Chapter : 181

  Looking at Jothi now, standing calmly in the center of the sparring circle, radiating an aura of quiet, absolute competence, Lloyd understood. She wasn't just trying to restore the family honor he had tarnished at Bathelham. She was building her own legend. And it was a legend built on skill, discipline, and a mastery of Ferrum power that was, frankly, breathtaking.

  His own small victory against Kenta suddenly felt… insignificant by comparison. He had surprised them with Fang’s lightning, yes. He had used a subtle trick with his hidden steel wire. But Jothi… Jothi had dominated, effortlessly, without even breaking a sweat, without even needing to call upon her spirit companion.

  He felt a familiar pang, not of jealousy this time, but of something closer to… aspiration? A grudging, almost reluctant, respect. She was good. Damn good. And for the first time since his return, Lloyd felt a genuine spark of something akin to fraternal pride. His sister, the disappointment-turned-prodigy, was a force to be reckoned with. The Ferrum Family Summit, he realized with a dawning, slightly unsettling, clarity, was far from over. And the most interesting battles, it seemed, were yet to come.

  —

  The Ferrum Family Summit tournament had progressed with a relentless, almost brutal, efficiency. Matches were fought, victories declared, egos bruised, and the occasional piece of ancestral furniture inadvertently damaged by an overenthusiastic Void blast. The initial shock of Lloyd’s surprisingly competent takedown of Kenta Ferrum had slowly given way to a grudging, if still somewhat bewildered, acceptance that the ‘drab duckling’ might, just might, have a few unexpected feathers in his cap. He still wasn’t considered a serious contender by most – Jothi’s effortless dominance and Rayan’s simmering, aggressive power were clearly the main attractions – but he was no longer the guaranteed comedic relief everyone had anticipated. He was… an anomaly. A weird, soap-making, lightning-wolf-owning anomaly who occasionally tripped people with invisible wires.

  His tea remained untouched, a silent, bitter testament to Riverian culinary failings.

  After what felt like an eternity of watching cousins pummel each other with varying degrees of skill and enthusiasm (and one rather unfortunate incident involving a rogue flock of magically summoned, extremely aggressive pigeons), the herald finally called his name again.

  “Next match! Lord Lloyd Ferrum versus… Lord Mike Ferrum of the Stonemill Ferrums!”

  Lloyd sighed internally, pushing himself up from the bench. Right. Round two. Time to shatter some more carefully constructed preconceptions. And hopefully avoid any more rogue avian attacks. Pigeons were surprisingly vicious.

  His opponent, Mike Ferrum, was a burly youth, a year or so older than Lloyd, with a square jaw, fists the size of small hams, and an expression that suggested his primary mode of communication involved blunt force trauma. He wasn’t known for his subtlety or his powerful spirit, but for his sheer, dogged physical strength and a reckless disregard for his own safety. He was the kind of opponent who would charge headfirst into a brick wall, hoping the wall would fall down first through sheer surprise. He probably saw Lloyd’s earlier victory over Kenta as a fluke, a lucky trick, and was now eager to ‘correct’ the record with some good old-fashioned brawling.

  As Mike stomped into the sparring circle, cracking his knuckles with an audible series of pops that sounded suspiciously like small bones breaking, he shot Lloyd a look that was pure, unadulterated disdain. “Heard you got lucky with Kenta, Cousin,” Mike sneered, his voice a low rumble. “Tricks won’t work on me. I don’t bother with fancy spirit dances. I fight like a true Ferrum – with my fists!” He pounded a massive fist into his open palm, the sound like a side of beef hitting a stone slab.

  “A bold strategy, Cousin Mike,” Lloyd replied, his voice mild, almost academic. “Let’s see how it plays out.” He didn’t bother with a pre-match bow. Mike probably wouldn’t appreciate the subtlety.

  “Combatants, ready!” the referee called, looking slightly apprehensive, as if anticipating the imminent destruction of more ducal property. “Begin!”

  Mike didn’t wait for a spirit summons. He didn’t waste time on posturing. He simply roared, a sound like a hungry bear discovering its favorite honey tree was empty, and charged. He moved with surprising speed for his bulk, his massive fists raised, aiming to overwhelm Lloyd with a flurry of haymakers before Lloyd could even think about summoning that ‘fancy mutt’ of his.

  Lloyd watched the approaching avalanche of muscle and fury with a calm detachment that bordered on boredom. Seriously? A straight-line charge? Does no one in this family study tactics? Or basic geometry?

  He didn’t move. He didn’t summon Fang. He simply waited.

