Chapter 86: Hot and Red

He was not wearing any formal court attire.

He wore a heavy leather blacksmith’s apron over a linen shirt, his thick, hairy arms exposed and glittering with gold bracers studded with raw, uncut rubies.

His beard was a thick, wiry tangle of bright orange hair, singed at the edges by forge fire, and his face was flushed a permanent, apoplectic red.

He did not bow or offer a polite greeting.

He threw his thick, heavily ringed hands into the air and barked a laugh that sounded like rocks grinding in a crusher.

"BAH! The Reaper of the North graces my humble forge!" Voran roared, his voice booming over the sound of the blast furnaces. He marched down the iron stairs, each step heavy and deliberate. "I expected you a week ago, Nacht! Did the snow finally freeze your horses’ hooves, or did you get lost in the dark?"

Kaelus did not smile or offer a retort.

He just stared down at the shorter Duke with an expression of withering disdain.

"The Emperor’s audit waits for my schedule, Voran," Kaelus said coldly, his violet eyes piercing the industrialist. "I trust your ledgers are prepared? Or do you require more time to forge the numbers as poorly as you forge your swords?"

Voran’s red face turned a shade deeper.

A vein pulsed visibly in his thick neck. "My ledgers are pristine, Nacht. And my sword outfitted the entire Imperial Army. You’d do well to remember who pays for the mythril you hoard in your frozen wasteland."

Voran stopped at the bottom of the stairs, standing only a few feet from Kaelus.

He puffed out his chest, attempting to project dominance, ignoring the fact that Kaelus was nearly a foot and a half taller and radiating enough killing intent to freeze a volcano.

And then, Voran’s beady, bloodshot eyes shifted downward.

He noticed the small, dark-haired child hiding behind Kaelus’s massive leg, clutching his dark cape.

Voran blinked in genuine surprise before a loud, obnoxious, incredibly abrasive sneer broke across his face.

"Well, well, well," Voran bellowed, pointing a thick, soot-stained finger directly at Seraphina. "What in the blazes is this? Did the great Reaper pick up a stray dog on the road? Or did you finally find a woman desperate enough to breed with a monster, and this is the runt of the litter?"

The sound of the blast furnaces in the background did not stop.

The steam pipes did not cease their hissing.

But the atmosphere in the courtyard fell into a sudden silence.

The fifty knights of the Black Bastion, who had been standing at parade rest, moved with a synchronized speed that defied human biology.

SHHHHHING...!!!

Fifty broadswords cleared their scabbards simultaneously.

Fifty heavy mythril shields slammed into the iron paving stones, interlocking into a perfect, impenetrable wall of steel around Kaelus and Seraphina.

Sir Lucas, Sir Boris, and Sir Gallahan stepped directly in front of Duke Voran, blocking his view of the child.

Their eyes were not glowing with aura; they were terrifyingly dead.

They looked at the Duke of the Iron Marches not as a high noble, but as a piece of meat that had already been butchered.

Duke Voran staggered backward, his bluster evaporating instantly as he found himself staring down the barrels of three legendary killers who were actively twitching with the desire to sever his head from his shoulders.

His steam-powered mercenaries raised their weapons, but their hands were shaking violently.

Slowly, Kaelus stepped through the gap between Lucas and Gallahan.

He didn’t draw Requiem.

He didn’t need to.

He walked right up to Duke Voran, towering over the industrialist, casting the man in his shadow.

Kaelus leaned down, bringing his face mere inches from Voran’s sweating, red face.

"Reginald," Kaelus whispered.

The voice was so soft, and incredibly gentle, that it was infinitely more terrifying than a roar.

It was the voice of the Reaper offering a final prayer.

"The child standing behind me," Kaelus murmured, his violet eyes burning with the cold, absolute certainty of an open grave, "is Seraphina von Nacht. She is my daughter. She is the Sovereign of the North."

Kaelus raised his right hand.

He didn’t touch the Duke.

