Episode-206

Words : 1531 Updated : Sep 27th, 2025

Chapter: 411 High above the teeming square, however, the scene had not gone unnoticed. It had been observed with a cool, sharp, and deeply unimpressed, clarity from a vantage point of immense, almost absolute, privilege. A lavish carriage, its lacquered panels the color of clotted cream, its wheels and fittings gleaming with polished, silver-gilt, stood parked in a shaded, private alcove overlooking the main square. It was a vehicle of such exquisite, understated elegance that it seemed to radiate its own aura of untouchable authority. The roaring lion crest of the Royal House of Bethelham, rendered in flawless, intricate silver inlay on the carriage door, was a silent, powerful declaration of its owner’s status. This was not the carriage of a mere duke or marquess. This was a vessel of the Crown. Inside, cushioned by seats of deep, crimson velvet and surrounded by the faint, clean scent of polished wood and expensive leather, sat a young woman. She was watching the market below through the carriage’s large, crystal-clear window, her posture as straight and unyielding as a drawn sword. She was stunningly beautiful, but her beauty was not the soft, ethereal grace of a courtly lady. It was a sharp, fierce, almost intimidating beauty, the beauty of a predator, of a warrior queen. Her hair was a thick, glorious mane of golden-blonde, currently wrestled back into a practical, tight braid that fell over one shoulder, though a few rebellious strands had escaped to frame a face that was all sharp, intelligent angles. High cheekbones, a strong, determined jaw, and a mouth that seemed to be permanently set in a line of faint, regal disapproval. But it was her eyes that truly commanded attention. They were a pale, piercing, almost icy, shade of blue, the color of a winter sky. They were not the eyes of a pampered princess; they were the eyes of a general, of a strategist, constantly observing, assessing, judging. And at this particular moment, they were narrowed in a look of pure, unadulterated contempt. This was Princess Isabella of Bethelham, the King’s only daughter, a warrior in her own right, and a woman whose reputation for a fierce temper and an even fiercer sense of honor was legendary throughout the kingdom. “Disgraceful,” the Princess muttered, her voice a low, exasperated rumble that held none of the delicate, high-pitched tones favored by the other ladies of the court. She turned from the window, her icy-blue gaze settling on the figure standing silently, at ease, near the carriage door. “Did you see that, Eva? Utterly disgraceful.” Her companion was a woman who seemed to be her perfect opposite and her perfect mirror. Dressed in the light, articulated plate armor of the Royal Lion Guard, her own dark hair was cut in a short, severe, practical style. Her face was plain, her expression one of disciplined, professional neutrality. But her presence was a rock of unwavering, absolute competence. This was Captain Eva, the commander of the Princess’s personal guard, her most trusted companion, her shadow. “I did, Your Highness,” Captain Eva replied, her voice calm, level, betraying no emotion. “A nobleman,” Isabella continued, her voice rising slightly with a kind of righteous, incredulous fury, “in the middle of the Royal Market, in broad daylight, accosting a common market girl. Making her cry. Making a public spectacle of himself, weeping and wailing like a heartbroken troubadour in a bad play.” She shook her head, a gesture of profound, almost visceral, disgust. “He harasses a commoner, humiliates himself, and brings shame upon his entire class. The man has the character of a spoiled child and the emotional control of a teething toddler. Who is he? I do not recognize him. Some minor baron from the provinces, drunk on city wine and his own self-importance?” Captain Eva, who missed nothing and forgot nothing, did not hesitate. “That was not a minor baron, Your Highness,” she stated, her voice still perfectly flat, a simple delivery of fact. “That was Lord Lloyd Ferrum. Heir to the Arch Duchy of Ferrum.” Isabella froze, her hand, which had been gesturing dismissively, stopping mid-air. The contempt on her face hardened, solidified, into a look of cold, sharp, and deeply personal, recognition. “Ferrum?” she breathed, the name tasting like ash in her mouth. “Lloyd Ferrum? Jothi’s brother?” “The same, Your Highness,” Eva confirmed. A wave of memories, of conversations, of shared frustrations, washed over Isabella. She thought of her friend, her respected peer from their