  Chapter : 182

  Just as Mike was about to enter striking range, his face contorted in a grimace of anticipated impact, his knuckles white as he prepared to unleash his barrage, Lloyd acted. It was a repeat performance, almost contemptuously casual. A subtle shift of weight. A flick of his will.

  The invisible, whisper-thin filament of gleaming Ferrum steel snapped taut from the floor, coiling around Mike’s leading ankle with the silent, inescapable precision of a striking viper.

  Trip.

  The result was even more spectacular, and arguably more humiliating, than Kenta’s earlier face-plant. Mike, a charging bull suddenly, inexplicably, tethered by one leg, let out a bellow of surprised rage as his momentum carried him forward, his feet scrambling uselessly for purchase. He didn’t just stumble; he went airborne, executing a perfect, if entirely involuntary, somersault over his own entangled ankle, before crashing down onto the stone floor with a resounding, bone-jarring THUD that probably registered on the ducal seismograph. The air rushed from his lungs in a whoosh. He lay there, stunned, winded, looking like a particularly large, angry turtle that had just been unceremoniously flipped onto its back.

  Before Mike could even register what had happened, before he could even attempt to push his dazed, aching body upright, Lloyd was there. Not with a sword, not with a Void blast. But with Fang.

  The wolf-spirit materialized beside him in a silent shimmer, not with the overt crackle of lightning this time, but with a low, menacing growl rumbling deep in his chest, his golden eyes fixed on the prone, groaning form of Mike Ferrum. Fang didn’t attack. He didn’t need to. He simply stalked forward slowly, deliberately, and placed one very large, very solid paw directly onto Mike’s chest, pinning him with a pressure that was both physically immobilizing and profoundly psychologically demoralizing. The message was clear, delivered without a single spark: Move, and you become a chew toy. A very large, very surprised, chew toy.

  Mike let out a strangled grunt, his eyes wide with a mixture of pain, disbelief, and dawning, horrified comprehension. He’d been beaten. Again. By the drab duckling. Without Lloyd even breaking a sweat. Without Lloyd even throwing a punch. Tripped by nothing, pinned by a dog. The humiliation was absolute.

  Mike stared up at Lloyd, then at the massive wolf paw pressing into his sternum, then back at Lloyd’s calm, almost smiling face. The fight was gone from him, replaced by a crushing, bitter defeat. He’d charged in like a raging bull and ended up looking like a clumsy calf that had tripped over its own hooves.

  “I… I concede,” Mike mumbled, his voice muffled by the stone floor and his own bruised pride.

  “Excellent choice,” Lloyd replied cheerfully. He nodded to Fang, who removed his paw with a final, disdainful sniff, then dissolved back into shimmering motes of light. Lloyd offered a hand to his defeated cousin. “No hard feelings, Mike? Just a friendly contest, after all.”

  Mike ignored the offered hand, scrambling awkwardly to his feet, his face flushed a furious, mottled red. He shot Lloyd one last look of pure, impotent hatred, then turned and stomped out of the sparring circle, the sound of snickering laughter from the assembled youths following him like a swarm of angry bees.

  Lloyd watched him go, a faint, almost invisible smile playing on his lips. Two down. Twenty-nine to go. This tournament might actually be… amusing. In a deeply strange, slightly sadistic, soap-empire-funding kind of way.

  He turned to acknowledge the referee, who was looking at him with an expression of profound, almost fearful, respect. Before the referee could even declare him the victor, however, a voice, sharp and authoritative, cut through the lingering murmurs of the crowd.

  “That wire! Just now! When young Mike fell!”

  Every head turned. Standing near the edge of the dais, his face a mask of stunned disbelief and dawning, almost horrified, recognition, was Lord Kyle Ferrum, head of the Ironwood branch family, a man known for his deep knowledge of Ferrum history, his traditionalist views, and his almost fanatical devotion to the ‘true’ Ferrum ways. His eyes, wide and slightly wild, were fixed directly on Lloyd, not with anger, but with a kind of shocked, almost reverent, awe.

  “Arch Duke Roy!” Lord Kyle called out, his voice trembling slightly, turning towards the dais, his gaze never leaving Lloyd. “That… that was not iron manipulation! Not the crude, forceful binding of our common bloodline! That filament… it was too fine, too strong, too precise! It gleamed like… like true steel! Tempered by fire, wielded with impossible finesse!” He took a hesitant step closer to the sparring circle, his eyes still locked on Lloyd, who now felt a cold knot of apprehension forming in his stomach. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

  Chapter : 183

  Lord Kyle’s voice rose, filled with a mixture of disbelief and dawning, almost ecstatic, certainty. “My Lord Arch Duke! The legends… the ancient texts… the whispers of the True Blood! Can it be? After all these centuries? Does your son, Lord Lloyd… can he already wield the Steel?!”

