The chilling indifference in his tone was a surgical strike against the girl's composure.
As the scion of the General, Rosalyn had been forged in the wild, frontier grit of the Northwest, yet within the circuit of Ragguard, she was effectively a princess.
Though her temperament was that of a spirited, unrefined waif rather than a courtly lady, the station she occupied ensured a life of constant, rhythmic appeasement from those around her.
This was the inaugural moment of her existence where a man had spurned her—treating her presence with a frigid revulsion as if she were a common nuisance. To sharpen the indignity, the magis had yet to grant her even the basic courtesy of an introduction.
She had gleaned his identity only through the fragments of his discourse with her father and the demon hunters descending from the Arkdreadnought. Moreover, this man displayed a galling indifference even in the presence of the General himself; it stoked a fire of resentment within her breast.
"You! You don't have a damn shred of respect for anyone else's heart—"
"Forgive me... I have business," the young man interjected, his tone a glacial finality.
With a fluid motion, he vaulted toward the zenith of a nearby spire and vanished over the Ragguard skyline like a flickering mirage.
"Wait! I'm coming with you!" Rosalyn bellowed after him, her voice strained with a desperate, burning defiance.
But she was far too slow. In a heartbeat, the magis had dissolved into the grey horizon, yet the sting of his rejection did not wither her resolve to join the fray; rather, it sharpened it.
She surged forward, intent on pursuing the vector of his flight, but Robin's voice arrested her stride.
"Child! Even I can't hope to keep pace with Lord Seraph... you've got no chance of catching his shadow. Don't go throwing your life away on a fool's errand." Robin advised, his tone tempered with a weary patience.
"Leave me alone!" Rosalyn barked, her feet already hammering the cobbles as she resumed her chase.
She disappeared into the labyrinthine streets before the assembly could react. Leonis could do naught but press a hand to his brow, his strength spent before he could even utter a command to restrain his headstrong scion.
✧ . ✶ . ❂ . ✶ . ✧
The interior of Ragguard was a theatre of unbridled pandemonium. The air was thick with the shrieks of the terrified, for atop the masonry, abominations of a lineage unknown to them skittered across the façades and rooftops like monstrous arachnids.
They bore the visage of the undead warped into the anatomy of a demonic beast; the populace could do no more than huddle within their dwellings, praying the shadows would not coalesce into talons to drag them into the dark.
Then, without warning, the rhythmic roar of a powerful, gathering gale resonated through the district.
"Ventus Piercingspear!" Seraph commanded, discharging a triad of spectral lances with clinical celerity.
[Voooom!]
The emerald mageia ignited, tearing through the firmament with such violence that the atmospheric friction birthed jagged static discharges. These barbed armaments, engorged with the concentrated essence of the gale, transfixed the three Crawlers mid-prowl; the impact emitting a rhythmic, bone-jarring shockwave.
The lances hollowed out the predators' frames, the kinetic force hurling them backward into the masonry of the surrounding thoroughfares. Detonations of pulverised brick and mortar choked the air, yet the cacophony was as brief as it was brutal.
The surgical strike had interposed itself between the innocent and the grave at the definitive heartbeat. Trembling, the populace emerged from the shadows of their bolted doors, their gazes searching for the source of the tectonic upheaval that had just reshaped their street.
They beheld the apex killers—beasts that had reaped a harrowing toll across the district—now reduced to cooling husks upon the cobbles. To the survivors, the tableau was a defiance of reason.
The three monsters lay in a grotesque, powerless heap, sallow emerald vitriol haemorrhaging from the cavernous apertures in their chests. Death had claimed them with an absolute finality that left the onlookers reeling in disbelief. Only minutes prior, these had been tireless engines of slaughter; now, they were merely offal.
The architect of this salvation stood solitary amidst the triumvirate of carcasses—a lone magis whose presence seemed to anchor the very air.
Simultaneously, the rhythmic din of war began to resonate across the wider circuit of Ragguard. The air grew thick with the guttural shouts of the garrison and the dissonant shrieks of the demonic swarm. The tide had turned; the interior infestation was being systematically purged.
Bolstered by the arrival of the demon hunters, the Ragguard sentries had at last regained their footing, reclaiming the initiative to fell the predators through their own grim resolve.
The rhythmic staccato of boots echoed against the cobbles as the huntress descended from the gables, vaulting toward the young magis with laboured breath.
"You... huff... is it already over?" Rosalyn gasped, her lungs burning.
She had been engaged in a frantic pursuit of Seraph across the Ragguard circuit, catching only the fading echoes of his Art. On the rare occasion her stride matched his velocity, she arrived only to find the theatre of war already stilled—the life-force of the Crawlers extinguished before she could draw steel.
Seraph pivoted, regarding the girl with a flicker of clinical incomprehension.
"To what end do you persist in shadowing my path? Why have you not joined the rearguard in securing the carcasses?" the young man queried, his tone one of earnest pragmatism. "These husks, emaciated as they appear, command a bounty of ten gold coins per specimen. If you help with the harvest, I'll grant you a fair share of the bounty—equal to the Bloody Hunting rate."
"I've no need for your gold! I have more than enough already!" Rosalyn countered, her indifference absolute.
"In that case... what is it you want from me?" he demanded, stripping the conversation to its barest bones.
"I only wanted to stand at your flank... is that such a crime?" Rosalyn murmured, her face clouded with melancholy.
Seraph felt the onset of a rhythmic throb at his temples; he had little patience for the dejected affectations of the highborn.
"It is no crime... but your persistence is a gamble with the grave. A Crawler, feigning death in the ruins, could gut you from the shadows while your focus is tethered to my shadow," Seraph explained, striving for a bluntness she might actually grasp.
"You... you're worried about me?" Rosalyn stammered, a sudden, crimson flush creeping across her cheeks.
The girl's mercurial shift into exuberance was an enigma that eluded Seraph's wit more thoroughly than the most complex weave of the gale.
"I did not imply..." the young man began, his voice laden with a weary resignation. " Fine, I have some concern for you, as I would for any new acquaintance. Moreover, you are the scion of Ragguard's Lord Governor. Should you come to harm, I would face not only Leonis's censure but the sharp displeasure of the Arkflame Royal Court as well."
"You're worried about me... tee-hee," the girl giggled, a sudden, radiant pride blooming across her features.
She ducked her head, whispering to herself as if tallying a private victory, a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes.