[House Veyrath — Living Quarters — Continuation]
The living quarters of House Veyrath had never been a place where people raised their voices without permission; today, however, the silence was broken by the desperate gasps of three people kneeling upon the polished sandstone floor.
The orphanage director and other teachers had been brought before the Azram under the watchful eyes of Veyrath’s guards. Their robes were stained with dust, their hands trembled against the floor, and their faces had lost every trace of the authority they once wielded over the children entrusted to their care.
Above them, the air coiled like enormous serpents.
Veyra, the great white leopard, watched from beside Azram. The currents surrounding the prisoners tightened whenever they attempted to move, leaving them struggling for breath.
"P-Please, Azram!" the director pleaded. "We beg your forgiveness! We shall leave the city and never return. We shall disappear like mice!"
Vaerun sat in a bronze-backed chair beside the low table, his silver eyes fixed on the man.
"Live like a mouse?" he repeated. "You took children who had no one to defend them, concealed their suffering, and allowed some to be sold. Yet you believe you can decide your own punishment?"
The director’s lips trembled.
Vaerun leaned back in his chair. "You have mistaken my willingness to hear your explanation for a willingness to forgive you."
At the low table beside him, Seyra was eating a honey cookie.
She had been given a plate before the prisoners arrived and seemed perfectly content to observe the proceedings while enjoying her snack. Her little feet dangled above the floor as she watched the director struggle to find an answer.
Then Vaerun glanced at her.
"Would you like to speak to them yourself, or shall I decide their punishment?"
Seyra stopped chewing before she could answer; the director seized his opportunity.
"Little miss! You know us! We cared for you when you had nowhere else to go. Surely you remember our kindness!"
Seyra slowly lowered her cookie.
"Kindness?"
"Yes!" he insisted. "We always wanted what was best for you!"
She stared at him for several seconds before turning toward her father.
"Papa, is he stupid?"
Vaerun considered the question. "His judgment certainly leaves much to be desired."
Seyra nodded solemnly, as though he had just confirmed an important scholarly finding, then she looked back at the director, her eyes darkened dangerously.
"You made me sleep on the floor when there were blankets in the storeroom. You took our food and told us to be grateful for scraps. When the little ones cried because they were hungry, you locked them away."
Her voice remained quiet; the director’s expression crumpled. Seyra placed her half-eaten cookie on the plate.
"And now you want me to remember your kindness? And now you want a second chance? You pieces of shit don’t deserve a second chance."
. . .
. . .
Silence fell across the room.
The guards exchanged brief glances. Even Ravian, who had heard Seyra make several alarming declarations since her arrival at House Veyrath, paused at the language.
The girl was four years old. Vaerun glanced at her. "Your vocabulary requires improvement."
"I learned it from adults, from orphanage adults."
. . .
. . .
Vaerun shot a dangerous glare at them, and they flinched as he said, "An unfortunate influence."
The director stared at them in disbelief. They were discussing her manners while he knelt beneath the power of the Silent Tempest.
"You cannot let a child decide the fate of adults!" he burst out. "She knows nothing of the law! She is an ignorant little beggar whom you happened to adopt!"
Vaerun rose from his chair, and the air in the room shifted. Bronze lamps rattled against their chains, and the currents holding the prisoners pressed them firmly to their knees.
Vaerun stopped before the director.
"You will not speak of my daughter that way again."
The director swallowed as Vaerun continued,
"You speak of law as though you have respected it; it looks like we need a good and fun punishment."
. . .
. . .
Vaerun returned his attention to the prisoners.
"Everyone involved in this trafficking will face judgment under imperial law and the laws of House Veyrath. Your punishment will reflect the crimes you committed, not the excuses you offer."
The director and the two teachers trembled beneath Veyra’s restraint; none dared raise their heads.
Vaerun turned toward his daughter.
"You said you had devised a punishment."
Seyra’s face brightened immediately; she hopped down from her chair and hurried to his side, her little shoes tapping against the sandstone floor.
