Count Rodhe was a snake, a vassal who had grown fat on illegal tolls and border smuggling. But recently, intelligence suggested he had grown ambitious.
He had been meeting with envoys from the neighboring empire.
Kaelus narrowed his eyes.
"Ambush," he whispered.
The road through Rodhe's territory passed through a narrow canyon, the Devil's Throat. It was the perfect kill box. High cliffs on both sides, limited maneuverability for the heavy carriage.
If Rodhe wanted to assassinate the Archduke and blame it on bandits, that was where he would do it.
Kaelus tapped his finger against the paper.
He had two options.
Option A: Take the long way around, adding three days to the journey but avoiding the canyon.
Option B: Drive straight through the canyon and slaughter everyone who tried to stop them.
Usually, Kaelus preferred Option B. It sent a message.
But he glanced out the window. He saw Seraphina, her face smeared with stew, laughing as Sir Bors made a funny face at her.
She was small and fragile. A stray arrow, a falling rock, a sudden jolt of magic, was enough for her to collapse easily; she would break.
'She is just a bait,' he reminded himself. Bait is meant to be put in danger.
But bait was used to lure enemies out. This wasn't a lure; this was a gauntlet.
Kaelus frowned. The strategic calculation was becoming... complicated.
"Sir Lucas," Kaelus called out, his voice cutting through the camp chatter.
Sir Lucas appeared at the carriage door instantly. "Your Grace?"
"The route for tomorrow," Kaelus said.
"Yes, sir. We are prepped for the Devil's Throat. The vanguard is ready to clear the heights."
Kaelus paused. He looked at the map. He looked at the laughing child.
"Maintain the course," Kaelus said finally.
"Sir?"
"We go through the canyon," Kaelus said, his eyes turning into shards of ice. "But change the formation. The carriage will not be in the center."
"Where will it be, Your Grace?"
"The carriage will be the vanguard," Kaelus said calmly. "I will drive it myself."
Sir Lucas's jaw dropped. "Your Grace! That is madness! You cannot expose yourself—"
"I am not exposing myself," Kaelus interrupted. "I am ensuring the ride is smooth."
He glanced at Seraphina one last time.
"If she wakes up screaming because the carriage hit a rock during the ambush," Kaelus said darkly, "I will execute every single one of you."
"Understood, Your Grace!"
Kaelus rolled up the map.
Let the assassins come.
But god help them if they interrupted the child's nap time again.
***
The problem with sleeping like a log during the day was that you became an owl at night.
For Seraphina, formerly Mira, this was a familiar rhythm. In the orphanage, the nights were the only times she felt safe.
The bullies were asleep, the Matron was busy drinking cheap wine in her office, and the world was quiet. Well, "quiet" was a relative term when you could hear the spectral lamentations of the dead, but at least the living weren't trying to steal your socks.
So, when the sun dipped below the horizon and the moon climbed high, turning the world into a landscape of silver and shadow, Seraphina was wide awake.
Her eyes, round and dark like obsidian buttons, blinked in the dim amber light of the carriage.
It was the middle of the night. The convoy was moving at a brisk, urgent pace. The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the iron-rimmed wheels against the road was a hypnotic drumbeat. The carriage swayed gently, a cradle rocking in the dark.
But Seraphina wasn't being rocked to sleep. She was charged with energy.
She sat on the plush velvet bench, her legs dangling over the edge. They were too short to touch the floor, so she swung them back and forth, her heels bumping softly against the wood.
Bump. Bump. Bump.
Across from her sat the Duke.
Kaelus von Nacht was not asleep. He didn't look like he had ever slept in his life. He sat with perfect posture, one leg crossed over the other, a stack of documents resting on his knee.
The magical lamp embedded in the ceiling cast deep shadows over his face, sharpening his cheekbones and turning his eyes into pools of violet ink.
He was reading and endlessly reading.
Seraphina stared at him. Then she stared at the window. Then she stared at his boots.
'Bored,' she thought, the word stretching out in her mind like taffy. 'I am so bored. Is this what rich people do? They sit in expensive boxes and read papers? Where is the entertainment? Where is the drama?'
She looked toward the window. The curtains were drawn back slightly, revealing the passing landscape.
Immediately, she regretted it.
The convoy was moving through a dense forest. To the normal eye, it was just trees and shadows. But to Seraphina, the forest was alive with the unwanted dead.
They were everywhere.
Pale, elongated figures clung to the tree trunks, watching the convoy pass. Some were headless soldiers from forgotten wars, wandering aimlessly with rusted swords. Others were shapeless blobs of sorrow, drifting through the underbrush like mist.
But they kept their distance.
There was an invisible circle around the carriage, a "No Ghost Zone."
The spirits floated about twenty meters away, pressing against an unseen barrier. They stared at the carriage with hollow, terrified eyes.
They wanted to come closer, drawn by the life force of the humans inside, but they were repelled by the terrifying, suffocating aura of the man sitting across from Seraphina.
The Duke was a human talisman. His killing intent was so potent, so steeped in death, that even the ghosts thought, 'Nope. Not messing with that guy.'
Seraphina shivered and looked away from the window. The sight of a woman in a white dress floating alongside the carriage, weeping silently of blood tears, was a bit too heavy for a midnight mood.
She needed a distraction.
She looked at the floor. The Duke had discarded several sheets of paper.