Chapter 441 --440
Chapter 441: Chapter-440
Elara placed her quill into its crystal inkwell with a precise, silent motion. She didn’t look up at him immediately. Her internal system was currently running a massive diagnostic loop.Ever since Julian had placed that messy, unoptimized bundle of mint on her table, the localized heat behind her ribs—the "malfunction" she had been tracking—had increased by exactly four point two percent. It wasn’t painful, but it was introducing a heavy, dense rhythm into her chest that didn’t align with her standard biological telemetry.
"The minister’s physical reaction was a result of a calculated stress response," Elara flatly explained, finally lifting her vacant, glass-bead eyes to meet his ice-blue gaze. "It ensures future compliance. It is not a festive event."
Julian let out a genuine, soft laugh—a low sound that made Mahir’s ears twitch violently from the shadows.
"You really are hopeless," Julian murmured, but the words lacked their previous bite. There was an incredibly faint, tentative warmth in his eyes as he reached out, his fingers hovering just a millimeter away from the bundle of mint resting beside the imperial seal. "Don’t let the mint rot, Empress. It really does help with the calculations."
With a faint bow that was entirely too informal for a hostage prince, Julian turned and walked out of the war room, his woolen cloak billowing softly behind him. The heavy doors clicked shut, leaving only three people in the vast, cold space.
The silence that followed was instantaneous and lethal.
"Master."
Ken didn’t walk; he lunged forward, his massive, scarred hands slamming onto the obsidian map-table with a deafening ’CRACK’ that echoed off the high stone ceiling. The wood beneath his palms groaned under the sudden, violent pressure. His face was twisted into a snarl, his bared fangs gleaming under the enchanted chandeliers.
"Explain the logic," Ken roared, his voice completely stripping away the discipline of a commander, leaving only the raw, territorial fury of a beast whose mate was being taken before his very eyes. "Explain the administrative efficiency of letting an enemy prince sit in on imperial border strategy! Explain why his garbage is sitting next to the seal that rules this entire continent!"