Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

Their civilian disguises were torn, covered in mud, soot, and the blood of the mercenaries they had undoubtedly slaughtered to find the entrance.

They charged into the hall, weapons drawn, their eyes wild with desperate, suicidal panic, fully expecting to find a massacre.

Instead, they saw the frozen gold.

They saw the cage.

And they saw their Archduke sitting on the floor, holding the tiny, safe, crimson-clad little Sovereign in his arms.

Sir Boris dropped his war hammer.

It hit the stone floor with a deafening CLANG as the giant of the North fell to his knees.

Burying his scarred face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking with loud, unashamed, racking sobs of pure relief.

”She is alive,” Boris wept loudly, rocking back and forth. ”By the Light, she is alive. I thought... I thought my empty arms would be my grave.”

Sir Gallahan staggered forward, leaning heavily against the doorframe, his pristine face pale as a ghost. He pressed a hand to his chest, hyperventilating as the adrenaline crashed, tears streaming down his face. ”The Light preserves us. We are not damned.”

Sir Lucas sheathed his broadsword with trembling hands.

He didn’t cry, but he walked slowly toward the center of the hall, stopping with a respectful distance from Kaelus and Seraphina, and dropped to one knee, bowing his head in unconditional submission.

”Your Grace,” Lucas said, his voice grating with unshed emotion. ”We... we have no words to offer for our failure. We surrender our lives to your judgment.”

Kaelus opened his eyes, looking over Seraphina’s shoulder at his three weeping commanders.

An hour ago, he had been prepared to execute them himself.

He had been fueled by a rage that blinded him to reason.

But sitting here now, holding the warm, breathing, perfectly safe child in his arms, the rage was gone. He looked at Boris, the giant who had thrown his own body over her in the fire; Gallahan, who looked ready to throw himself off a cliff out of guilt; and Lucas, who was offering his neck for the sword.

They hadn’t betrayed her.

They had made an error, blinded by overconfidence and a high-tier demon’s trickery. But they loved her. They would have burned the city to ash just to find her.

”Get up, Lucas,” Kaelus commanded, the demonic edge entirely gone from his voice. ”There will be no executions today. You made an error in judgment. We will rectify it by tearing the Syndicates apart at the root. For now, focus on your duties.”

Kaelus tilted his head toward the iron cage sitting on the dais.

”There are children in that cage,” Kaelus said, returning to the role of the Archduke. ”Secure the perimeter. Break the wards and escort them to the surface. We are leaving this filthy hole.”

Lucas looked up, shock and overwhelming gratitude flooding his scarred face. ”Yes, Your Grace! Immediately!”

The Vanguard snapped into action, their purpose restored. Boris wiped his tears with the back of his hand, standing up and marching toward the iron cage. Gallahan followed, drawing his sword to shatter the anti-magic runes on the bars.

Inside the cage, the forty abducted children, who had been huddling in terror during the brief, violent confrontation between Seraphina and the demon, realized that the rescue they had been promised by the tiny girl in the crimson dress was actually happening.

When Sir Boris grabbed the thick iron bars of the cage door and, with a grunt of superhuman strength, literally ripped the heavy iron gate off its hinges, the children erupted into cheers and sobs of relief.

”We are the Vanguard of the North!” Gallahan announced, projecting his voice to calm the panicked kids. ”You are safe! Form a line! We will escort you back to the surface! Your parents are waiting!”

As the knights began the nightmare of herding forty traumatized children out of the subterranean castle, Kaelus remained seated on the floor, holding Seraphina.

”The Vanguard is handling the extraction, Seraphina,” Kaelus murmured, gently patting her back. ”You did well. You kept them calm. But the danger has passed. You can let go now. We must return to the carriage.”

Seraphina did not respond.

She didn’t uncross her legs from his waist.

She didn’t loosen her grip on his tunic.

Kaelus frowned slightly. He reached his hand up, gently cupping the back of her head, attempting to pull her back just enough to look at her face.

She was completely limp.

The moment his supporting arm shifted, Seraphina’s upper body slumped backward, her arms falling loosely from his neck, her head lolling limply to the side, devoid of all muscle tension.