"I did, Papa! It’s much better than whipping their backs with thorn lashes."
The room went still. Captain Ishtar slowly turned her head toward the child. Vaerun, however, merely nodded. "Very well. Let us hear it."
Seyra beamed, delighted to have everyone’s attention.
"How about a running race?"
. . .
. . .
Silence.
Vaerun looked down at her. "A running race?"
"Yes!"
"What sort of punishment is that?"
"It’s fun, Papa!"
The director’s shoulders loosened slightly. Perhaps the child had not understood the seriousness of the situation after all. A race? Surely that was something they could endure.
Then Seyra continued.
"We take them to the burning desert, where the sand gets so hot that even the wind feels like it’s on fire; they have to run without stopping, with no resting, with no hiding, and with no taking turns."
Her little face remained bright as she explained the rules.
"They keep running until they all die."
. . .
. . .
The silence that followed was absolute; even the bronze lamps seemed to burn more quietly.
The director’s mouth fell open. One of the teachers made a strangled sound, while the other stared at Seyra as though she had transformed into something far more terrible than the Grand Duke sitting beside her.
Seyra tilted her head.
"What? It’s a race. They just have to keep going until there’s no one left to win."
Captain Ishtar slowly exhaled.
"Running without rest until death?" she murmured. "That is considerably crueler than our Azram’s usual punishments."
Captain Kharzen folded his arms, his expression unusually grave.
"Especially in the burning desert, every step would become agony. They would beg to stop long before they understood there would be no mercy."
Captain Darian glanced at Seyra, then at Vaerun.
"I believe we have been fearing the wrong tyrant."
No one contradicted him.
Vaerun looked down at his daughter. For a moment, his silver eyes rested on her thoughtful little face. Then the corner of his mouth curved into a cold, approving smirk.
He ruffled her hair as he said, "Now that is the spirit of House Veyrath."
Seyra’s cheeks turned pink beneath his praise. She leaned closer to him, suddenly shy despite having just proposed a death sentence with the enthusiasm of a child suggesting a game of tag.
The prisoners, meanwhile, had gone deathly pale.
They had expected anger, imprisonment, and perhaps even the lash. They had not expected a child to devise a punishment that sounded almost playful until one understood its inevitable conclusion.
The director threw himself forward as far as Veyra’s invisible restraints allowed. "My lady, please! We beg you! We shall confess everything! We shall return the money! Please, have mercy!"
The teachers joined his pleas, their voices breaking over one another.
"Please spare us!"
"We will tell you everything!"
"Anything you want, my lady!"
Seyra’s smile disappeared.
"You should have thought of that before you hurt me and the children." Her voice was small, but the words carried clearly through the room.
Vaerun’s expression hardened. He looked at the prisoners with the cold indifference of a man who had already reached his decision.
"Take them away."
Captain Darian struck his fist against his breastplate and bowed. Vaerun’s gaze did not leave the prisoners.
"Preserve the evidence, recover the stolen funds, and find every child who was taken. Their punishment will be determined after the investigation, under imperial law and the authority of House Veyrath."
The director began to protest again, but Veyra’s currents tightened, silencing him as the guards dragged the three prisoners toward the doors.
"Please, my lady! Please!"
Seyra watched them leave without answering; only when the doors closed did the tension in the room begin to ease.
Seyra looked up at her father. Vaerun glanced down. "Yes?"
"You certainly have a talent for making people reconsider their choices."
She giggled, pleased.
Across the room, Captain Ishtar exchanged a look with Kharzen; neither said a word. They had served Vaerun long enough to know what happened when someone earned the Silent Tempest’s displeasure.
Now they had witnessed something else: the first glimpse of what might happen when someone earned his daughter’s.
And for the first time, several seasoned warriors found themselves wondering whether the future heir of House Veyrath might one day become even more terrifying than her father.
Vaerun, judging by the faint smirk on his face, seemed perfectly content with that possibility.