Chapter 158: Wounded Bear

And now, she had severed the tether.

She had untethered his boat and pushed him out into the freezing, lonely ocean, completely abandoning him on the shore of his own lies.

Kaelus looked down at his shattered teacup. He looked at his trembling, tea-soaked gloves.

He didn’t yell, demand she speak to him. He didn’t try to enforce his authority.

The terrifying Reaper of the North, the man who had effortlessly slaughtered an ancient Elemental Behemoth hours prior, felt a sharp, burning prickle at the back of his violet eyes.

His throat closed entirely.

The pain in his chest was so intense, so agonizingly sharp, it felt as though a thousand poisoned arrows were being driven slowly, methodically through his ribs.

He couldn’t sit there.

He couldn’t endure another second of her sunny, cheerful laughter directed at his rival while he suffocated in her invisible void.

Kaelus slowly pushed his chair back.

The legs scraped harshly against the stone floor.

He stood up. He didn’t look at Leonidas or look at Lysandra.

He looked at the back of Seraphina’s head, his violet eyes swimming with an ocean of unspoken apologies, desperate pleading, and shattering heartbreak.

She didn’t turn around.

Kaelus lowered his head, his broad shoulders slumping under the crushing, unbearable weight of his own catastrophic failure.

He turned on his heel, his dark cape hanging limp and heavy behind him, and walked out of the grand dining hall, leaving his untouched breakfast, his shattered pride, and the center of his universe behind him.

As the heavy oak doors clicked shut, the silence in the dining hall returned.

Leonidas, realizing he had perhaps pushed the joke slightly too far, coughed awkwardly, picking his fork back up, looking down at his sausage. "Well. That was... intense. He actually retreated. I’ve never seen him retreat like that before."

Lysandra sighed deeply, shaking her head, shooting her husband a look of profound, marital disappointment. "You are an absolute menace, Leonidas. You shouldn’t poke a wounded bear."

She turned her attention to Seraphina.

The tiny girl in the white dress was staring at her plate. The sunny, cheerful facade had vanished instantly the moment the doors had closed.

She picked up her fork, poking a piece of sausage aimlessly, her small face arranged into a fierce, determined, incredibly stubborn scowl.

’It serves him right,’ Seraphina’s mind insisted fiercely, trying to ignore the uncomfortable clenching in her own chest. ’He lied. He drugged me. He needs to learn that his actions have consequences. He cannot treat me like a piece of luggage. The silent treatment is an effective, necessary psychological boundary.’

She took a bite of sausage, chewing aggressively.

She was right. She knew she was right.

It was a perfectly executed punishment befitting of Kaelus.

But as she sat there in the opulent dining hall of the Obsidian Gate, surrounded by nice people and good food...

The room felt incredibly, dreadfully, painfully cold without the grumpy hedgehog sitting beside her.

The heavy, ornate oak doors of the grand dining hall clicked shut with a resounding, echoing finality, sealing Duke Kaelus von Nacht out in the cold, desolate hallway of his own making.

Inside the sunlit room, the atmosphere was thick, suffocating, and incredibly sour.

The joyful, boisterous energy that Archduke Leonidas Valen had brought to the breakfast table had completely evaporated, sucked into the void left behind by the Reaper’s shattered retreat.

Seraphina sat perfectly still on her plush velvet cushion.

She stared down at her silver plate.

The exquisite, perfectly cooked Southern sausage, the fluffy scrambled eggs, the chilled mango juice, it all suddenly looked unappetizing.

It looked like ash.

Her stomach, which had been rumbling fiercely just ten minutes ago, tied itself into a tight, uncomfortable, and guilty knot.

Duchess Lysandra Valen let out a soft, elegant sigh that rustled the silk of her bodice.

She possessed an incredibly high emotional intelligence, and it didn’t take a Grandmaster’s perception to read the devastation written across Kaelus’s face, or the rigid, stubborn tension currently locking Seraphina’s small shoulders into place.

Lysandra gently set her silver fork down and leaned closer, her amber eyes pooling with a warm, maternal empathy.

She didn’t want to overstep, she knew that Kaelus was a fiercely private man, but the pathetic misery of the Archduke had tugged at her heartstrings.

"Seraphina, sweetheart," Lysandra began, her voice as soft and soothing as a warm summer breeze. She reached out, lightly resting her delicate hand over Seraphina’s small, clenched fist on the mahogany table. "I know you are upset. And you have every right to feel slighted. But... you must know that your father loves you more than life itself. When he... when he utilized the sleeping plan, it was not born of malice, or a desire to exclude you."

Lysandra offered a gentle, imploring smile. "He did it for your own good. The anomaly in the forest was an ancient, terrifying thing. He simply could not bear the thought of placing you in the path of such danger. He lied, yes, but he lied to keep you safe in the light."

Seraphina looked up from her plate.

Her dark eyes met the Duchess’s amber ones. There were no tears in Seraphina’s eyes, or any sign of childish petulance.

Instead, there was a weary, incredibly mature clarity that seemed entirely misplaced on the face of a six-year-old child.

"I know that, Auntie Lysa," Seraphina replied, her voice quiet but remarkably steady. "I know he didn’t do it to be mean. I am not a willful, stupid child. I know he loves me."

Lysandra blinked, slightly taken aback by the emotional intelligence of the statement. "Then... why are you shutting him out so completely, my little bird? His heart is breaking."

"Because he is in the wrong," Seraphina stated simply, her tiny jaw setting into a stubborn line. "And if I just yell at him, he will apologize, buy me a toy, and then do it again the next time there is a monster."