  The question, sharp as a shard of freshly broken glass, hung in the suddenly silent, utterly electrified, Grand Hall. Every eye, from the humblest branch family member to the King of Bethelham himself, was now fixed, with a new, profound, and potentially very dangerous, intensity, directly on Lloyd Ferrum. The drab duckling, it seemed, had just sprouted some very large, very shiny, and very, very problematic, steel feathers. And everyone had noticed.

  –

  The Grand Hall of the Ferrum Estate, already a tinderbox of familial rivalries, political tensions, and now, the lingering scent of electrified cousin, went utterly, deathly silent. Lord Kyle Ferrum’s question – “Can he already wield the Steel?!” – echoed off the ancient stone walls, not as a query, but as a pronouncement, a shattering revelation that resonated deep within the collective consciousness of every Ferrum present.

  Lord Kyle, his face flushed with a mixture of ecstatic discovery and fearful reverence, was still staring at him as if he’d just sprouted a second head that was reciting ancient Ferrum prophecies in flawless High Riveriyan. Several other older Ferrum lords, heads of prominent branch families, men who had spent lifetimes studying the nuances of their shared bloodline power, were now leaning forward in their seats, their expressions eerily similar to Kyle’s. The subtle signs, the nuances Lloyd had hoped would pass unnoticed amidst the chaos of the tournament – the impossible fineness of the wire, its inherent strength, the almost contemptuous ease with which he’d manipulated it – they hadn’t missed them. They had perhaps dismissed Kenta’s defeat as a fluke, a lucky trick with a surprisingly potent spirit. But Mike’s takedown, the effortless, invisible control… it had been too clean, too precise, too… Ferrum, in a way that resonated with forgotten legends and closely guarded family secrets.

  They knew. Or at least, they suspected. The veil of ‘mediocre heir’ was not just torn; it was being systematically, publicly, shredded.

  Lloyd glanced towards the dais. His father, Arch Duke Roy Ferrum, sat ramrod straight, his face an unreadable granite mask, but his eyes, those dark, penetrating Ferrum eyes, held a flicker of something… complex. Resignation? Calculated acceptance? Or perhaps, just perhaps, a sliver of grim, paternal pride that this moment, however unexpectedly, had finally arrived?

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  Viscount Rubel Ferrum, Lloyd noted with a flicker of grim satisfaction, looked as if he’d just swallowed a particularly large, particularly venomous toad. His face, already pale from his earlier public humiliation, had drained of all remaining color. His eyes, fixed on Lloyd, were wide with a mixture of disbelief, fury, and dawning, horrified comprehension. Steel Blood? In this… this soap-making, art-critiquing, inexplicably competent nephew? The carefully constructed narrative of Lloyd’s mediocrity, a narrative Rubel had subtly cultivated for years, was crumbling before his very eyes. His own ambitions, his son Rayan’s future… it all felt suddenly, terrifyingly fragile.

  Roy Ferrum finally broke the suffocating silence. He rose slowly from his chair, his movements deliberate, commanding. Every eye in the hall snapped to him. He didn't look at Lord Kyle, nor at the other murmuring branch heads. His gaze was fixed, with that unnerving, paternal intensity, directly on Lloyd.

  "Lord Kyle Ferrum of Ironwood," Roy began, his voice calm, steady, yet resonating with an authority that brooked no dissent, "your eyes, as always, are sharp. Your knowledge of our family’s true heritage, commendable." He paused, letting the words hang, then turned his gaze briefly towards the assembled clan, a subtle challenge in his eyes. "You ask if my son, Lloyd, can wield the Steel."

  He let the silence stretch for another heartbeat, building the tension, then declared, his voice ringing with a quiet, almost understated, yet absolute certainty, "Yes. He can."

  A collective gasp, quickly suppressed, rippled through the hall. Confirmation. From the Arch Duke himself. It was true. The legends were real. And the heir, the one they had dismissed, ridiculed, underestimated… he possessed it.

  Rubel Ferrum actually flinched, a visible tremor running through him. His face, if possible, grew even paler. Rayan, beside him, looked like he might spontaneously combust from sheer, impotent rage. Jothi, Lloyd noted with a pang, was staring at him, her earlier shock now overlaid with a complex mixture of disbelief, dawning respect, and perhaps, a flicker of something akin to… sibling pride? Or maybe just profound confusion. It was hard to tell with Ferrums. They were a complicated, emotionally constipated bunch.

