The sun rose over the Valerius Estate not with warmth, but with the cold, judgmental radiance of a debt collector.
Today was the day that the Imperial Center, in its infinite wisdom, had sent a Holy Caretaker to inspect why the awakening had failed and to offer counsel to the wary prince.
In the sliver of his mind that wasn't currently being suffocated by Gemma’s suffocating embrace, Kael was having a full-blown existential crisis.
It’s an audit. It’s literally a spiritual tax audit, Kael thought, his internal voice rising to a pitch that could shatter glass.
I’m a 15-year-old with a bogus shop, and the IRS of Heaven is at the front door.
S-should I hide?
Should I pretend to be a lamp?
[ (＃`Д´) Kael-kun! ]
Gemma shouted, her voice a ranging like a river of wild, turbulent honey. She was currently wrapping his consciousness in layers of protective obsession.
[ (╬ಠ益ಠ) Do not tremble. Let this little bird from the Center come. I shall peel their mind like a ripe fruit if they dare to look too closely at our secret garden. ]
Gemma, please, no mental fruit-peeling expeditions! Kael pleaded, his hand twitching in a state of unrelentlessness.
We need to look like a failure. Like a room that has been thoroughly moved out of.
He focused all his remaining willpower on his stationery. The quill had to be perfectly parallel to the edge of the desk.
To anyone watching, it looked like meditation. In reality, it was a delicate negotiation between order and impending mental collapse.
The door swung open with ceremonial gravity, as if even the hinges had been trained to respect authority.
Duke Valerius entered, followed by a woman draped in silks so white they looked like frozen midnight. Her eyes were not gold, but a pale, shimmering silver, the All-Seeing Sight of the Holy Monitor.
"Caretaker Seraphina has arrived," the Duke announced, his voice a low rumble of suppressed fury.
Seraphina stepped forward, her movements possessing the weightless elegance of a floating feather. She stopped before Kael, her silver eyes narrowing as she attempted to peer into the Sieve that is his soul.
"How... Unremarkable," Seraphina remarked, her voice a crystal bell of divine suspicion.
"The Envoy said his soul was a sieve, yet I feel a great and terrible stillness.It is as if I am standing at the edge of a cliff, looking into an abyss that is looking back."
I think that's just Gemma, ma'am, Kael thought nervously, his focus suddenly shattering into the wind, locking onto a loose thread on Seraphina’s sleeve with the intensity of a salivating beast.
I also think there is a loose thread near your hem, ma'am.
Seraphina recoiled slightly. Her expression tightened.
This gaze… this gaze is the gaze of a dullard. The idiocy I see is worse than expected.
“He is… more ‘ordinary’ than anticipated,” she said to Duke Valerius, her hand already moving toward a ritual bell.
The Duke straightened. His voice carried something between pride and resignation.
“As I said, Caretaker. My son is… unique.”
I just want to cut that thread, Kael lamented.
Before he could stop himself, his body moved.
His hand reached toward the scissors.