dress, looking blissfully happy.

’Is she replacing me?’ the terrifying warlord panicked, his mind spiraling into a vortex of fatherly insecurity. ’She said I was enough! She said she didn’t want a new mom! Was it a lie? Was she merely placating my ego? Does she actually crave a soft, maternal figure? Am I failing her because I cannot bake cookies? I could learn to bake. I will import the finest bakers in the Empire and force them to teach me. I will bake a cookie the size of a shield!’

The frost began to creep across the surface of the wrought-iron table, crystallizing the spilled wine.

’She called me a hedgehog,’ Kaelus recalled with devastating clarity. ’Hedgehogs are prickly. They are not cuddly. Lysandra is a swan. I am a hedgehog. I have lost her to the swan.’

"Kaelus, your aura is freezing the fountain," Leonidas hissed, pointing at the nearby marble water fixture, which had suddenly stopped trickling, frozen solid into a jagged ice sculpture. "Stop brooding! You look like you’re about to murder my wife!"

Kaelus slowly, mechanically turned his head to look at Leonidas.

The look in Kaelus’s violet eyes was so hollow, so deeply pathetic, that Leonidas actually took a step back in genuine shock.

"She prefers the silk," Kaelus whispered, his voice a tragic, breathless rasp of pure defeat.

Leonidas blinked. He looked at Kaelus, then turned his head and looked at Seraphina sitting in Lysandra’s lap.

The Fire Archduke’s brain slowly processed the situation.

He realized that the terrifying Reaper of the North, the man who had just casually neutralized an army of fire mages with a single sigh, was currently experiencing a crippling bout of jealousy because his six-year-old daughter wanted to sit on a soft dress instead of a metal breastplate.

A slow, wicked, absolutely merciless grin spread across Leonidas’s handsome face.

"Oh my gods," Leonidas whispered, his amber eyes lighting up with unholy glee. "You are jealous, right? You are literally seething with jealousy because she hugged Lysa."

"I am not jealous," Kaelus snarled, though his voice cracked slightly. "I am merely... observing a breach in tactical positioning. She is exposing her flank."

"YOU ARE SO JEALOUS!" Leonidas roared, bursting into a fit of deafening, hysterical laughter, pointing a finger at Kaelus. "The great Kaelus von Nacht! Defeated by a silk dress! Look at you! You look like a kicked puppy! You’re boiling in your own vinegar!"

"Silence your cavernous mouth, Leonidas, before I freeze your tongue to the roof of it," Kaelus hissed, standing up violently, his chair scraping loudly against the stone floor.

"Lysa!" Leonidas yelled, tears of laughter streaming down his face. "Lysa, keep the kid! Kaelus is having a mid-life crisis! He thinks you’re stealing his baby!"

Lysandra looked up, her amber eyes wide with surprise, before a soft, knowing, incredibly amused smile spread across her lips.

Seraphina also looked up.

She saw Kaelus standing by the table, his arms crossed defensively over his chest, his face flushed a faint, furious pink, glaring at Leonidas while simultaneously shooting pathetic, longing glances at her.

The second-hand embarrassment hit Seraphina so hard she actually had to close her eyes for a second.

’He is literally a giant, heavily armed toddler,’ Seraphina thought, suppressing a groan. ’He is pouting because I sat in another chair. The absolute, unmitigated drama of this man...’

But as embarrassing as it was, it was also undeniably endearing.

She had successfully purged the outer layer of the Sylvane curse from the baby ghost.

The spirit was currently sleeping, the toxic green bond neutralized, waiting for a proper ritual to pass on peacefully. Her secret mission was halfway complete. She had bought Lysandra time.

It was time to appease the hedgehog.

Seraphina slid off Lysandra’s lap, smoothing out her navy dress. She picked up the pink ember-puppy, who let out a tiny yap of protest, and walked back around the table.

She marched directly up to Kaelus.

Kaelus looked down at her, maintaining his rigid, crossed-arm posture, desperately trying to project an aura of unbothered, aristocratic indifference.

"Did you find the silk adequately comfortable?" Kaelus asked, his voice dripping with an attempt at dry sarcasm that failed miserably, sounding entirely petty.

Seraphina didn’t answer.

She reached out, grabbed the heavy fabric of his dark cape, and gave it a sharp tug.