He just rested his black-gloved fingers casually against the thick gold and ruby bracer on Voran’s wrist.

Instantly, the ambient moisture in the air condensed and froze.

The solid gold bracer shattered into a million pieces of brittle, frozen shrapnel, falling to the iron floor with a soft, crystalline tinkle.

Voran screamed, clutching his wrist, stumbling backward and falling onto his backside on the iron stairs.

"If you," Kaelus continued, his voice echoing smoothly over the whimpering Duke, "ever refer to her as a ’stray’, or a ’runt’, or direct your filthy, soot-stained eyes at her again... I will not audit your ledgers."

Kaelus smiled.

It was a flawless, beautiful, utterly demonic expression.

"I will audit the structural integrity of your spine. And I will leave your city a frozen, silent tomb. Do we have an understanding, Reginald?"

Voran, clutching his wrist, his arrogance completely shattered by the absolute, uncompromising terror of a father defending his world, nodded frantically, his multiple chins quivering.

"Y-Yes! Yes, Your Grace! M-My apologies! I misspoke! It was just a slip of the tongue!"

"Excellent," Kaelus said, standing up straight, the terrifying smile vanishing, replaced by his usual cold, aristocratic mask.

He turned back, offering his hand to Seraphina, who had watched the entire exchange with a mixture of awe and satisfaction.

The knights of the Vanguard sheathed their swords in unison, the threat neutralized.

’He called him a scumbag,’ Seraphina thought, happily taking Kaelus’s hand as they walked up the iron stairs, stepping over the trembling, weeping Duke of the Iron Marches. ’But Papa is definitely better than a dolphin!’

As the heavy iron doors of the inner citadel opened to receive the terrifying, overly-protective Northern convoy, the true political gauntlet of the Empire finally began, and Seraphina smiled, knowing she held the ultimate trump card tightly in her small hand.

***

The interior of Duke Reginald Voran’s personal citadel, the self-proclaimed ’Heart of the Forge,’ was an architectural disaster born of a man who possessed infinite wealth and absolutely zero taste.

If the exterior of the city was a bleak, windowless, smog-choked industrial nightmare, the interior of the keep was a desperate attempt to compensate for it.

Every surface that could hold a layer of gold leaf had been mercilessly slathered in it.

The massive support pillars holding up the vaulted ceilings were carved from dark iron but studded with fist-sized, uncut rubies that looked less like elegant jewels and more like glowing, bloody warts.

Heavy, velvet tapestries in garish shades of crimson and burnt orange hung from the walls; the bottom edges of the fabric were stained with a fine layer.

It was suffocatingly hot.

The keep was built directly over a subterranean thermal vent that powered the city’s blast furnaces, turning the grand hallways into an oppressive, dry sauna.

Duke Kaelus von Nacht was not sweating.

The ambient, freezing temperature of his dark mana acted as an air-conditioning unit.

He strode down the center of the ostentatious hallway, his armor gleaming softly, looking like an avenging winter god marching through the circles of hell.

In his left arm, perched comfortably against his chestplate and shielded from the oppressive heat by his aura, was Seraphina.

Kaelus had refused to let her walk.

He had taken one look at the fine layer of metallic ash dusting the "pure gold" floor tiles and decided that his daughter’s soft leather shoes were not going to be subjected to the indignity of the Iron Marches’ poor housekeeping.

"It smells like burnt pennies and bad perfume," Seraphina whispered, leaning her chin on his armored shoulder.

She reached up with a small hand to ensure the enchanted wooden breathing talisman Kaelus had given her was still securely tucked under the collar of her navy wolf-embroidered gown.

"It is the smell of overcompensation," Kaelus rumbled back, his voice a low, vibrating hum against her ear. "Duke Voran believes that if he blinds his guests with enough gold, they will not notice the rot beneath the floorboards. Keep your talisman close, Seraphina. I don’t trust the air in this fortress any more than I trust the man who owns it."

Behind them, marching in a flawless protective formation, were the knights of the Black Bastion.