Chapter 172: Mama Bear!

Seraphina asked, her eyes shining. "I want to try the trick with the towers this time."

Kaelus looked at the board. His brain was melting.

He had a headache the size of a mountain. He had never been so thoroughly, intellectually thrashed in his life.

But looking at her bright, eager face... the Reaper of the North knew he had absolutely no choice.

"Very well. Set up the board, little Sovereign," Kaelus sighed, a fond, defeated smile on his face, mentally preparing himself for another four hours of humiliation. "The Vanguard requires a rematch."

And as the carriage rolled onward toward the golden spires of the Royal Capital, carrying the most dangerous, intelligent, perfectly bonded father-daughter duo in the history of the Empire, the true victims of their wrath, the scheming nobles of the court, remained blissfully, tragically unaware of the storm that was coming for them.

***

The atmosphere directly outside the carriage had devolved from an elite military escort into an outright, undisciplined peanut gallery.

Through the magically insulated glass, the muffled, distinctly obnoxious sounds of Sir Gallahan’s snickering and Sir Boris’s rumbling, victorious chuckles were steadily bleeding into the cabin.

The Vanguard commanders had effectively turned the Archduke’s catastrophic chess defeat into a spectator sport, passing gold coins between their gauntleted hands with all the professionalism of tavern drunks betting on a dog race.

Inside the carriage, Duke Kaelus von Nacht was attempting to reset the marble and obsidian chessboard for their ninth game, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles in his cheek were practically vibrating.

He was not angry at Seraphina.

He could never be angry at her.

But his legendary, world-conquering pride was currently sustaining heavy, repetitive, blunt-force trauma from the disrespect radiating from the other side of the window.

’I should freeze their saddles,’ Kaelus plotted darkly, his violet eyes narrowing as he glared at the velvet curtains. ’I will freeze the leather to their armor. When we reach the Capital, they will be forced to dismount via crane.’

Seraphina, currently munching on a small, candied Valen-nut, noticed the sharp, irritated twitch of Kaelus’s eye.

She followed his glare toward the window, her highly attuned auditory senses picking up the faint sound of Gallahan whispering, "Ehehe! He moved the Bishop to C4! He’s walking right into the little Sovereign’s kill-box again! The man is a glutton for punishment!"

Seraphina paused her chewing.

Her soul, which had fully intended to mercilessly crush him in game nine, suddenly felt a overwhelming surge of fierce, protective loyalty.

She wasn’t a stuck-up, arrogant prodigy who took pleasure in humiliating people. And more importantly, she categorically refused to let anyone, even her favorite doting uncles, make fun of her grumpy hedgehog!

Seraphina slammed her tiny hands onto the mahogany desk, causing the chess pieces to jump.

She scrambled off her plush chair, marched directly to the carriage window, and grabbed the heavy velvet curtains in both hands, violently yanking them apart.

Sir Lucas, Sir Boris, and Sir Gallahan, who had their faces practically pressed against the glass, violently jerked back in their saddles, their warhorses whinnying in surprise.

Seraphina reached for the brass latch and shoved the heavy glass window down. The warm, rushing wind of the Southern plains whipped her dark hair around her face.

She did not offer them a sunny smile. She puffed her soft, round cheeks out to maximum, aggressive hamster-capacity, her dark eyes narrowing into two fierce, judgmental slits. She looked like an incredibly tiny, angry storm of cloud.

"Stop laughing!" Seraphina scolded them, her childish voice ringing clear and authoritative over the clatter of the carriage wheels. She pointed a tiny, accusing finger directly at Sir Gallahan’s nose. "It is very rude to mock the Archduke! Papa Duke is not losing because he is bad at the game! He is losing because I am using highly classified and super-secret moves that haven’t been known around the world yet!"

The three legendary commanders of the Black Bastion froze, completely utterly stunned by the sudden, fiercely protective verbal assault from a six-year-old.

"My moves are new to Papa!" Seraphina continued, planting her hands on her hips, leaning out the window to glare up at the giants. "Papa is just analyzing the data! He is learning the new meta! If you think it is so easy, Sir Gallahan, you can come in here and play with me next! I will squish your horsies in five turns!"

Gallahan turned paler than his white cape, his golden eyes wide with genuine terror at the prospect of facing the tiny tactical mastermind. "N-No, My Lady! I yield! I completely yield! I have no tactical acumen whatsoever! I am but a humble sword-swinger!"

"Then shush!" Seraphina ordered, wrinkling her nose. "Or I will tell Sir Boris to break another stick over his knee to scare you!"

"I will do it!" Boris immediately betrayed his comrade, nodding fervently to appease the tiny Sovereign. "I will break all the sticks, My Lady!"

"Good," Seraphina huffed. She grabbed the window latch, slammed the glass shut, yanked the velvet curtains closed with a dramatic swish, and marched back to her chair, her cheeks still slightly puffed out in lingering indignation.

She hopped back onto the plush cushion, smoothed down the skirt of her white dress, and looked across the table at Kaelus.

"You can learn them, Papa," Seraphina promised him, her voice returning to its sweet, earnest, incredibly loving tone. "My moves are just a littleeee bit tricky! Once you memorize the patterns, you will squish me back. We are a team!"

Duke Kaelus von Nacht sat frozen in his leather chair.

His brain had stopped processing the chess game.

He stared at the tiny, fierce, fiercely loyal child sitting across from him. She had just verbally assaulted his elite commanders, men who routinely terrified Imperial generals, simply because they were laughing at him.

She hadn’t gloated, nor she relished her victory. She had defended his honor with the uncompromising ferocity of a mother bear defending a cub.