Chapter 75: Melancholy

"Formation! We depart for the Western inspection sector! The pace will be steady, the perimeter must be secured absolutely!"

Kaelus didn’t wait for Julian to offer another round of tearful pleasantries.

He strode forward, scooped Seraphina off the marble stones with one effortless sweep of his armored arm, and deposited her securely into the dim, plush interior of the mythril carriage.

He stepped up after her, pulling the heavy, rune-etched door shut.

CLACK!

The heavy iron latch fell into place, completely sealing the cabin.

The magical insulation arrays instantly activated, cutting off the sounds of Julian’s weeping, the clatter of armor, and the chirping of the birds.

Outside, Sir Lucas raised his broadsword. "FORWARD MARCH!"

With an earth-shaking rumble of heavy iron wheels and the synchronized thunder of fifty armored warhorses, the Black Bastion thundered out of the Myer estate, leaving behind the sunlit harmony of Oakhaven and turning their faces toward the vast, untamed expanses of the Empire.

Inside the carriage, Seraphina immediately scrambled onto the velvet bench, pressing her face flat against the reinforced glass window.

She watched through the rear pane as Marquess Julian Myer stood in the center of the receding courtyard, surrounded by his bowing servants, waving his white lace handkerchief frantically until the massive, wrought-iron gates of Oakhaven closed completely, swallowing him behind the ancient oak trees.

Seraphina let out a long, heavy, dramatic sigh, flopping backward onto the plush crimson cushions.

"I am going to miss the cookies," she announced to the ceiling. "The quartermaster’s cookies are good, but Marquess Julian’s chef puts extra butter in them. Extra butter is the secret to human happiness!"

Across from her, Kaelus had already seated himself at his oak writing desk, unrolling a detailed map of the Empire’s Western provinces.

He glanced at her over the top of the parchment, his violet eyes cool and unreadable.

"Butter is a lipid that induces sluggishness if consumed in excess," Kaelus noted dryly, dipping his quill into the silver inkwell. "And Marquess Myer is a soft-hearted sentimentalist. You are a daughter of the North. We do not linger on farewells."

Seraphina rolled onto her stomach, kicking her short legs in the air, her silver-threaded wolf gown swishing around her calves.

She knew he was pretending to be aloof.

"I’m not lingering," she declared smoothly. "I am simply acknowledging optimal environments! Now, hand over the papers! The duck army requires reinforcements!"

Kaelus’s mouth twitched into a faint, suppressed smirk.

Without looking down, he reached to the edge of his desk and pushed a heavy, red-sealed stack of documents off the mahogany surface.

They fluttered down, landing directly in front of her on the velvet floor.

They were top-secret diplomatic dispatches detailing the internal trade disputes of the Iron Marches, the very territory they were currently traveling to inspect.

"Fold them," Kaelus said softly. "The Iron Duke is a loud, abrasive bore who communicates entirely in threats and demands for iron tariffs. I vastly prefer his correspondence in the shape of waterfowl."

Seraphina’s eyes lit up.

She snatched the terrifying, red-sealed state secrets and immediately creased the heavy, expensive parchment down the middle.

"Operation Iron Duck is a go!" she whispered happily.

As the mythril carriage ground its way onto the grand Imperial Highway, rocking with a gentle, magically enchanted sway, Seraphina let her mind drift.

It was true that she had grown a little attached to Oakhaven.

The bright white stone, the sprawling, sun-dappled courtyards, the lack of screaming ghosts, and the gentle, golden-eyed Marquess who looked at her as if she were a miracle, it had felt like a brief, wonderful glimpse of a normal, happy childhood.

It was a stark contrast to the absolute horror of her past five years in the decaying orphanage.

A tiny, fleeting shadow of melancholy passed over her adult soul.

’Would it have been better?’ she asked herself silently as her small fingers meticulously tucked the wings of her first paper duck. ’...To stay there? Marquess Julian offered me to stay. He would have fought for me if I had nodded my head even for once. I could have grown up in the sunlight. I could have learned magic in a peaceful garden instead of a black-stone fortress.’

She stopped folding for a second, looking across the dim cabin.

Kaelus was sitting in his high-backed leather chair, his heavily muscled frame encased in lethal mythril armor.

His face was carved from stoic, unyielding stone, his glowing violet eyes fixated on the complex military supply lines of the Western Front.

He looked terrifying.

He looked like the villain of a high-fantasy tragedy.

And then, Seraphina noticed the small, folded linen napkin resting on the corner of his desk.

Tucked neatly inside the napkin, magically preserved at the exact optimal temperature, were three peeled, perfectly sliced Star-peaches and a small silver fork, prepared by Kaelus himself before they left the estate, without prompting, to ensure she wouldn’t get hungry during the midday transit.

Seraphina smiled, a warm, incredibly secure sensation blooming in the very center of her chest, completely obliterating the fleeting melancholy.

’No,’ she concluded fiercely, returning to her origami. ’The sunlight is nice. But the sunlight doesn’t sit in a chair for three days holding your hand while you burn. The sunlight doesn’t threaten to level a city because someone made you cry.’

She didn’t need a peaceful garden.

She had Papa Duke.

She had the fifty doting, scarred warmongers riding outside the windows who would gladly tear down the sky if she asked them to.

She was Seraphina von Nacht.

She was the prized morale officer of the deadliest vanguard in history.

She happily launched her finished iron-tariff duck across the carriage.

It glided smoothly through the air, executing a lazy loop around the magical lamp, and nose-dived straight into Kaelus’s mythril breastplate with a soft tink.

Kaelus didn’t even flinch.

He smoothly picked the paper fowl off his chest, inspected its lopsided beak for a second, and placed it reverently on the empty cushion next to him, returning to his maps without saying a single word.

Yes.

She was exactly where she belonged.