Chapter 211: Letters

"You will learn the rules of this Empire only so that you may know exactly how to break them. Your future is your own to shape. I am merely here to ensure no one stands in your way."

Seraphina sat frozen on the floor.

The adult soul within her, battered by a previous life of rigid expectations and the cold, unfeeling cruelty of the orphanage, felt an overwhelming, incredibly warm lump form in her throat.

She looked at the terrifying, blood-soaked warlord.

She saw the absolute, unconditional love and respect burning in his eyes. He didn’t see her as a prop.

He didn’t see her as a political asset to be married off for alliances. He saw her as an individual, with a mind, a future, and the right to choose her own destiny.

He was giving her the one thing she had never had: Freedom.

"I love you, Papa," Seraphina whispered, her voice cracking with genuine, profound emotion, a single, happy tear escaping her eye.

She scrambled up and threw her arms around his leg, hugging him tightly.

Kaelus smiled, a soft, incredibly tender expression, reaching down to gently pat her dark hair. "And I love you, too, Mushroom. Now, go and wash your hands. We must prepare to greet the tutor tomorrow."

It was a beautiful, heartwarming, emotionally resonant moment of pure familial bonding.

But in the Nacht Estate, peaceful moments were always tragically short-lived.

***

"Ahem."

The gruff, gravelly sound of someone clearing their throat shattered the warm atmosphere of the study.

Kaelus and Seraphina looked up.

Sebastian was still standing near the doorway. The scarred Head Butler had not left after delivering the Emperor’s summons.

He was still holding the silver salver.

And resting on the polished metal was the second envelope.

The heartwarming, domestic air in the room suddenly shifted. The temperature didn’t drop with Kaelus’s killing intent; it dropped with a sudden, suffocating, heavy wave of tension.

Sebastian looked incredibly uncomfortable.

The veteran knight, who had stared down demons without blinking, looked as though he was holding a live, ticking bomb.

His single blue eye avoided Kaelus’s gaze, staring firmly at the wall above the Archduke’s head.

"Sebastian," Kaelus said, his voice losing its warmth, returning to the flat, cautious tone of a commander sensing a trap. "You said there was a second missive. From a private rider."

"Yes, Your Grace," Sebastian rasped, his voice tighter than usual.

He slowly walked forward, extending the silver salver.

Kaelus reached out and picked up the envelope.

It was not cream-colored vellum. It was a heavy, dark-gray parchment, the kind traditionally used in the Northern provinces.

Kaelus flipped it over to examine the wax seal.

Seraphina, peering over his arm, felt her heart skip a beat.

The wax seal was black.

It bore the crest of a howling wolf, the crest of the House of Nacht.

But it was slightly altered. The wolf was not facing forward, preparing to strike, as Kaelus’s crest did.

The wolf was turned sideways, looking away.

It was a cadet branch seal.

The color entirely drained from Kaelus’s flawless face. The pale porcelain of his skin turned a stark, sickly shade of chalk.

The envelope in his black-gloved hands began to tremble. It was a microscopic tremor, barely visible, but to Seraphina, who had watched this man hold a sword steady against an Archdemon, it was a catastrophic physical tell.

"Your Grace?" Alistair whispered, his own annoyance vanishing instantly, replaced by genuine, shocked concern. He had never seen the Archduke look like this. Not in anger, not in battle.

He looked... terrified.

Kaelus did not break the seal. He didn’t even open the letter. He just stared at the black wax, his violet eyes wide, haunted, swimming with the sudden resurrection of a years-old trauma.

"They sent a letter," Kaelus whispered. His voice didn’t sound like the Reaper’s roaring baritone.

It sounded incredibly small, fragile, and utterly broken.

It sounded like a seventeen-year-old boy who had just been left alone in the snow.

"They did, Your Grace," Sebastian confirmed softly, his scarred face etched with deep, painful sympathy.

The butler knew exactly who ’they’ were.

"Who is ’they’, Papa?" Seraphina asked, her tiny hand gripping his sleeve, trying to anchor him to the present.

Kaelus didn’t seem to hear her.

He stared at the envelope, his breathing turning shallow and erratic.

"The rider... did he leave a verbal message, Sebastian?" Kaelus asked, his voice trembling so violently he could barely form the words.

"He did, Your Grace," Sebastian replied, standing at rigid attention, though his single eye was full of sorrow. "The rider stated that the senders are currently residing in a private estate on the outskirts of the Capital. They are aware of your arrival in the city."

Sebastian swallowed hard, delivering the final, devastating blow.

"They requested an audience, Your Grace. They... they would like to visit you."

The heavy, enchanted oak desk groaned under Kaelus’s hands as his grip tightened convulsively.

The dark mana in the room didn’t explode outward in rage; it retracted, pulling inward, suffocating Kaelus in his own aura, sealing him inside a vault of invisible, impenetrable ice.

Seraphina looked at the black wax seal.

She remembered the stories Sir Gally told her by the fire in the Bastion. She remembered the heartbreak in his voice when he spoke of the winter that had killed his heart.

’His siblings,’ Seraphina realized, her adult mind piecing the puzzle together with horrifying clarity. ’Caspian and Elara. The brother and sister who abandoned him in the North. The family that walked away and left him alone to bear the burden of responsibility and to become a monster.’

They had been gone for years.

They didn’t write any letters, didn’t visit, didn’t even ask how he was doing. They had left him to rot in his icy isolation.

And now, suddenly, perfectly timed with his highly publicized return to the Capital and his adoption of a new heir, they were reaching out.