Only Marquess Julian Myer remained.
The Marquess stood his ground, though his flawless face was marred by a look of deep, genuine distress.
He looked at the child on the bed, and then he looked at Kaelus.
"Kaelus," Julian started, his voice soft, attempting to bridge the massive, terrifying chasm of anger that the Archduke was projecting. "I know you are distressed. The child is precious to you. But the doctors are the best in the province. If they say it is a chill, perhaps—"
Kaelus turned his head slowly.
He locked eyes with Julian Myer.
The look on Duke Kaelus von Nacht's face was something no living man had ever survived seeing.
It was not the cold, calculating mask of the military commander.
It was not the arrogant, aristocratic sneer of a high noble.
It was the look of a wounded, cornered beast standing over its dying cub.
It was an expression stripped entirely of humanity, boiling with a feral, terrifying desperation.
