Within the Estate’s dim stone halls, Seraphina stood in stark contrast to the surrounding gloom, her white ceremonial silks shimmering with crude purity.
As a High Priestess of the Imperial Church, Seraphina carried herself with the composed demeanor expected of one from the Seminary. Yet beneath that polished exterior lurked the deeply ingrained instincts of a rabid scavenger. Her fingers unconsciously adjusted the spectacles resting upon her nose. The bridge had cracked years ago during a border assignment and had since been repaired with a thin coil of copper wire salvaged from a broken liturgical lamp.
To an Imperial noble, such a repair would have been humiliating. But to Seraphina, it was a small pocket of satisfaction hidden within her monotonous daily life.
Raised as the eldest of twelve children in a starving household, it has been ingrained in her core very early on that nothing should be wasted if it can still serve a purpose. Unfortunately for Seraphina, her enormous mana reserves had scaled this instinct into something bordering on obsession.
Her spatial ring did not, in fact, contain jewels or sacred relics. Instead, it overflowed with potential things.
Thousands of bent nails, stacks of moth-eaten tapestries, and crates of chipped vials, all vibrated with the faint hum of her magic as if waiting for her to breathe new life into them.
The wealthiest Empire in the world somehow produced the stingiest dumpster-diving Priestess.
The heavy doors to Kael Valerius’s study opened with a low groan.
The boy sat motionless at his desk as he stared at a single floating dust mote with the solemn concentration most worshippers reserved for divine revelation.
Didn't the Imperial Envoy describe Kael Valerius as spiritually hollow? A failed vessel incapable of holding divine resonance.
He's supposed to be a boy through whom the Light passed without leaving even the faintest trace behind.
Well... the Envoy was not wrong but...
Frankly, she had expected something else more dramatic.
Like Kael foaming at the mouth perhaps?
Maybe uncontrolled mana surges?
Definitely glowing eyes at the minimum.
What she instead found was a pale fifteen-year-old boy silently observing airborne dandruff with absolute commitment.
Possibly not talented.
Definitely an idiot.
But in that case, isn't a teacher better suited to help this young Lord than me?
This had Seraphina questioning the wisdom of the divine in sending her here. Although the Imperial Church was generous, she was never so blinded by grace that she forgot the first teaching she ever encountered in the house of god.
Blessed is the god from whom we draw bounty; shame upon those who waste his blessings.
Following this divine decree, the Church rarely sent Caretakers to failures. Usually, they were dispatched as caretakers for possibly useful subjects like erratic geniuses or talented but rebellious young lords.
Sending her to the North to take care of a dullard was a gesture of imperial mercy never before seen in the long history of the Empire.
“Lord Kael,” Seraphina began, her voice adopting the melodic cadence of formal Seminary instruction. “We shall begin the Rite of Divine Adhesion. Please do not worry. This process is painless.”
She expected a cold response, believing that Kael should see through her small lie. After all, it was a well-known fact that most holy procedures involve at least some level of discomfort.
But contrary to what she expected, Kael's face showed that he only looked mildly unconvinced.
As Seraphina placed her silver ritual case upon the desk and opened it carefully, Kael immediately stopped looking at her and began staring at the instruments instead.
More specifically, their alignment.
Everything inside the ritual case was arranged with careful precision, except for one measuring rod sitting ever so slightly crooked within the velvet interior.
Not enough for most people to notice, but just enough to become unbearable once seen.
Kael’s gaze locked onto it instantly, and without a word, he reached forward and nudged the rod until it aligned perfectly with the others.
Only then did his shoulders loosen slightly as he withdrew his hand.
Seraphina blinked with surprise.
“…Thank you,” she said carefully.
Kael nodded once, visibly relieved.
That reaction unsettled her more than it probably should have.
Pushing the thought aside, Seraphina activated the Lesser Illumination.
Warm golden light blossomed softly between her fingers as mana flowed through sacred geometries engraved into silver. The spell itself was a simple resonance rite designed to detect traces of divine compatibility within noble bloodlines.
She fully expected to find something. It was a biological impossibility for nobility to have no talent. Instead, she found a terrifying, silent vacuum.
As her mana swept through his meridians, it met... nothing.
No spark. No waste. Just an attic that had been aggressively vacuumed.
Even commoners produced some degree of resonance.
She increased the output. Still nothing. She found neither hidden talent nor wasted potential. There was only profound and baffling emptiness.
A ghost lounging upside down near the bookshelf peered toward the glowing array.
“She skipped two opening verses,” it announced helpfully.
Another ghost scoffed. “No, no, this is the expensive version.”
This conversation made Kael’s left eye twitch almost imperceptibly, which Seraphina noticed immediately.
Is this a stress response? Interesting.
“You may relax, Lord Kael,” she said gently.
Instead of a yawn or a sigh, what Seraphina met was Kael's sneeze, which violently echoed across the study.
The floating dust mote that garnered Kael's attention vanished into oblivion.
Worse yet, the carefully laid salt magic circle on the floor that was the foundation of the entire ritual was disturbed.
The ritual light flickered awkwardly between her fingers, dying a slow, pathetic death as the connection to the divine god broke.
“…Sorry,” Kael said
“No. It is my fault, Lord Kael. I failed this rite twice.” Seraphina’s brow twitched as she said words she did not mean.
But determined not to lose momentum, she summoned the Symbol of Sacred Vow.
Golden geometric patterns unfolded elegantly into the air between them, rotating with sacred radiance.
Most people reacted with awe.
Kael stared at it for approximately three seconds before his attention abruptly shifted to the robe of a hapless Priestess trying to make her spell work.
“Thread,” he muttered.
Seraphina looked down automatically.
A small white thread dangled from her cuff, leftover from a late-night repair using salvaged altar silk.
Before she could react, Kael lunged toward the desk drawer with alarming speed.
Seraphina’s mana circuits flared instantly.
Weapon?
Panic response?
Delayed aggression?
Kael retrieved a pair of heavy iron scissors.
Snip.
With painstaking concentration, he clipped the loose thread from her sleeve.
Silence filled the room.
Kael then spent nearly an entire minute nudging the scissors repeatedly until they sat perfectly parallel to the desk’s edge.
Only then did his shoulders loosen slightly.
Finally, he looked back up at her, uncertain. As though waiting to discover whether he had just been helpful or socially catastrophic.
“…It was unraveling,” he explained quietly.
It was then that the realization finally settled over Seraphina like falling snow.
The Envoy was right, Lord Kael was an Idiot who was genuinely more concerned with a stray piece of thread than the divine light of the Empire.
He was not pretending to be distracted. He was distracted. Constantly. Painfully. And somehow still trying very hard to function politely through it all.
“A… unique display of focus, Lord Kael,” Seraphina said carefully, maintaining the solemn gravity expected of a Priestess. “The Church acknowledges your uhh… perseverance.”
Kael relaxed slightly at the praise, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch before he immediately returned to his vigil of staring at the empty air.
In return, Seraphina quietly studied him, her fingers twitching toward the hoard in her spatial ring.
Even a rusted, broken hinge still possessed metal worth melting down. I will turn this useless pile of scrap into a monument, even if I have to use every bit of scavenged copper wire and spiritual glue in the Northern Lands to hold him together.
Kael was the insurmountable cliff, and Seraphina was a climber who didn't want to give up.