Velara and the Dean stared, eyes wide.

  “A Class-S…?

  That’s impossible!” the Dean almost shouted.

  Kael shrugged, still eating.

  “I’m not exactly an expert on your classification stuff… but if you call Class-S ‘the Inexplicables ones,’ then yeah—I can tell you this one checked every damn box.”

  Lucanis followed up, more serious:

  “While we were camping, Althéa and Kael were alerted by footsteps.

  They woke me up. It was a girl—about our age. She was wearing an Institute uniform… but she was in bad shape.”

  “We gave her food,” Kael added, his mouth still half full.

  “But something was off. Everyone felt it. There was this unease. A strange tension.”

  Lucanis nodded.

  “And… I don’t know how, but Kael managed to push her far enough to make her drop the act.”

  Kael growled, his tone sharper, harder:

  “That little bitch… She took Althéa hostage. Grabbed her by the hair, blade pressed to her throat.”

  He briefly turned toward the princess.

  “Althéa had to cut her own hair to get free.

  And then… she put her in a hold. A really clean one. With her short hair, she looked like a warrior goddess. I was genuinely impressed. Honestly—beautiful to watch.”

  He took another bite, as if nothing had happened.

  Silence crashed down around the table.

  Althéa, red with embarrassment, snapped:

  “You idiot!”

  Kael blinked, confused.

  “What? What did I say now?”

  Velara was smiling slyly, clearly enjoying the scene.

  Kael went on, darker now:

  “After that… Lucanis—”

  “He looked like a predator on the hunt.

  He decapitated her. Cleanly.”

  Lucanis raised a hand, calm but firm.

  “Careful with your phrasing.”

  The Dean blinked several times, stunned.

  “You… killed a young girl?” the Dean said, shaken.

  “Lucanis…?”

  Kael threw his hands up, panicked.

  “No! It wasn’t her! It was him!

  It was the same one as in the cellar! It had just… evolved. Taken human form.”

  Lucanis confirmed with a nod.

  Velara frowned, intrigued.

  “Wait… I don’t get it. How did you know it was evolving?”

  Kael shrugged, setting his cutlery aside.

  “That’d take too long to explain—and I don’t have the patience.

  It confirmed it on its own. That Class-S… it knew it was changing.”

  “So we started thinking about a way to kill it. For good.”

  Lucanis continued:

  “Kael was the one who understood how it was adapting to us… through observation.”

  Kael went on, more serious than usual:

  “It was adapting to hunt better.

  To understand our reactions more precisely.”

  “But that’s where it made its mistake. It went too far.”

  He paused, his gaze fixed.

  “It took human form. And by adapting to us that deeply… it also absorbed our flaws.”

  Another pause.

  “It became arrogant.”

  He stood up with a small, self-satisfied smile, both hands raised as if pleading innocence.

  “And that’s when I had a brilliant idea.”

  Althéa and Lucanis immediately shot him a dark look.

  “What?” Kael said, feigning innocence.

  Without a word, Althéa stood, walked over to him, and delivered another sharp smack to the back of his head.

  “Your Needle-Blade.”

  Kael grumbled, picked up his weapon, and clenched it in his hand.

  Althéa lifted a finger under his chin, her gaze severe.

  “And don’t you ever say it was a brilliant idea.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Kael raised his hands, mock-offended.

  “I say that with the utmost humility!”

  Lucanis, still seated, finally spoke—his tone heavier.

  “It was a… pragmatic idea.

  But a brutally taxing one. For Althéa. And for me.”

  His eyes fixed on an invisible point ahead, jaw tight.

  “Kael had decided to be the worst traveling companion imaginable.

  For two days, he denied the danger the Class-S represented.

  He wasted our water, our food supplies… he listened to nothing. Did everything his own way.

  And above all—he categorically refused to tell us what he had in mind.”

  Althéa clenched her teeth, fists tight on her knees as those days came back to her. Her gaze hardened.

  Lucanis continued:

  “We eventually started to believe… that the Overdrawn had taken his place.

  We were consumed by paranoia. And he was acting like he was on vacation.

  We nearly did something unforgivable.”

  Silence fell.

  Then Kael raised a hand, a crooked smile on his lips.

  “Yeah, that’s true. Lucanis hit me.

  And Althéa… beat the living hell out of me until I passed out.”

  He turned toward her, mock-wounded.

  “By the way, you never even apologized for that.”

  Althéa simply turned her head away, crossed her arms, pretending not to hear.

  The Dean, visibly unsettled, stared at Kael, brows drawn tight.

  “But… why act like that? Why provoke them? Sabotage your own supplies?

  You knew they would lose trust in you.”

  Kael slowly set his cutlery down, then looked up—his tone more serious than it had ever been.

  “Exactly.”

  He folded his arms on the table.

  “I needed to push them to the breaking point.

  I needed them to isolate me.

  So the Overdrawn would think I was alone. Weak. Cast aside.”

  He paused, then went on:

  “And it worked. It came out of hiding, proud of itself.

  It thought I was defenseless.”

  He glanced briefly at Althéa and Lucanis.

  “And then they killed it. Again.”

  Kael leaned back in his chair, his gaze darkening.

  “Apparently, it’s obsessed with me.

  Because I’ve ruined every single one of its plans.”

  Velara frowned, still unconvinced.

  “Honestly… I don’t get it.

  You’re the one who looks like the weakest one in the group.”

  Althéa fixed her with an intense stare, without a word.

  A hard look—almost offended.

  Lucanis slowly lifted his eyes from his plate and said, his tone calm but firm:

  “Honestly… without him, we’d already be dead.”

  A brief silence followed.

  Althéa sighed.

  “I do have to admit he’s brilliant… sometimes.”

