Chapter 66: Siblings?

Seraphina looked at Lucas, then at Gallahan, whose pristine face had fallen into a mask of quiet mourning.

"What happened, Sir Lucas?" Seraphina asked, her voice dropping to a whisper, instinctively sensing that she was about to step onto sacred, bloody ground. "Papa Duke never talks about his family. What happened to his papa?"

Sir Gallahan let out a long sigh.

He leaned his head back against his chair, staring up at the painted ceiling as if searching for the right words.

"Fifteen years ago," Gallahan began, his voice devoid of its usual melodic cheer, "the North was at peace. The former Duke, Kaelus’s father, was a great man. He was strict, but fair. Kaelus was only fourteen years old. He was a prodigy, yes, but he was still just a young man. He smiled more back then. He had a younger brother, Lord Caspian, and a younger sister, Lady Elara."

Seraphina’s breath hitched.

He had siblings...

"There was an expedition," Lucas said, his voice grating like two stones rubbing together. "A massive surge of demonic energy was detected deep within the Glacial Abyss, the farthest, most dangerous territory of the North. The former Duke led the Vanguard personally, intending to seal the rift before the monsters could spill into the populated valleys."

Lucas stopped, his jaw clenching so hard the scars on his cheek pulled tight.

"But he never returned," Boris finished, his deep voice echoing solemnly. "The Vanguard was annihilated. Only three knights survived to bring the news back to the Bastion. The former Duke had stayed behind, burying himself and the encroaching Anomaly under a million tons of enchanted ice."

Seraphina pressed her hands against her mouth, a sharp gasp escaping her lips.

"The North... broke," Gallahan whispered, closing his eyes. "Without the Duke’s suppressing aura, the ambient monsters went into a frenzy. The Vassal families panicked, while the Southern nobles, smelling weakness, immediately began plotting to invade our borders and seize our mythril mines. The Empire was ready to tear us apart when we were at our lowest, despite knowing very well what kind of life we were living, risking our lives to protect the citizens and letting them sleep in peace."

Gallahan looked at Seraphina, his golden eyes burning with a fierce, tragic loyalty.

"And into that chaos stepped a fourteen-year-old boy," Gallahan said. "Lord Kaelus didn’t have time to grieve. He didn’t have time to bury an empty coffin. He walked into the armoury, took up his father’s sword, Requiem, and he locked the door to his own heart."

Seraphina could picture it vividly.

The cinematic horror of a teenage boy, stripped of his father, standing before an army of terrified vassals and encroaching monsters.

"He had to become the Reaper," Lucas said, his voice filled with an awe that bordered on religious reverence. "To maintain control, to stop the South from invading, he couldn’t show a single moment of weakness. He couldn’t be a grieving son. He had to be a monster. He led fifty consecutive military campaigns in his first three years as Duke. He slaughtered the invading monsters. He publicly, brutally executed the Southern spies who tried to infiltrate our ranks. He bathed the Northern borders in so much blood that the snow turned permanently red."

"He saved us," Boris rumbled, wiping a speck of dust from his war hammer. "He saved the Duchy. He saved the Vassals. He held the sky up when it was crashing down."

"But," Seraphina said, her voice trembling slightly, her empathetic heart aching for the teenage boy forced to become a butcher. "What about his siblings? If he saved them... where are they?"

The knights fell silent.

It was a silence so thick with unspoken anger and tragic injustice that it made Seraphina’s stomach churn.

Gallahan finally spoke, his voice dripping with a bitter, toxic resentment that completely shocked Seraphina.

"They left," Gallahan spat, the words tasting like poison in his mouth. "Lord Caspian and Lady Elara... they didn’t understand. They were too young when the former Duke died, and as they grew, they only saw the result of Kaelus’s sacrifice, not the sacrifice itself."

"To hold the North, Kaelus had to sever his emotional attachments," Lucas explained grimly. "Spiritual Enlightenment, the manifestation of his killing intent, requires unyielding coldness. If he felt pity or warmth, his aura would crack, and the enemies would strike. He couldn’t be a warm, loving older brother. He had to be distant. He had to be strict. He kept them locked away in the safest, deepest parts of the Bastion, providing them with the finest tutors and every luxury, but he gave them none of his time. He couldn’t. He was too busy fighting wars to keep them alive."

"And they hated him for it," Boris growled, his one eye flashing with barely contained fury. "They looked at the man bleeding his soul dry to protect them, and they saw a tyrant. They called him a monster to his face. They accused him of usurping their father’s legacy, of enjoying the slaughter. They resented his coldness, completely blind to the fact that his coldness was the only shield keeping the assassins from slitting their throats in their sleep."

Seraphina felt a sudden, violent surge of rage ignite in her small chest.

"That’s not fair," Seraphina whispered, her hands curling into tiny fists.

"It’s the definition of unfair," Gallahan agreed bitterly. "The moment they came of age, they demanded their independence. Lord Caspian married into a wealthy Southern merchant family, completely turning his back on his Northern heritage. Lady Elara demanded a massive portion of the family treasury as a dowry and moved to the Imperial Capital to live as a socialite, publicly distancing herself from the ’Barbarian Duke’."

Lucas let out a harsh, barking laugh. "And His Grace? The ’monster’? He gave them everything they asked for. He stood in the courtyard of the Bastion, covered in bandages from a border skirmish, and watched their carriages ride away to the South without saying a single word to stop them."