Chapter 243: Visit

His mouth was slightly open. Smoke was practically wafting from his ears as his brain desperately tried to process the numbers.

"Is... is the answer... fire?" Castor guessed, looking incredibly stressed. "If you just burn the mythril, you don’t need the equation!"

Roan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "No, Master Castor. The answer is not fire. The answer is almost never fire in advanced logistics."

Pollux, leaning against his desk, crossed his arms and swept his auburn bangs out of his eyes, adopting his deepest, most tragic scowl.

"The numbers are meaningless," Pollux muttered, staring into the middle distance. "Mathematics is just an illusion we use to impose order on a chaotic, uncaring void. The true answer lies in the darkness between the variables."

"That is the single most pathetic excuse for not doing your homework properly I have ever heard, Master Pollux," Roan deadpanned, completely immune to the edge.

Seraphina, sitting between the two boys, rolled her eyes. She picked up her quill, dipped it in ink, and didn’t even look at the chalkboard.

"The ambient mana density variable is isolated by dividing the thermal coefficient by the sum of the leylines’ resonance frequency," Seraphina recited, drawing a perfect graph on her parchment. "It’s X equals 4.7. Honestly, Castor, if you apply fire to this equation, the resulting blast radius would vaporize your eyebrows again."

Castor gaped at her.

Pollux looked deeply humiliated.

Roan grinned, tossing the chalk into the air and catching it. "Correct, Lady Seraphina. Five points to the North."

Outside the study, pacing the hallway like a caged, deeply paranoid panther, was Duke Kaelus von Nacht.

Archduke Leonidas was leaning against the wall next to him, laughing uproariously, unbothered by his sons’ academic destruction.

"She is a marvel, Kaelus!" Leonidas boomed, slapping the Reaper on the back. "She is literally running circles around twelve-year-old Academy prodigies! It is fate! It is destiny! You must admit, she and Castor make a terrifyingly efficient team! He provides the muscle and the explosions, she provides the brain! We should draft the marriage contracts right now! We can hold the wedding in a volcano!"

Kaelus slowly turned his head. His violet eyes ignited with a blinding flare of pure killing intent.

He didn’t speak. He reached down to his hip.

SHHHING!

Kaelus drew Requiem, the legendary blade singing a lethal, icy song in the corridor.

"I am going to separate your head from your shoulders today, Leonidas," Kaelus whispered, his voice a freezing rumble. "I am going to mount it on a pike in the courtyard, and I am going to let the ravens nest in your hair."

"Whoa! Hey! It was but a political suggestion!" Leonidas yelled, his eyes widening as Kaelus actually lunged forward.

The Fire Archduke didn’t draw his own weapon; he executed a panicked, tactical retreat, sprinting down the blueberry-carpeted hallway as fast as his legs could carry him.

"GET BACK HERE, YOU WARMONGER BASTARD!" Kaelus roared, completely abandoning all aristocratic dignity, chasing his oldest rival down the corridor, swinging the legendary sword of the North like a madman.

Sebastian stood in the doorway of the study, balancing the silver tea tray on one hand.

He watched the two most powerful, terrifying warlords on the continent run past him, one screaming in panic, the other radiating homicidal fatherly rage.

The veteran butler took a slow, calm sip from a spare teacup on his tray.

’The entertainment value of this household is truly unparalleled,’ Sebastian mused, his scarred face twitching into a wide, highly amused grin. ’If the Emperor could see them now, he would die of sheer confusion.’

***

As the days passed and ending of the Imperial Banquet drew closer, Seraphina’s mood was radiantly bright.

The estate was a whirlwind of activity, but it was filled with people she genuinely liked.

Marquess Julian Myer dropped by the estate unannounced one afternoon.

The golden-haired, charming, utterly dazzling Marquess didn’t come with political ledgers; he arrived carrying two massive boxes of extra-butter, triple-chocolate cookies from his personal estate bakery.

"For the true ruler of the North," Julian had winked, dropping to one knee to present the boxes to Seraphina, ignoring Kaelus’s hostile, jealous glare from the corner of the room. "I heard a rumor that a certain little Sovereign possessed a highly refined palate for chocolate."

Seraphina had happily accepted the cookies, immune to his playboy charm but susceptible to his baked goods.

Baron Elian Vance also visited, bringing his sons Cedric and Leo.

The incredibly handsome, ’green-flag’ Baron had spent an hour expressing his eternal gratitude to Kaelus, while Cedric and Leo had smuggled Seraphina out into the gardens to teach her how to properly skip stones across the estate’s reflection pool.

Between the visits, the endless supply of desserts from the terrified chef, her successful ghost-espionage ring, and the surprisingly fun lessons with the handsome K-drama tutor, Seraphina was experiencing peak serotonin levels.

She felt safe.

She felt powerful.

She felt like she belonged here.

But in the Imperial Capital, when things were going too perfectly, when the sun was shining a little too brightly, the universe inevitably demanded a course correction.

.

.

.

It was late afternoon.

Seraphina had just finished a grueling session of advanced spatial geometry with Roan.

She had successfully calculated the trajectory required to bounce a magical light-beam through a maze of mirrors, proving her theory on the chalkboard.

"Flawless execution, My Lady," Roan praised, clapping his hands together once. He gathered his syllabus, shoving it into his sleek leather satchel. "You possess a terrifyingly geometric mind. I suspect you could calculate the angle required to throw a teacup at Aide Alistair’s head with maximum efficiency as well."

"It’s forty-two degrees, assuming wind resistance in the hallway," Seraphina replied instantly, hopping off her chair.

She smoothed down her bright crimson dress, her dark eyes sparkling with anticipation. "I’m going to Papa’s office. He promised we could play Imperial Chess before dinner. I figured out a new opening that uses the rooks as bait."