As the two black-iron demon warriors stepped forward, their gauntleted hands stretching out to rip Sylaris away from Zaliyah's lap, the air completely fractured. Zaliyah stood up in a fluid motion. The parternal, protective rage within his core detonated. His silver hair began to glow with a blinding, ethereal light, throwing violent shadows against the petrified wood bookshelves.
He closed his eyes, his pale lips moving in a low chant, muttering ancient words of power.
The headmistress stepped back, her glasses slipping down her nose, while the grey-skinned teacher looked on in confusion.
They couldn't make sense of the dialect, it wasn't the Usual tongue of the Northwest, it was something different ,far older.
Zaliyah raised his slender hand, his fingers curving to summon the rabid snow monsters from the mountain peaks to tear this room to shreds.
But before the frost could manifest, a large, dark-gloved hand clamped down on his wrist with a vice-like grip, completely cutting off the flow of his spell.
"Dada, look!" Sylaris suddenly jumped in joy in Zaliyah's arms, her blue eyes sparkling. "It's Xulthas!"
The headmistress, the teacher, and the two black-iron guards froze. In unison, their bodies dropped into a deep, trembling bow, their foreheads nearly touching the floor. "Commander."
Xulthas stood still , his imposing silhouette casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the violet fire of the chandelier. His face was a portrait of cold fury, his green eyes boring directly into the silver-haired man before him.
"What do you think you are doing, Zaliyah?" Xulthas asked.
Zaliyah didn't shrink back. He bared his teeth, forcefully pulling his wrist out of Xulthas's grasp with a violent jerk. "What does it look like I am doing... Commander? I am protecting my blood."
Before Xulthas could answer, the doorway filled with more familiar faces. Iruna, Thalassa and Harun emerged from the shadows behind him, their expressions tight.
The moment Sylaris's eyes fell on Iruna, the tension completely vanished from her small body. Her little, pale, chubby cheeks flushed a bright red with excitement.
"Auntie Iruna!" she yelled in pure joy.
The fat child began to dance wildly in Zaliyah's arms, her little boots kicking against his silks, her arms flailing as she tried to launch herself toward her favorite auntie. But the moment her blue eyes drifted a few inches to the left and landed on Thalassa, who was standing too close to Iruna, the joy vanished. Sylaris instantly stopped dancing. She folded her arms over her chest and pouting.
Iruna stepped forward, a soft, relieved smile breaking across her face as she extended her arms to carry the heavy toddler. "Come here, my little sun."
Sylaris turned her head away with a dramatic sniff. "Don't touch me. I don't like you anymore."
Thalassa grinned, a taunting amused glint in her eyes. "Great," she muttered, unbothered by the child's attitude. "More room for me." With a cocky movement, Thalassa reached out and wrapped her arm around Iruna's waist, pulling the Chamberlain tightly against her side.
Harun shifted his weight, clearing his throat and looking down at his boots in embarrassment, while the young schoolteacher simply blinked , she couldn't make sense of what was happening.
Sylaris, however, could not let Thalassa have the upper hand. Seeing the Deputy commander claim her auntie was the ultimate insult.
Forgetting her grudge, the little girl lunged forward, wrapping herself around Iruna's neck like a stubborn tangerine, clinging so tightly that Iruna had to stagger back a step to catch her weight.
The headmistress stood up slowly from her chair, her gaze darting between the overlapping couples, the guard, and the child. She looked lost, unable to comprehend why her high-security administrative office had suddenly turned into a chaotic family reunion.
She cleared her throat, trying to regain her professional dignity.
"Commander ..... to whom do I owe this pleasant surprise? We are currently dealing with a severe matter of imperial security regarding this child's—"
Xulthas completely ignored her greetings. He didn't even turn his head to look at her desk. His eyes remained fixed on Zaliyah's angry face. "What happened here?" he demanded.
"She threatened to harm my daughter," Zaliyah replied. "She called her a fraudulent threat. She ordered her guards to lay hands on her."
Xulthas's face twisted into something monstrous. The air in the room instantly changed, it became so oppressive that the young teacher gasped, dropping to her knees from the overbearing effects of the Commander's aura.
The headmistress, sensing the shift, felt a cold sweat break out across her neck. She tried to stammer out an explanation, her hands shaking against her black gown.
