The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

"What’s annoying?" Ravian looked at her.

"You weren’t nearly this polite when we first met," Larette said, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice.

Ravian stared at her for two seconds.

"Our first meeting ended with you offering to take me to your father’s house with two men I didn’t know," Ravian said.

"And I offered you an Eighth-Rank heart as well," Larette shot back quickly, her face reddening with embarrassment.

"And that’s why I came," he replied calmly.

Any trace of satisfaction vanished from Larette’s face.

As for Lysandra, her gaze moved slowly between the two of them.

"That isn’t what I meant," Larette said, fidgeting with her fingers in embarrassment.

"Then what did you mean?" Ravian raised an eyebrow.

Larette turned her eyes away from him for a moment, as though she herself didn’t want to put what she was feeling into clear words.

Then she said it.

"I mean that you’ve never once told me that I deserve this much respect," Larette said, her gaze moving repeatedly between Ravian and the corridor, unable to hold his gaze.

"If I didn’t value and respect you, I wouldn’t have chosen House Viola as my partners in the first place," Ravian explained.

Ravian’s usual calm returned.

"I don’t put my project and my future into the hands of someone I don’t value," Ravian said, finally bringing the matter to a close.

Something small inside Larette settled at hearing that, but it didn’t disappear entirely.

Because the way he valued her was different.

He valued her because she had opened a door he needed, and because he trusted her enough to place his project in her family’s hands.

As for Lysandra, he looked at her as though his respect for her stood on its own, needing no project and no interest of any kind to justify it.

And Larette did not like that difference.

Ravian turned and looked at Lysandra.

"But it seems I’m holding the two of you up. You were on your way to the Earl, weren’t you?" he said to her.

"Yes," Larette answered quickly, as though she were glad to have a reason to return Lysandra to the purpose she had actually come for. "Lady Lysandra didn’t come here to see you. She’s carrying a letter from her grandfather to my father."

Lysandra frowned slightly. The faint emphasis in those words hadn’t escaped her, but she didn’t comment on it.

She raised her hand, revealing a dark leather case she had been carrying at her waist.

"My grandfather asked me to deliver it to Earl Patrick in person," Lysandra said.

Ravian stepped aside from the middle of the corridor, clearing the way toward the study door.

"Then I shouldn’t keep you waiting," he said, gesturing toward the room he had walked out of only moments earlier.

Lysandra took a step, then stopped beside him.

"Wait here... Rayan."

She hesitated slightly before the name and almost pronounced it as though it were something bitter in her mouth.

Ravian raised an eyebrow.

"I didn’t say I was leaving," he replied.

"You’ve left before without saying a word," Lysandra said, her tone sharp.

The hint of a smile forming on his lips froze before it ever reached his face.

As for Larette, she turned to him at once.

The sentence applied well enough to his disappearance over the past eight days, but from the look on Lysandra’s face, Larette understood that she wasn’t talking about those days alone.

Ravian sighed.

"All right. I’ll wait," he said.

Larette watched him in silence.

She and Shmichael had needed eight days of searching for him, followed by a long stretch of questioning, just to get the barest minimum of answers out of him.

Lysandra, on the other hand, had needed nothing more than one cold look and a single sentence for him to give her a clear promise.

’What exactly is between those two?’ Larette wondered.

Ravian had no idea about the chaotic current running through Larette’s mind, and if he had known, he would have died laughing at how ridiculous her ideas were.

Larette stepped up to the study door and knocked twice.

"Come in," came a voice from inside.

Larette opened the door, then stepped back.

Lysandra went in first, while Ravian stayed out in the corridor.

Earl Patrick had returned to his seat, but he rose the instant he saw Lysandra.

"Lady Lysandra Veyla," he said, momentarily flustered.

"My lord Earl." Lysandra bowed with only the slightest inclination, the kind that suited a person of her family’s standing.

Then she drew a thick envelope out of the case, sealed with the official seal of House Veyla.

"A letter from my grandfather, Grand Duke Alexander Veyla. He asked me to see that it reached your hand and no one else’s."

The Earl extended his hand, took it from her, and examined the seal without opening it.

"It has reached me. Tell him I’ll send my reply by the usual means as soon as I’ve read it," the Earl replied.

"I’ll tell him," Lysandra said with a nod.

The Earl’s eyes then moved toward Ravian standing outside the room, then to his daughter, and finally back to Lysandra.

He noticed the tension hanging between them, but he didn’t ask.

He was a man who had spent his life in politics, and he knew that certain questions gave him more information when he left them unspoken.

Lysandra bowed once more, then left the study, and Larette closed the door behind her.

Before any of them could return to talking, the sound of Shmichael’s footsteps reached their ears from the end of the corridor.

The old retainer appeared moments later, carrying a box with both hands.

The box was made entirely of dull silver, large enough to hold a sizable heart, and its surface was covered in fine interlocking lines that ran from the lid all the way down to its base.

It wasn’t ornamented, but the way Shmichael carried it was enough on its own to make it clear that it was worth no less than what lay inside it.

He came forward until he was standing in front of Ravian.

"Sir Rayan."

He raised the box toward him with both hands.

"The heart of the Eighth-Rank creature, as my lord the Earl commanded."

Ravian looked at the box.

He couldn’t feel a single trace of soul power inside it.

No pressure, no heat, not even the faint sensation that usually emanated from materials that still retained a portion of their owners’ power.

As though Shmichael were carrying an empty box.

Ravian took it from him and felt its weight settle into his arms.

"I can’t feel anything."

"And that is exactly what it’s for," Shmichael said. "It’s a Seal Box."

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