shared, competitive years at the Bathelham Royal Academy. Jothi Ferrum. Fierce, proud, brilliant Jothi. A woman whose strength of will and mastery of her Void power Isabella had always admired, even as they clashed in the training yards and the debate halls. Chapter: 412 And she remembered Jothi’s stories. The quiet, bitter resentments whispered late at night in their dormitory rooms, after a particularly grueling day of trying to live up to the immense expectations placed upon her. Stories of her older brother. Lloyd. Jothi had never spoken of him with affection. Her words had been laced with a mixture of shame, frustration, and a profound, almost weary, contempt. She had described him as a shadow, a disappointment, a weight that she was forced to carry. “He is a disgrace, Isa,” Jothi had confided once, after a particularly brutal sparring session where she had bested three upper-classmen in a row. “He shames our name. He was given every advantage, every opportunity, at this very Academy... and he wasted it. He fled from the training yards. He slept through his lectures. He possessed the potent Steel Blood of our main line, and he treated it like an inconvenience. He is... a coward. A weakling.” Another memory surfaced, sharper, more venomous. A letter Jothi had received from her father, urging her to redouble her efforts, to compensate for her brother’s failings. Jothi had read it, her face pale, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “Scum,” Jothi had hissed then, the word a quiet, venomous viper of pure, undiluted frustration. “Because of him, I have to be twice as strong, twice as perfect. Because he is a spineless, unambitious scum, I must carry the honor of our house alone.” Isabella had listened, her own heart burning with a fierce, protective anger on her friend’s behalf. She had always despised weakness, apathy, the failure to live up to one’s potential. And this Lloyd Ferrum, this faceless, unknown brother, had become, in her mind, the very embodiment of those failings. A disgrace to a powerful house. A burden to a brilliant sister. And now, she had seen him. She had witnessed, with her own eyes, the proof of Jothi’s bitter assessment. She had seen him, the heir to a great Ducal house, a man of immense privilege and responsibility, having a hysterical, emotional breakdown in the middle of a public market, terrifying a common girl with his bizarre, uncontrolled behavior. Jothi was right. He wasn't just a disappointment. He was an embarrassment. He was a man utterly lacking in the discipline, the composure, the very honor, that their class was supposed to represent. A cold, hard, and deeply satisfying resolve settled in Isabella’s heart. Her father, the King, had summoned this man to the capital. And now, in his infinite, and clearly misguided, wisdom, he had appointed him as a ‘Special Professor’ at the Academy. Her academy. “Eva,” the Princess said, her voice now dangerously quiet, the icy calm before a blizzard. She turned away from the window, her pale blue eyes holding a glint of steel. “Your Highness?” “When Lord Lloyd Ferrum arrives at the Academy,” Isabella commanded, her voice a low, precise promise of future conflict, “ensure that I am... informed. Immediately.” She paused, a slow, predatory smile touching her lips, a smile that held no warmth, only the promise of a very hard, very necessary, lesson. “It seems,” she murmured, more to herself than to her Knight Captain, “that since his sister is no longer here to do it, someone will have to teach this dishonorable nobleman a long-overdue lesson in manners. And I,” her smile widened, a flash of white teeth, “am a very dedicated teacher.” The drab duckling had not just made a public fool of himself. He had, without even knowing it, made a new, very powerful, and deeply, profoundly, unimpressed, enemy. And she was waiting for him at the very place he had once fled in disgrace. — The two days following Lloyd’s disastrous, emotionally fraught excursion to the Royal Market were a self-imposed prison of quiet, focused work. He threw himself into the minutiae of his burgeoning empire with a desperate, almost manic, intensity. The emotional chaos of the encounter, the haunting image of Airin’s face, was a beast he could only keep at bay by burying it under an avalanche of logistics, schematics, and financial projections. He did not speak of the incident to anyone, not even Ken. It was a private, humiliating failure, a vulnerability he could not afford to acknowledge, let alone dwell on.

Episode-206

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