Chapter 32: Puppy in Armour

"Sir Lucas is going to tell a story! Come sit!"

Kaelus pushed off the carriage. "I have reports to review, Seraphina."

"The ducks can wait!" she insisted, patting the empty spot on the blue velvet blanket next to her. "Sir Lucas said there’s a dragon in this one!"

Sir Lucas, currently sitting cross-legged on the grass and looking incredibly out of his depth, sweated profusely.

He shot the Duke a look of sheer panic.

He didn’t know any children’s stories.

The only stories he knew involved siege warfare, starvation, and decapitations.

Kaelus sighed, a long, dramatic sound, and walked over.

He didn’t sit on the grass; he was the Archduke, after all, but he stood near the edge of the blanket, his towering presence acting as a dark, protective monolith against the bright sun.

"Proceed, Sir Lucas," Kaelus commanded softly. "Let us hear of this so-called dragon."

Lucas swallowed hard.

He looked at Seraphina, who was looking up at him with expectant, starry eyes, her cheeks stuffed with Gallahan’s candied violets.

"Right," Lucas began, his gruff voice awkward. "Once upon a time... there was a very brave... puppy. Yes, a puppy. And this puppy wore... silver armour."

"A puppy in armour?" Seraphina asked, raising an eyebrow, her mind immediately questioning the logic. "Was it a very big puppy?"

"It was massive," Lucas confirmed, sweating more. "Like a wolf. Anyway, the brave puppy had to go to a big castle. But the castle was guarded by a... a mean, fire-breathing dragon. The dragon was hoarding all the... the dog treats."

Several knights in the background violently muffled their laughter into their gauntlets.

Kaelus pinched the bridge of his nose.

"So," Lucas continued, getting somewhat invested in his terrible metaphor, "the brave puppy called his friends. The other puppies. And they formed a... a shield wall. And they charged the dragon! They bit its ankles! And there was a lot of... red syrup. Everywhere. The dragon spilled its red syrup all over the grass."

"Red syrup," Seraphina deadpanned.

"Yes," Lucas nodded frantically. "Because dragons love... strawberries. And then the brave puppy took his giant sword—"

"Puppies don’t have hands, Sir Lucas," Seraphina pointed out reasonably. "How did he hold the sword?"

Lucas froze.

He looked at his own massive, scarred hands.

He looked at the Duke for help.

Kaelus offered absolutely none, highly amused by his commander’s suffering.

"He held it in his teeth!" Sir Boris shouted from the back, trying to save his comrade. "It was a magic sword!"

"Exactly!" Lucas pointed at Boris. "A magic tooth-sword! And he hit the dragon so hard its head fell off, and all the puppies ate the dog treats and lived happily ever after!"

Lucas finished the story breathing heavily, as if he had just run a marathon in full plate armor.

He looked at Seraphina, waiting for the verdict.

Seraphina sat quietly for a moment.

She looked at the scarred, terrifying knight who had just scrambled his brain to censor a bloody war story for her benefit.

She knew exactly what "red syrup" meant.

She knew the "puppy" was likely Lucas himself during the siege of the Crimson Citadel.

She smiled, a soft, incredibly gentle expression that made her look far older than her six years.

"That was a very good story, Sir Lucas," Seraphina said, clapping her small hands. "The brave puppy is very strong. I’m glad he got the treats."

Lucas exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding, his scarred face breaking into a massive, goofy grin. "Thank you, My Lady. He was a very good boy."

"But next time," Seraphina added, leaning in and whispering loudly, "you can just tell me about the siege. I won’t tell Papa Duke."

Lucas’s jaw dropped.

He stared at the child in horror, then slowly turned his gaze up to Kaelus.

Kaelus merely smirked. "The Little Lady is perceptive, Lucas. Do not insult her intelligence with tooth-swords again."

As the knights erupted into laughter, the tension in the camp dissolved entirely into warm camaraderie.

Seraphina stood up, shaking the crumbs of the candied violets from her dress, and wandered toward the edge of the clearing to pick some real flowers to add to her ridiculous crown.

As she walked, she hummed to herself.

The woods at the edge of the clearing were dark.

The trees grew thick and twisted, their roots gnarled like arthritic fingers.

And floating just beyond the tree line, hiding in the shadows of the ancient pines, were the watchers.

Seraphina saw them instantly.

To her Spirit Sight, the woods were alive with danger.

There were three ghastly spirits of bandits hanging from a nearby branch, their necks snapped, their hollow eyes glaring with malice.

Further back, hiding behind a boulder, she could see the shimmering, dark aura of actual, living men, spies from the Count’s remaining loyalists, or perhaps scouts from the Eastern Empire, watching the convoy with poisoned arrows nocked to their bowstrings.

They were waiting for a moment of weakness.

They were waiting for the child to wander just a few steps too far from the safety of the knights.

A normal six-year-old would have been oblivious.

A normal six-year-old with Spirit Sight would have screamed in terror at the hanging ghosts and the dark auras.

Seraphina did neither.

She stopped exactly three feet from the tree line.

She looked directly at the thicket where the living assassins were hiding.

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t run.

She simply reached up, adjusted Sir Boris’s massive flower crown on her head, and smiled.

It was not a cute smile.

It was a cold, pragmatic, entirely fearless smirk of an adult who knew exactly what cards she held in her hand.

She turned her head slightly, looking back over her shoulder.

Less than thirty paces away stood Duke Kaelus von Nacht.

He wasn’t looking at the knights anymore.

His violet eyes were locked dead onto the exact patch of woods where the assassins were hiding.

His hand was resting casually, dangerously, on the pommel of his sword, Requiem.