Chapter 77: Honey Thief!

"The terrain ahead is exceptionally rugged. The unpaved mountain roads are littered with seismic faults, loose shale, and severe elevation shifts. Subjecting the mythril carriage to high-velocity impacts over such topography would induce severe instability within the cabin."

Seraphina blinked. ’Instability? Papa Duke, are you seriously trying to use high-tier engineering terminology to say you don’t want me to get motion sickness?’

"Therefore," Kaelus declared, his legendary arrogance radiating from him in a flawless, unshakeable wave. "I have ordered the Vanguard to reduce our transit velocity to a minimum. We will not gallop or trot too fast. The horses will proceed at a controlled, shock-absorbing walk. We will halt for two hours at midday to allow the carriage insulation arrays to recharge, and we will establish a fully fortified, stationary perimeter before sundown every evening."

He looked at her dead in the eyes.

"The journey will now take two weeks."

Fourteen days.

Fourteen days of crawling across a desolate, wind-whipped mountain range at the speed of a heavily armored, mythril-plated glacier.

Fourteen days of sleeping in a box, eating preserved snacks, and folding state secrets into origami waterfowl.

If Sir Lucas or Sir Boris had been told that their lethal, lightning-fast military strike force was being deliberately stalled for half a month to protect a six-year-old’s inner ear equilibrium, they would have likely suffered simultaneous aneurysms.

"Two weeks?" Seraphina asked, her adult mind completely baffled by the inefficiency of his protective instincts. "But Papa Duke! The Emperor! The audit! You’re going to be so late!"

"The Emperor sits on a cushioned throne and does nothing," Kaelus sneered coldly, picking up his quill. "He can wait. If Duke Voran complains about the delay, I will make sure to audit his tongue. Now, eat your Star-peaches, Seraphina. Your blood sugar is dropping. I can hear your stomach processing ambient air."

Seraphina opened her mouth to protest, but her stomach immediately let out a loud, traitorous, incredibly un-aristocratic GURGLE that echoed off the mythril walls.

She flushed a bright, soft pink, grabbed the silver fork, and aggressively stabbed a piece of peach.

"I am not sluggish," she mumbled around the fruit. "I am simply storing calories for the mountain climb. Like a majestic, carnivorous mountain goat!"

"Duly noted," Kaelus muttered, failing to suppress the fond smirk that pulled at the corner of his mouth as he returned to his ledgers.

The fourteen-day transit across the desolate crags of the Western frontier established a new, bizarre, and hilariously wholesome daily routine for the Black Bastion.

Because the pace was so agonizingly slow, the knights found themselves possessing a terrifying, unprecedented excess of unspent energy.

They were apex predators, men who were genetically and magically engineered to fight, run, and destroy for days on end without rest.

Forcing them to walk their warhorses at a snail’s pace for six hours a day was akin to trying to keep fifty rabid wolves locked inside a porcelain shop.

They had to find an outlet.

And that outlet became the fanatical spoiling of Seraphina von Nacht.

Every evening, the moment Kaelus called the halt, the encampment did not descend into the usual grim, silent military preparation.

It exploded into a fiercely competitive and organized domestic festival.

Sir Lucas, the scarred veteran commander, took tyrannical control of the perimeter ground conditions.

"Sweep those granite pebbles away!" Lucas would roar at the junior knights, brandishing his broadsword like a giant broom. "Do you want her to scuff her shoes? Level the dirt! Use earth magic if you have to! And unroll the plush cashmere carpets from the Myer estate! Lay them double-thick near the command tent!"

Sir Boris, the seven-foot mountain of muscle who wielded an anvil-sized war hammer, established himself as her personal, lethal executive chef and wildlife procurement officer.

While the Bastion’s actual quartermaster prepared the standard, nutritious combat stews, Boris would wander off into the dangerous, monster-infested crags alone.

He would return an hour later, ignoring the minor acid burns or jagged claw marks on his mythril greaves, proudly carrying rare, safe, highly delicious mountain delicacies.

"Found these on a cliff face guarded by a Wyvern," Boris grunted on the eighth evening, dropping to one massive knee in front of Seraphina’s plush carpet.

He delicately held out a hollowed-out stone filled with shimmering, crystal-clear golden syrup. "Wild Frost-Honey. Made by ice-bees. It’s cold. Doesn’t rot your teeth as fast. Thought the Mushroom might want it on her sweet bread."

Seraphina’s eyes went wide.

She fearlessly took the stone bowl from the giant’s hands, dipped her spoon into the shimmering, freezing honey, and tasted it.

It was explosive, a burst of pure, crisp, and floral sweetness that dissolved instantly on her tongue like sweet snow.

"Sir Boris," Seraphina declared solemnly, looking up at the towering, scarred warrior. "You are the greatest honey-thief in the history of the universe! I am going to name my next origami Kraken after you!"

Boris’s entire face turned the saturated crimson of a beet.

He stood up, towering over the encampment, and shot his fifty heavily armed peers a lethal, triumphant, utterly smug glare that clearly said: ’If a single one of you peasants attempts to out-snack my Frost-Honey, I will crush your helmets into modern art.’

Sir Gallahan, meanwhile, had fully committed to his role as her personal, refined academic tutor and cultural attache.

Every afternoon during their two-hour midday halt, Gallahan would set up a small, elegant wooden folding table under a portable silk pavilion.

He would sit across from her, ignoring the dust that coated his pristine white cloak, and teach her the intricate, high-society etiquette of the Imperial Court using inappropriate military metaphors.

"Now, My Lady," Gallahan instructed on the tenth day, holding up a delicate silver teacup with his pinky extended. "When you are seated at the Emperor’s banquet table, you must maintain stillness. Your posture is your shield wall. If you slouch, the enemy Duchesses will immediately detect a structural weakness in your flank and deploy passive-aggressive insults!"