  Chapter : 184

  King Liam Bethelham’s frown deepened. He leaned forward slightly, his gaze fixed on Roy Ferrum now, no longer the jovial ‘James’, but the shrewd monarch, his voice, though still quiet, carrying an edge of steel that matched the topic at hand. “Arch Duke Roy,” the King murmured, his words clearly intended for Roy’s ears alone, yet audible to Lloyd in the sudden, intense quiet, “if this is true… if young Lord Lloyd indeed commands the Steel Blood… then you have been remarkably… discreet… regarding his development.” The unspoken accusation was clear: You kept this hidden. Why? “To think,” the King continued, his eyes narrowed, “that you would have passed down the Truth of Ferrum, initiated him into the full rites of the True Lineage, at such a remarkably… early stage in his training…” He let the sentence hang, the implication heavy. The ‘Truth of Ferrum’, the knowledge contained within the sealed Book of Ferrum, the rituals required to break the ancestral curse and unlock the full potential of the Steel Blood… these were secrets guarded more closely than the Ducal treasury, passed down only when an heir was deemed truly ready, truly worthy. For Roy to have done so for Lloyd, the supposedly mediocre Lloyd, was almost unthinkable.

  Roy Ferrum met the King’s probing gaze without flinching. His expression remained impassive, but Lloyd saw the subtle, almost imperceptible tightening around his father’s mouth. He knew this question was coming. He knew the King would see the implications.

  "Your Majesty," Roy replied, his voice equally quiet, equally firm, subtly acknowledging the King’s true status without breaking the charade for the wider assembly, "you misunderstand." He paused, then delivered the statement that sent another, even more profound, shockwave through those few who understood its true weight. "I have not passed down the Truth of Ferrum to my son. I have not shown him the Book. I have not initiated him into the rites."

  He turned his gaze back to Lloyd, and for the first time, Lloyd saw not just paternal authority, not just ducal scrutiny, but a flicker of something else in his father’s eyes. Something akin to… bewildered awe. The same emotion he’d seen on Lord Kyle’s face.

  "It would seem, Your Majesty," Roy Ferrum stated, his voice resonating with a quiet, almost stunned, respect that was utterly foreign to their usual dynamic, "that Lloyd… my son… has discovered this path on his own. He has awakened the Steel Blood, perhaps even begun to unravel the ancestral curse, through sheer, innate talent. Through instinct. Without guidance. Without the Truths."

  King Liam Bethelham stared, his handsome face, for the first time since Lloyd had encountered him, utterly, completely, comprehensively devoid of its usual charming composure. His mouth fell slightly open. His eyes, usually so sharp, so calculating, were wide with sheer, unadulterated, royal disbelief.

  Lloyd Ferrum, the ‘drab duckling’, the soap-making heir, the boy who had stumbled into awakening ancient, legendary powers through what his father now apparently believed was sheer, dumb, accidental genius?

  The King looked from Roy Ferrum’s grave, almost reverent face, to Lloyd Ferrum’s carefully neutral, inwardly panicking expression. He looked at the stunned, disbelieving faces of the Ferrum clan. He looked back at Roy.

  The Ferrum Family Summit, Lloyd thought, as he felt the weight of the King’s astonished, suddenly very focused gaze land back on him, had just taken another sharp, unexpected, and probably incredibly dangerous, turn. And his soap sales projections were looking increasingly irrelevant in the face of impending inter-kingdom power re-evaluations. This, he decided, was definitely going to require more than just good tea to get through.

  —

  The Grand Hall remained suspended in a state of stunned, almost reverent, silence. King Liam Bethelham was still processing the bombshell revelation of Lloyd’s ‘instinctive’ awakening of the Steel Blood, his handsome face a mask of profound, analytical disbelief. Arch Duke Roy Ferrum stood on the dais, radiating a grim, almost reluctant, paternal pride. The Ferrum clan elders were muttering amongst themselves in hushed, awestruck tones, their earlier skepticism replaced by fearful respect. Viscount Rubel looked like he might actually be physically ill. Rayan was practically vibrating with a rage so potent it was a miracle his impeccably tailored tunic hadn’t spontaneously combusted. Jothi stared at Lloyd with an expression that was an unreadable cocktail of shock, confusion, and something that might, just might, have been a grudging, almost pained, reassessment of her ‘disappointing’ older brother.

  Lloyd, the epicenter of this sudden, chaotic storm of revelation and political recalibration, just wanted his terrible tea back. And maybe a very large, very soundproof hole to hide in for the next fifty years.

  Lloyd watched, a flicker of morbid curiosity overcoming his own desire for invisibility. Faria and Rosa. The fiery Southern Marquess’s daughter and the icy Northern Ice Princess. This should be… interesting. Or possibly just very, very awkward. Like watching two glaciers attempt polite conversation.

