Despite his shattered ribs, the Fire Archduke was in excellent spirits, booming with laughter as he regaled his wife, Duchess Lysandra, with an incredibly exaggerated, fictionalized account of the battle in the Ashen Forest.
"And then, my fierce lioness, I summoned a blade of magma the size of a watchtower!" Leonidas boasted, waving a sausage in the air. "I stared the behemoth in its glowing magenta eyes, and I said—"
"You said 'Kaelus, help me', and then you were swatted into a rock like a blind mosquito," Kaelus von Nacht interrupted smoothly, not looking up from his teacup.
Leonidas choked on his sausage, turning a faint shade of red. "I was tactically repositioning! I was drawing its aggro so you could strike the flank, you ungrateful icicle!"
"Of course you were, darling," Lysandra smiled fondly, patting Leonidas's uninjured arm, her amber eyes sparkling with amusement.
