Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

Just then, a terrified-looking maid scurried down the hallway, carrying a silver basin of warm water and fresh towels.

She took one look at the towering, heavily armed knight and squeaked in fear, freezing in her tracks.

”Ah, excellent timing,” Gallahan said, his voice instantly dropping back to its normal, authoritative baritone.

He glared at the maid. ”The Lady is awake. You guys may enter the room and help her bathe, dress her in the finest garments you have available, and brush that... magnificent hair. If you dare to pull too hard and make her cry, I will personally throw you out of a window.”

The maid violently nodded, her face pale, and darted into the room.

Seraphina let out a long sigh, resigning herself to the torturous process of being groomed. ”I want food first. The hedgehog is hungry...”

”The hedgehog shall be fed instantly, My Lady!” Gallahan saluted, entirely forgetting his rank. ”I will have the kitchens bring up pancakes. With strawberries! And honey!”

Thirty minutes later, the transformation was complete.

The maid, driven by the fear of being defenestrated by a knight, had worked miracles.

Seraphina was scrubbed clean and dressed in a beautiful, soft blue dress made of fine spun wool, likely borrowed from one of the Count’s younger nieces.

Her chaotic hair had been tamed, brushed until it shone, and tied back with a neat white ribbon.

She sat at a small table near the window, demolishing a stack of fluffy pancakes drowned in maple syrup, looking like a perfectly behaved doll.

Gallahan stood by the door, watching her eat with a dopey, completely unprofessional smile plastered on his face.

”Sir Gallahan,” Seraphina said, her cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk’s.

She swallowed heavily. ”Are we going to see Papa Duke now?”

Gallahan’s smile faltered slightly.

He remembered exactly what the Duke was doing right now.

”Yes, My Lady. We are heading to the main hall,” Gallahan said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. ”However, I must warn you. His Grace is currently... conducting an interview with Count Rodhe. It might be a little loud.”

Seraphina hopped down from her chair, wiping her sticky hands on a linen napkin. ”An interview? Like for a job?”

Gallahan sweated. ”Ah, not exactly. The Count has been a very naughty man. He hid important papers that belonged to the Emperor. The Duke is trying to persuade him to tell us where those papers are.”

Seraphina, possessing the mind of an adult who knew exactly what ’persuasion’ meant in a dark fantasy setting, paused. ”Is he torturing him?”

Gallahan choked on his own spit. He coughed violently, pounding his chestplate. ”T-torture?! No! Good heavens, no! We are civilized knights! The Duke is merely... applying intense verbal pressure! He hasn’t drawn his sword...!”

’Yet,’ Gallahan added silently in his mind.

But the pincers were definitely being heated in the brazier when I left...

”I want to go,” Seraphina demanded, walking toward the door.

She wasn’t being morbid.

Last night, she had seen a very specific, very human-looking ghost clinging to the Count’s back.

It wasn’t a blob of mindless resentment; it was a clear spirit with a slit throat and a monocle.

If the Duke started ripping out fingernails, the Count might pass out or die before giving up the information, and the Duke’s work would be delayed!

If she could somehow communicate with that ghost, she could solve the problem without spilling blood.

She just wanted to be useful, and she had to prove that she was good bait, after all.

”Right this way, My Lady,” Gallahan sighed, opening the door and escorting her down the grand corridors of the Rodhe estate.

The atmosphere outside the main hall was vastly different from the sunny guest wing.

As they approached the massive, double oak doors, the temperature dropped precipitously.

The air felt heavy, saturated with a thick, suffocating mana that made it difficult to breathe.

The two guards stationed outside the doors were standing so rigidly they looked like statues carved from ice, their faces pale and slick with cold sweat.

Gallahan nodded to them, and the guards pushed the heavy doors open.

Seraphina stepped inside.

The main hall was a cavernous space, decorated with opulent tapestries and gold-leafed statues.

But all the wealth in the world could not mask the terror that currently saturated the room.

At the far end of the hall, sitting upon a raised dais in an ornate, high-backed chair usually reserved for the estate’s elders, was Duke Kaelus von Nacht.

He wasn’t yelling, nor brandishing a weapon.

He was simply sitting there, one leg crossed over the other, his elbow resting on the armrest, and his chin propped elegantly on his knuckles.

He looked bored.

But his eyes, those glowing, violet pools of death, were fixated on the people kneeling at the base of the dais.

Count Rodhe was on his hands and knees, his silk robes stained with sweat and dust.

Beside him knelt his wife, weeping silently into her hands, and his daughter, Elara, whose elaborate makeup from the previous night had completely run down her face in dark, mascara-stained tracks of fear and panic.

Around the perimeter of the hall stood a dozen knights of the Black Bastion.

They were perfectly silent, their hands resting on the pommels of their swords, watching the disgraced noble family with the cold, detached interest of butchers looking at livestock.

”I will ask you one final time, Rodhe,” Kaelus’s voice echoed through the hall.

It was soft, almost a whisper, but it carried a weight that made the crystal chandelier above vibrate. ”Where is the master ledger? The documents I received last night were pathetic forgeries. I want the real records of your embezzlements, your slave trades, and your communications with the Eastern Empire.”

”I swear to you, Your Grace!” Count Rodhe sobbed, pressing his forehead against the marble floor. ”I have already given you everything! There is no master ledger! Those rumors are just lies planted by my political enemies! I am a loyal servant of the Crown!”