  Chapter : 185

  “Lady Rosa,” Faria began, her voice a low, conspiratorial murmur, yet carrying clearly enough for Lloyd, and probably half the hall, to overhear, thanks to the lingering, almost preternatural silence. Her tone was no longer challenging or haughty, but filled with a genuine, almost effusive, admiration. “Forgive my intrusion, but I simply had to offer my… congratulations.”

  Rosa tilted her head slightly, a silent, questioning gesture. Congratulations? For what? For successfully enduring a tedious family summit? For managing not to spontaneously freeze the potted fern with a disapproving glare?

  Rosa remained silent, her veiled face giving nothing away. Lloyd cringed internally. Oh, here we go. Faria’s about to sing my praises to my wife, who probably still thinks I’m a mildly perplexing, sofa-dwelling lifeform who occasionally smells of experimental soap. This is going to be a masterclass in awkward.

  Faria, however, was oblivious to Lloyd’s internal discomfort, caught up in the thrill of the revelation. “He kept it so remarkably well hidden!” she continued, her eyes shining. “That display in the Guild Hall, his drawing… I thought it merely unconventional, perhaps a touch eccentric! But now… now I see the depth! The power! The sheer, understated confidence of a man secure in his true abilities!” She leaned closer to Rosa, her voice dropping again, becoming almost girlish in its enthusiasm. “You are a fortunate woman, Lady Rosa. To be wed to such a man! So full of… unexpected strengths. Hidden depths. And,” she added, a mischievous twinkle entering her amethyst eyes, a hint of her earlier competitive fire returning, but directed now in a surprisingly different, almost camaraderie-seeking way, “quite an artist too, in his own… unique, rather terrifyingly precise, fashion! It makes one quite… jealous, I confess!” She laughed, a light, genuine sound that seemed utterly out of place in the usually frigid atmosphere surrounding Rosa.

  Rosa Siddik, throughout this effusive, almost gushing, monologue, remained perfectly still. Her veiled face betrayed no emotion. Her obsidian eyes, fixed on Faria, held no flicker of surprise, no hint of pleasure, no trace of agreement. If Faria had been hoping for a shared moment of wifely pride or perhaps even a flicker of female solidarity over the unexpected brilliance of their shared acquaintance (one by marriage, one by near-death-monster-battle-and-flower-retrieval), she was to be sorely, comprehensively, disappointed.

  Lloyd watched, a familiar sense of weary resignation settling over him. Rosa wasn’t just an Ice Princess; she was an emotional black hole, absorbing praise, criticism, enthusiasm, and existential dread with equal, unnerving, impassivity. He almost felt sorry for Faria. Almost.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity of Faria’s enthusiastic pronouncements meeting Rosa’s silent, veiled indifference, Rosa spoke. Her voice, when it came, was the usual cool, crisp monotone, utterly devoid of warmth or inflection.

  Translation, Lloyd’s internal eighty-year-old cynic supplied: Yeah, he’s weird. I’ve noticed. Still trying to figure out if he’s a harmless eccentric or a ticking time bomb of questionable life choices and alarming magical phenomena. Mostly, he just leaves soap residue in the washroom.

  Faria blinked, her enthusiastic smile faltering slightly at Rosa’s clinical, almost detached, response. This wasn't the reaction she'd expected. "Oh," Faria managed, a hint of confusion entering her voice. "So… you were also unaware of his… full potential?"

  "Awareness of Lord Lloyd’s potential, Lady Faria," Rosa replied, her voice as smooth and cold as glacier ice, "is a fluctuating variable, subject to frequent, often bewildering, recalibration." She paused, then added, with a subtle emphasis that was, for Rosa, almost theatrical in its implications, "His capacity for generating… unforeseen outcomes… appears to be considerable."

  Then, as if sensing Faria’s lingering, perhaps even intensifying, interest in the ‘Lloyd Ferrum anomaly’, Rosa did something truly unexpected. A subtle shift in her posture, a fractional narrowing of her visible obsidian eyes. A faint, almost imperceptible, line appeared between her dark brows, a tiny indentation in the smooth perfection of her forehead.

  A frown.

  Rosa Siddik, the Ice Princess, the queen of serene indifference, was actually frowning. Not a frown of anger, or annoyance, or even disapproval. But a frown of… something else. Something that looked suspiciously like… territorial displeasure? Directed not at Lloyd, but at Faria’s enthusiastic, almost proprietary, interest in him.

  It was gone in an instant, smoothed away by her usual icy composure, so fleeting Lloyd almost convinced himself he’d imagined it. But he’d seen it. That tiny, almost invisible, crack in the glacial facade. And it was… baffling.