"Catch you later—"
"Might I venture forth with you?" Rosalyn interjected with a sudden, startling intensity.
Seraph, already mid-stride, checked his pace. "Venture? An adventure?" the magis echoed, his tone one of profound bewilderment.
"Indeed! I want to see the world at your side!" Rosalyn declared, her gaze alight with a fervent, crystalline shimmer.
Her voice thrummed with the excitement of one whose lifelong dream had finally been given form.
"You're mistaken! This is no 'adventure'!" Seraph countered, his visage darkening. "My vocation is the systematic eradication of the demonic blight from Laurasia. It is a long, lethal mandate with no salvation at its end. Every step I take is through thorns and the shadow of the grave. I may well die tomorrow, and to follow me is to invite the same cold end."
His eyes were grim, his features set in a mask of absolute gravity. Yet, for all his sternness, he could not extinguish the fire of curiosity and youthful defiance burning within the girl.
"I'm not afraid of the end! Everyone dies—my father included! But to die without ever seeing the horizon... that's the real waste!" Rosalyn stated with an unyielding resolve.
"You have exactly the brand of stubbornness your father described," Seraph remarked, his refusal immediate and reflexive." I won't have you following me. That's my final word."
"I am a magis of the Sanctus; I operate under the Grandmaster's direct mandate, and I seldom know where I'll be sent until I'm already afield," the young man explained, his patience thinning. "Furthermore, I am strictly forbidden from letting any outsider pry into the Sanctus's affairs."
"Then I'll just become a magis like you!" Rosalyn declared with fierce, unyielding stubbornness.
"You want the cloth of the Sanctus? Then give me a moment," Seraph murmured.
He extended his hand, pressing his index and middle fingers with ghostly softness against the girl's brow. As he closed his eyes, a faint, rhythmic luminescence began to pulse from his fingertips. In that suspended heartbeat, a spectral bond seemed to weave between them—a spherical aura of mageia expanding from their forms, tethering their essences in a brief, luminous embrace.
Throughout the rite, the girl's wide, amber eyes never left his visage. She monitored every flicker of his movement and every drifting particle of his mana with a hunger born of pure, unbridled curiosity.
Presently, Seraph opened his eyes and withdrew his hand.
"You possess a high affinity," he revealed, his tone analytical. "Your primary element is fire—the quintessential attunement for both the Sanctus and the realm of Arkflame. Though you are restricted to a single element, your internal mana threshold is exceptional, rivaling the elite initiates of the Sanctus. Since the most devastating liturgies of the Sanctus are predominantly fire-aspected, any recruiter would kill to have you in their ranks. Your entry into the order is a foregone conclusion."
"Really?! Then nothing's stopping me from coming with you, right?!" Rosalyn cried, seizing his hands in a surge of pure joy.
She began to skip and bound with a youthful, exuberant joy, convinced that the tapestry of her fate had finally aligned with her desires. In summers, Rosalyn was nearly a peer to Evelyn, yet the gulf between the two maidens was vast and profound.
Evelyn was a sovereign of the furnace—a fierce, incandescent princess who pursued her convictions with a terrifying velocity, indifferent to the toll she might pay.
Rosalyn, conversely, was the quintessential frontier waif, a creature of boundless energy and a voracious curiosity for the world beyond the walls.
The temperaments of the two maidens were sundered by a vast chasm; as Seraph regarded Rosalyn, he perceived a restless, overabundant vitality that mirrored Arthus far more than Evelyn.
"Regardless, you cannot shadow my path," Seraph stated with glacial composure. "Furthermore... I strongly advise against you pursuing the vocation of a magis."
"What?! You cruel, unfeeling man! Did you not just proclaim my suitability for the cloth?" the girl protested, her indignation rising.
"First," Seraph began, his logic a rhythmic beat of pragmatism, "partners in a common mandate must possess a near-perfect parity of skill and martial fortitude. Second, the mageia arts are a labyrinth of staggering complexity. You could languish for a decade merely to master the foundations—time you do not have if you wish to venture at my flank. Third, since you've already reached a respectable threshold in the hunter's craft, you ought to pursue that path to its zenith. An initiate magis is the frailest of combatants; you cannot measure the common recruit against my own standing. If you pivot now, your edge would wither. You would be discarding your hard-won instincts to start over as a novice."
"How utterly tedious... must the path of a magis be so fraught with bureaucratic misery?" Rosalyn grumbled, her enthusiasm dampened.
"I'm glad you grasp the reality. I really must go now—"
"Then why don't you just teach me yourself?" Rosalyn interjected with a sudden, desperate celerity.
Seraph checked his stride, nearly stumbling—not from the audacity of her request, but because she had seized the hem of his white cloak. She gripped the fabric with both hands, an unyielding anchor that broadcast a singular, stubborn intent: she would not let go until he gave in.
"My apologies... I'm bound to a mandate of slaughter," the young man stated with a firm, rhythmic finality.
"Must you hunt demons every waking hour of the day and night?!" Rosalyn cried, her voice rising in a sharp crescendo.
"Exactly. The demonic blight saturates every corner of Laurasia; I cannot afford to waste a single moment in idleness," he replied.
"Such a cold heart must leave a trail of broken spirits! I don't even have to ask to know you've crushed a thousand girls before me!" Rosalyn remarked, her indignation flaring.
"I can't help you there... I'm off—" Seraph attempted to pull away.
"Wait! Our armouries are full! Weapons, potions—anything! I'll get you whatever you need! Just initiate me into the mageia arts!" the girl proposed, desperately weaving a bargain.
"I have no time for tutelage..."
"I'll lead you through the labyrinth of the ancient battlefields myself! The terrain is a maze; without a guide like me, you'll be wandering until the grave claims you!" Rosalyn declared with a frantic intensity.
She was consumed by the fear that the magis would vanish, and so she employed every trick of persuasion she had, her knuckles white as she maintained her vice-like grip on his raiment.
"War against the abyss is a warrior's vocation... a child your age has no place in a theatre of slaughter—"
"You're barely older than I am!" Rosalyn barked, her eyes alight with a fierce, unyielding defiance. " I'm not letting go until you vow to teach me!"
Not only did the fierce light in her eyes remain unblinkingly sharp, but her hands tightened their vice-like grip upon his mageia raiment, her stare locking onto his own with a predatory focus.
This unyielding obstinacy forced the young man to recalibrate his tactical assessment.
'If I refuse her now, she'll dog my shadow until the sun withers,' Seraph mused, his mind a cold calculator. 'And as the Lord Governor's daughter, her family's backing is a resource I can't afford to throw away.'