"That gold-stuffed pig dares to insult me like this?"
Duke Martel Vaedrin's voice, usually a precisely modulated instrument of power, trembled now with a fury barely restrained. His jaw, clenched so tight the muscles stood out in sharp relief, ground the words out like ice cracking under immense pressure. The crumpled report in his hand, a damning testament to his thwarted plans, seemed to flutter not from his grip, but from the sheer, tangible cold seeping into the grand, opulent study. His eyes blazed, twin points of incandescentfury, yet paradoxically, his very aura ran arctic, chilling the air around him.
The dragon's kin—missing.
Her escort—slaughtered.
At first, Martel, in his arrogance, had chalked up the frustrating delay to the earlier downpour—minor, inconvenient travel complications. But this? This was too calculated, too perfectly executed to be simple misfortune. This was a message, scrawled in blood and mud. And now, after scrambling his best spies, after arriving late to a critical gathering that had already come and gone, leaving him on the outside—he was expected to pretend? To accept this blatant humiliation?
"As if he's calling me slow. Stupid," Martel growled, the words a low, guttural rumble under his breath as he began to pace the richly carpeted floor. With each agitated step, the temperature around him dropped perceptibly. A thin, shimmering layer of frost began to crawl across the polished oak of the study walls, spreading like intricate veins of pure, crystalline rage. Delicate, wicked **ice crystals** bloomed on the heavy, carved oak door, sparkling with an ephemeral beauty. His imposing desk, usually a bastion of order, now sat half-encased in a shell of shimmering, ethereal ice, a silent testament to his barely contained power.
Minister Bael, a figure of perpetual quiet, had stood by the frost-glazed window until now, his expression as unreadable as a frozen pond. He finally spoke, his voice as cool and sharp as cut glass, a stark contrast to Martel's simmering rage.
"No matter how obvious the motive, your Grace, there's not a shred of tangible evidence tying King George's hand directly to this… incident. A wrong step now could crack the entire board, shatter our alliances. But make no mistake," Bael continued, his eyes meeting Martel's with a chilling certainty, "there's something significant afoot. Something precisely orchestrated."
Martel paused in his furious pacing, the very air around him seeming to hold its breath. Bael's words always carried the bitter, undeniable taste of truth, cutting through even the Duke's most vehement self-deceptions.
"The report said the fight wasn't a fight at all, your Grace. A massacre. Clean, ruthless. Far too precise for common bandits, even desperate ones. I'd wager the only thing left behind was a body part or two—enough to spin a tale, enough to bait us into a wild chase."
Bael turned fully, his gaze unwavering as he met the Duke's fiery stare.
"And I strongly suspect the dragon's kin was let go. On purpose. Left alive, unharmed, a loose end. All so you'd chase her into the wilds instead of looking deeper. So they can whisper behind closed doors that the great Duke Martel Vaedrin, the celebrated Dragon-Slayer, can't even clean his own mess. That he's easily distracted."
The silence that followed Bael's words stretched, taut and sharp as a newly honed blade, ready to cut.
Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, the frost stopped spreading across the room. The oppressive cold began to recede, leaving only a lingering chill.
"You're right," the Duke muttered, the words a grudging admission. His fury, no longer a raging blizzard, now smoldered, a low, deadly ember burning deep within him. He sank into his chair with an almost icy grace, his movements deliberate, controlled. He lifted a silver-rimmed goblet, its surface still shimmering with a faint layer of frost. The deep, blood-red wine inside steamed faintly, a deliberate contrast, heated by some unseen internal magic, a symbol of his lingering, controlled rage.
"I won't give that gilded bastard the satisfaction of seeing me scramble after an errant child while he plots behind his castle walls."
He took a slow, deliberate sip of the warmed wine, his gaze far away, fixed on some unseen future.
"Find the girl. Quietly. Carefully. Use the best, the most discreet. And then… when the time is ripe, and our enemies are complacent… we burn the game board. Every last piece."