Chapter 341: The Meeting IX
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No one in the camp dared to react.
Mihos was the first whose body remembered obedience enough to pull back. Not that far. Only after Seraphiel released the pressure around his fist. He stepped back half a pace, his face was tight, pride hit in three directions at once. Before his own men. Before lower Dawn. Before the aunt he could neither dismiss nor challenge lightly.
At least not yet.
Sekhmet also withdrew his hand when her fingers loosened from the blood blade. The weapon dissolved at once into dark red mist and vanished.
No point waving anger after the moment had already been stolen.
Elena watched from the side with a calm expression that hid more than it showed. She had felt Seraphiel’s transmission earlier. She had listened to it. Now, seeing Seraphiel stop the collision exactly at the point where real damage would have turned the meeting into a house wound, she gave the smallest inward acknowledgment.
It was the correct timing.
The three rank-three maids relaxed by less than an inch.
Bat Bat looked both disappointed and thrilled.
Kess nearly collapsed from relief he would never admit to.
Stephen was approaching now from the pavilion side after Seraphiel’s movement forced the whole camp into a higher order of silence, feeling his own chest ease for the first time in several minutes. Good. Better this than corpses and explanations.
Mihos straightened first, forcing his expression back toward something noble, though the interruption had clearly cut through his control. "Aunt Seraphiel," he said, more carefully now, "this was a family matter."
Seraphiel turned her head toward him.
"So was setting a road on fire with your fists, apparently."
Mihos’s jaw tightened.
Sekhmet said nothing.
He was still looking at Mihos, not her, and that alone told Seraphiel enough. The boy had not lost his anger merely because a stronger hand had interrupted it. Better. Anger could be trained. Emptiness could not.
Then Seraphiel’s gaze shifted to Sekhmet fully.
And for the first time since she stepped between them, something softer and older moved through her expression.
Only a little. Only for him. Eyra’s son. Still standing. Still looking at the heir like he had not come nearly close enough to settle anything.
"Good. Very good."
Sekhmet was the first to speak. His voice was steady, but the heat from the interrupted fight had not fully left it.
"Why are you here?"
Lady Seraphiel lifted one brow.
"That is your first question."
Sekhmet replied, "Yes."
Good, she thought. Not distracted by Mihos. Not dazzled by old family names. Not even softened by seeing her step in at the last moment. Straight to the missing piece.
He went on before she answered.
"Yesterday you left the house saying you would take care of Lily’s matter with her father. After that, you did not return." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Now you are here, in Mihos’s camp, stopping my fight."
Mihos’s mouth moved faintly at my fight, but he was wise enough not to interrupt. Seraphiel was still in the center of the road, and the memory of both his fist and Sekhmet’s blood blade being stopped by her hands remained too fresh for stupidity.
Lady Seraphiel answered in the same calm tone she used when discussing tea or murder, depending on what the day required.
"I took care of the city lord’s matters. We will speak about that later." Then she inclined her head very slightly toward the camp. "Afterward, I came here to meet with Head Butler Stephen. He is an old friend. Just like Elena."
That turned several eyes at once.
Stephen, who had now come close enough to stand within proper conversation range, looked toward Elena.
Elena looked back.
For one quiet second, twenty years crossed the road between them.
Stephen had changed.
Time had not softened him. It had thinned him into something even sharper and more exact. His posture remained perfect. His face carried the measured restraint of a man who had spent too long standing in rooms where any visible reaction could become political currency. His hair held more silver now. His eyes held more caution.
Elena had changed too, though less visibly.
She had always been iron in silk. Now she was an iron that had learned patience.
Stephen bowed first. Not deeply. Not coldly.
"Elena."
Her eyes moved over him once, taking in every line age had carved and every line duty had refused to let age touch.
"Stephen."
Mihos looked from one to the other with mild interest. Bat Bat looked with immoderate interest.
Stephen allowed himself the faintest movement at one corner of his mouth. "It has been a long time."
"Twenty years," Elena said.
"That exact."
"You were always irritatingly precise."
Stephen inclined his head. "And you were always kind enough to notice."
Bat Bat whispered to one of the maids, much too audibly, "They talk like old knives."
The maid almost died internally and kept her face blank by force.
Elena did not look at Bat Bat, but the slightest stillness in her shoulders made Bat Bat decide silence remained her wisest available skill.
For the moment.
Lady Seraphiel stepped fully into command then, because if she allowed the road to remain a half-fight and half-reunion much longer, the whole meeting would rot into needless insult again.
"Enough," she said.
No one objected. Not Mihos. Not Sekhmet. Not the guards.
That too reminded everyone present of exactly what she was and why.
She turned to Mihos first.
"Did you order Iron House to move against Sekhmet?"
The question landed like a blade laid flat on a table. Not swinging. Not hidden. Simply there, demanding truth because lies in front of Seraphiel rarely aged well.
Mihos’s face did not change much.
"Yes," he said.
No apology. Of course not. He was the heir of one of the most powerful families of the middle domain.
Lady Seraphiel’s expression remained smooth. "Under whose order?"
Mihos let a small silence pass, perhaps out of annoyance, perhaps because saying it aloud in front of Sekhmet made the whole scheme sound smaller than it had felt in his head.