Chapter 210: Betrayal?!

"He wants to parade me before the Capital nobility to demonstrate his control. And, more importantly..."

Kaelus’s violet eyes darkened, locking onto his daughter. "...he wants to officially meet you. The invitation specifically mandates the presence of the ’newly recognized Heir of the North’."

Alistair, having finally recovered a fraction of his composure, though completely forgetting to remove his pigtails, scrambled up from the floor, his emerald eyes lighting up with sudden, frantic, and desperate administrative salvation.

"The Palace Banquet?!" Alistair gasped, rushing to the desk, practically vibrating with excitement. "Your Grace! This is it! This is our crisis! This is the undeniable, objective proof!"

Kaelus raised an eyebrow, staring at his glittering aide. "Proof of what, Alistair?"

"Proof that the Young Lady is completely unprepared for Capital society!" Alistair declared, pointing a dramatic, accusing finger at Seraphina, who immediately blew him with a raspberry.

"Your Grace, look at her!" Alistair pleaded, leaning over the desk. "She has the manners of a feral badger! She eats pastries with her bare hands! She wiped her chocolate-covered fingers on my silk robes yesterday! She called the Viscount of the Western Marches a ’powdered idiot’ to his face!"

"She wasn’t wrong," Kaelus noted mildly, leaning back in his chair. "He is an idiot. And the powder was excessive."

"That is irrelevant!" Alistair shrieked, his neon pigtails bobbing frantically. "The Imperial Banquet is the most perilous, cutthroat social battlefield in the world! Every single high-ranking noble, every spy, every malicious courtier will be watching her! If she attends that banquet and acts like... like this..."

He gestured wildly to her messy dress and the plastic tea set. "...the North will be the laughingstock of the Empire! They will claim she is uncivilized! They will use her lack of decorum as political leverage against you!"

Alistair slammed his hands on the desk, his eyes burning with absolute, desperate conviction.

"She requires intervention, Your Grace! Immediate, aggressive, full-immersion intervention!" Alistair proposed, sensing an opportunity to rid himself of his primary tormentor. "We must hire a Governess! The strictest, most formidable etiquette instructor in the Capital! She must endure ten hours a day of intensive training! Posture! Elocution! The intricate language of fans! She must learn how to execute a proper curtsy without falling over! She must learn the precise angle at which to hold a teacup!"

Seraphina stared at Alistair in absolute horror.

Her soul violently recoiled at the very concept.

’Ten hours a day of posture classes? Embroidery? Fan language?!’

Seraphina thought, a cold sweat breaking out on her tiny brow. ’He is trying to sentence me to a Victorian-era prison camp. I would rather go back to fighting the rock monster. I would rather fight ten rock monsters!’

"Papa," Seraphina whimpered, turning her massive, dark eyes toward Kaelus, deploying her puppy-dog manipulation. "I don’t want a mean lady yelling at me about teacups. I already know how to drink tea. Madam Sparkles taught me."

Kaelus looked at Seraphina’s terrified face.

Then he looked at Alistair’s desperate, pleading expression.

The Archduke let out a slow, rumbling sigh, tapping his black-gloved fingers against the mahogany desk.

"Alistair’s concerns, while hysterically presented and aesthetically compromised by his current hairstyle, are not entirely unfounded," Kaelus admitted slowly.

Seraphina gasped, feeling a terrible sense of betrayal.

’Et tu, Hedgehog?!’

"However," Kaelus raised a hand, stopping Alistair’s victorious cheer before it could begin.

The Archduke’s violet eyes hardened, a fierce, protective, uncompromising light burning within them.

"I will not subject my daughter to the suffocating, soul-crushing conventional methods of Capital nobility," Kaelus declared, his voice ringing with absolute authority. "I have watched the ’proper’ noble ladies of this city. They are like fragile glass dolls, trained to whisper behind fans and plot poisonings because they lack the strength to wield a sword. They are caged birds. I did not adopt a Sovereign to put her in a cage."

Alistair groaned, burying his face in his hands. "Your Grace, she cannot simply walk into the Palace and bite the Emperor’s ankle!"

"She will not bite his ankle," Kaelus said dryly. "She will temporarily hire a tutor. A discreet, pragmatic instructor to teach her the bare-minimum basics of Imperial protocol for the banquet. Just enough to navigate the forks and recognize the titles. Nothing more."

Seraphina let out a massive sigh of relief, slumping against the desk. ’Oh, thank God. A crash course I can handle. I just have to memorize the silverware.’

But Kaelus wasn’t finished.

He looked down at Seraphina, his expression softening into a look of visionary fatherly devotion.

It was the look of a man who was not merely surviving the present, but actively constructing a future.

"As for her long-term education," Kaelus murmured, his deep voice filling the quiet study, carrying the weight of a solemn promise. "She will not be locked in a drawing room with a governess. When she comes of age, she will enter the Imperial Academy."

Alistair blinked, looking up. "The Academy, Your Grace? But the Academy is a melting pot! It is chaotic! Noble children mix with sponsored commoners! It is not a place for a delicate Archduchess!"

"She is not delicate," Kaelus scoffed, a dark smirk touching his lips as he remembered the chess massacre. "And she will thrive in chaos. I will not dictate her path, Alistair. If she wishes to study elemental magic and burn down the alchemy labs, she may do so. If she wishes to study the blade and join the Vanguard, I will forge her a sword myself. And if, gods forbid, she discovers a bizarre, masochistic passion for ledgers and taxation, she can take your job."

Alistair looked genuinely horrified at the prospect of being replaced by the toddler who had just glued a unicorn to his face.

Kaelus ignored his aide, keeping his glowing violet eyes locked onto Seraphina.

"You will have choices, Seraphina," Kaelus promised her, his voice a low, fierce vow. "The world will tell you how a Lady should act. I am telling you that you are the Sovereign of the North."