"Co-Commander... please understand... the child is not a pure-bred demon. Her phenotypes... her magic... I suspect she is a—"
Before the word Celestial could fully leave her lips, Xulthas raised his hand in the air. His clawed fingers tore through the space before him, drawing a glowing emerald rune with terrifying speed.
"By the void," Xulthas muttered.
The moment the words left his lips, there was no explosion. There was no spray of blood. Instead, a terrifying sound of fabric and bone dissolving filled the room. In a single blink, the headmistress and the two black-iron demon warriors simply ceased to exist.
They were unmade in an instant, leaving behind nothing but three heaps of gray ash on the stone floor.
Sylaris watched the display from Iruna's shoulder, her blue eyes sparkling with fascination. She clapped her chubby hands together, a giant smile plastered on her face.
"Again! Again! Do it again, Xulthas!"
While the child was delighted, the young teacher was horrified. She fell back against the shelves clutching her chest, her eyes wide as she stared at the piles of ash that used to be her superiors. She couldn't make sense of the casual brutality she had just witnessed.
Thalassa didn't give the woman time to recover. She kept her arm around Iruna's waist, gently pulling her toward the exit. "Let's go. There's nothing more to see here. The paperwork is finished."
As they turned, Sylaris looked at Zaliyah , gesturing with her fingers"Come dada".
Zaliyah gave a nod, his glowing hair slowly returning to its natural silver.
He looked down at the terrified, trembling teacher on the floor.
"I'm sorry," Zaliyah muttered softly, the words were an apology for the trauma she had been forced to witness, before Xulthas reached out to grab his arm and forcefully pulled him out of the room.
The party split into two separate coaches for the journey back home. In the first carriage, Sylaris, Thalassa Iruna, and Harun sat together.
Thalassa leaned against the velvet cushions, watching with a mixture of boredom and mild amusement as the twin Chamberlains flipped the fat child upside down, checking her joints and ruffling her hair to ensure she truly hadn't been harmed by the snow monsters.
In the second carriage, however, the atmosphere was a violent contrast.
Zaliyah and Xulthas were locked in a savage argument. The walls of the carriage seemed to vibrate with the force of their voices as the beast sprinted down the frozen mountain paths.
"You are insane, Zaliyah!" Xulthas roared, his fists clenched on his knees. "I cannot believe you were going to summon monsters inside the academy... Those are feral, ravenous beasts... You were willing to let them run rampant through grounds filled with noble children!"
"I don't care about the noble children" Zaliyah screamed back, his voice rising to a pitch that cut through the rumbling of the wheels. "They were trying to take my daughter, They were going to hand her over to an inquisitor! Why don't you understand me ? Xulthas why can't you understand me ?
"I understand that you almost caused a massacre" Xulthas yelled, leaning in, his face inches from Zaliyah's. "Zaliyah you were willing to put the lives of little, innocent kids at risk just to satisfy your own panic, how more should I understand this ?"
"I would do more than that" Zaliyah countered, his violet eyes flashing with a dangerous, unstable light. "I would burn this entire territory to the ground, I would sacrifice every single soul in the Northwest to protect my daughter from the Capital! I would do worse"
Xulthas's patience finally shattered. He stood up as much as the low ceiling of the carriage allowed, his voice booming like thunder. "What the fuck are you saying, Zaliyah?!You are no different from Malachi!"
The name hit the interior of the carriage like a physical strike.
Zaliyah went rigid. The silver strands of his Hair erupted into a blinding, celestial luminescence that filled the carriage with a terrifying, white-hot light.
His eyes turned vacant, the purple irises drowning in a sea of pure, radiant energy. The calm, reserved facade he had maintained for four years was completely obliterated by the deep hatred he carried for Malachi.
"HOW DARE YOU..." Zaliyah whispered, his voice sounding like a chorus of a thousand echoing spirits. "How dare you compare me to that monster!"
As the final syllable left his lips, a colossal, unnatural storm broke out across the mountain pass.
The sky went pitch black in a matter of seconds.
Outside, the great pine trees surrounding the road were violently uprooted from the frozen earth, their massive trunks snapping like twigs as they were sucked into the air.
In the leading carriage, Thalassa, Iruna, and Harun instantly pressed their faces against the glass window, their eyes widening in terror.