Her eyes were closed, her face pale.

A spike of terror slammed into Kaelus’s chest, hitting him harder than any blade ever could.

”Seraphina!” Kaelus gasped, his heart physically stopping in his chest.

He lunged forward, catching her limp body before she could fall backward onto the hard stone. He pulled her flat across his lap, his massive hands trembling violently as he cradled her head.

’The demon must’ve done something to her. Damn it! I was too late. I was too late!’ Kaelus’s mind screamed, panic blinding his rational thought.

He frantically pressed his fingers against the delicate, pale skin of her neck, searching desperately for a pulse. He leaned down, placing his ear directly over her mouth, listening for breath.

He found it.

Her pulse was there.

It was steady, rhythmic, and incredibly strong.

Her breathing was deep, slow, and perfectly even.

Kaelus froze, his ear still hovering over her mouth.

He listened closer.

He heard a very faint, very soft, incredibly rhythmic... snore.

The terrifying Reaper of the North blinked, lifting his head to stare down at the limp child in his lap.

She wasn’t cursed or comatose.

Seraphina von Nacht was completely, totally, and unapologetically fast asleep.

The adrenaline crash, combined with the exhaustion of channeling a black hole, had finally caught up with her six-year-old body. But there was another, hidden factor at play, one Kaelus could not possibly comprehend.

Thousands of miles away, the dark mana cocoon had just finished crushing the Trickster, slurping up centuries of hoarded demonic energy, and depositing it directly into Seraphina’s Supreme Dark Core.

Her core had just consumed the magical equivalent of a ten-course Thanksgiving dinner!

Seraphina wasn’t just asleep.

She was in a supernatural food coma, digesting a demon’s mana.

Her body had decided that it was time to shut down for maintenance, leaving Kaelus to deal with the minor inconvenience of carrying her.

Kaelus stared at her softly snoring face.

A shuddering breath escaped his lips, blowing a stray lock of dark hair off her forehead. The paralyzing terror evaporated, replaced by an exhausted, incredibly fond amusement.

”You absolute terror,” Kaelus whispered, shaking his head. He carefully adjusted his grip, lifting her securely into his arms, ensuring her head was comfortably supported against his chest.

He stood up, his armor clanking softly, then looked out over the grand hall.

The knights were successfully leading the line of children out through the shattered doorway. The cursed gold and silver glittered in the chandelier light, a monument to the monster that had ruled here.

Kaelus’s violet eyes narrowed, a dark promise returning to his gaze.

’You slipped away today, demon,’ Kaelus thought, staring at the spot where the spatial tear had vanished. ’You think you have escaped, can hide in the shadows of the Southern syndicates.’

The Archduke of the North tightened his grip on his sleeping daughter, his aura flaring with cold, absolute resolve.

’But I am the Reaper. And I swear upon my soul, I will hunt you to the very edges of the continent. I will tear apart every thieves’ guild, burn every dark forest, and shatter every hidden court until I find you. And when I do, I will ensure your end is so agonizing the Abyss itself will look away.’

It was an epic, terrifying, dramatically perfect vow of vengeance.

It was the absolute climax of a warlord’s protective fury.

It was also completely pointless, in a way.

Kaelus von Nacht would spend the next several years utilizing his vast intelligence networks, torturing captured mages, and deploying covert strike teams across the Empire, searching relentlessly for a man with a peacock hat and curse-marked skin. He would dedicate massive resources to tracking down the monster that had dared to touch his daughter.

And he would never, for the rest of his life, find a single trace of him.

Because the terrifying monster he swore to hunt down and destroy had already been squeezed into a puddle of blood in the middle of a muddy jungle by the softly snoring, drooling six-year-old currently using his breastplate as a pillow.

”Sleep well, my little Mushroom,” Kaelus murmured softly, turning his back on the empty, frozen hoard, carrying her toward the exit. ”I will handle the monsters.”

Seraphina shifted in her sleep, wrapping her small hand tightly into the fabric of his torn tunic.