  Lucanis added, almost amused:

  “And he’s always the one who gets us out of the worst situations.

  In his own way.”

  The Dean and Velara exchanged a glance, then looked back at Kael.

  But this time, there was something else in their eyes, respect—something new beneath it.

  Lucanis continued, picking the thread back up:

  “After that, we camped again. And at dawn… I found him.”

  He looked at Kael.

  “A bit farther away. Outside the camp.

  Covered in blood. Unconscious.”

  The Dean straightened, visibly more concerned.

  “What happened?”

  Althéa and Kael shot each other a furtive glance.

  Both blushed instantly.

  Althéa answered, her voice cold, a little stiff:

  “We had… a minor disagreement.”

  Kael added:

  “So we stepped away from the camp to talk it out.

  Didn’t want to wake Lucanis.”

  Lucanis rolled his eyes.

  “They fought.”

  He paused, then raised an eyebrow.

  “By the way… did I tell you in what situation I found him?”

  Althéa and Kael moved at the same time, perfectly synchronized, each slapping a hand over Lucanis’s mouth.

  “That’s enough.”

  “Shut up.”

  They said it in unison.

  Velara frowned.

  The look she shot Kael spoke volumes.

  “You raised a hand against the princess?”

  Kael slowly turned his head toward her.

  What he saw made him go pale.

  Velara was staring at him as if she were about to tear him apart.

  He raised his hands in a nervous show of innocence.

  “It was her who started it. Honestly.

  I was just trying to save my own skin.”

  The Dean, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke, his tone grave:

  “Trame Bearer Kael, do you realize what you’ve done?

  Raising a hand against a member of the royal family is a crime punishable by death.

  You know that, don’t you?”

  “Even for a noble… then imagine what it means for a commoner.

  Or worse—an Ombrevu.

  Do you know what I’m risking here?”

  Kael exhaled, barely audible.

  “What was I supposed to do? Let her kill me?

  Absolutely not. I probably saved her life—more than anyone here.

  So don’t lecture me about decorum and propriety. Look at Althéa.”

  He pointed at her. Althéa had resumed eating and no longer seemed to be paying attention to the conversation.

  “Is she complaining? No.

  So where exactly is the problem?”

  Velara stood and stepped closer to Kael.

  “What—are you going to grab me by the collar again?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Without warning, she seized him and lifted him over the terrace railing, suspending him above the void with one hand.

  “You have some nerve for an Ombrevu,” she said with a cruel smile.

  “You think you’re part of the circle? That rank no longer matters because we laugh together?”

  Her tone hardened.

  “You forgot your place.

  A serious mistake.”

  Lucanis jumped to his feet, nearly knocking his chair over.

  Althéa had risen as well, frozen in shock, her gaze darting from Kael to the railing.

  The Dean stood up in turn, his voice firm, absolute:

  “Lady Velara, that is enough.

  Put him down. Now.”

  But Velara no longer heard him.

  She still held Kael above the void, suspended with a single hand, her face impassive—cold.

  Her icy blue eyes fixed on Kael as if he were nothing more than a disobedient insect.

  Kael did not look away.

  He met her stare with rare intensity.

  A dark, burning gaze—fearless.

  He didn’t tremble. He didn’t speak.

  But everything about him screamed a silent threat.

  A heavy silence fell over the terrace.

  Then Velara spoke, her tone sharp, almost mocking.

  “And who exactly do you think you’re impressing with that look?

  Me?”

  Kael answered without blinking:

  “Let me go.”

  A simple command.

  Not a request.

  Not a plea.

  A single word that snapped like a blade.

  Kael kept staring at her, impassive.

  “Kill me, then.

  Let’s get it over with.”

  A cold murmur.

  No tremor. No theatrics.

  Just a sharp certainty.

  Velara studied him, slightly unsettled.

  There was no arrogance in his eyes.

  It was worse than that—absolute calm.

  A total absence of fear.

  “I really don’t like that look,” she growled.

  Kael curved his lips into a thin, ironic smirk.

  “That’s all you’ve got?

  My look?”

  He tilted his head slightly, still suspended over the void, as if she were the one at a disadvantage.

  “You can’t stand that I talk back to you, so what do you do?

  You fall back on my birth. My blood. My place.”

  A faint scoff.

  “Kinda weak as an attack, don’t you think?

  You’ve got nothing else on me except being born in the wrong place?”

  He locked eyes with her, a mocking spark glinting in his gaze.

  “You judge easily, Velara. Too easily.

  Must be convenient—to believe you’re above everyone else just because you were born on the right side.”

  Without warning, Kael reached out and tried to grab her by the collar, a mirrored gesture.

  But Velara didn’t move.

  Not a flinch.

  Not a twitch.

  She let him try—perfectly still—her gaze fixed on him.

  Icy. Certain.

  Kael’s hand brushed the fabric, failing to truly grasp it.

  He stayed suspended like that for a moment, arm outstretched.

  Then he let it drop, a short, joyless laugh escaping him.

  “You looked impressive, Velara.”

  His voice was lower now. Sharper.

  “That strength. That presence.

  You were scary. Truly.”

  He slowly shook his head, a mocking smile on his lips.

  “But now?”

  “Now you just look pathetic.

  A noble threatening to kill an Ombrevu in front of everyone because he dared strike a princess who did the same.”

  He leaned forward slightly, forcing eye contact—merciless.

  “That’s not power.

  That’s stupidity dressed up nicely.

  Nothing more.”

  Velara said nothing.

  A smile stretched across her lips—cold. Taut.

  Her teeth clenched hard enough to creak.

  Kael saw a vein pulse at her temple.

  He understood.

  Too late.

  She looked straight into his eyes—

  no anger.

  no mercy.

  And let go.

  Kael fell into the void.