Cathy stilled. Her hand hovered near the door but did not open it.

"If you ever imply again," Louisa said, her voice soft as silk, "that I should sell myself for this family’s ambitions... I will have you reassigned to the northern border. Permanently. And I promise you, Cathy, no one has ever come back from the northern border happy."

Cathy’s spine had gone rigid. Her shoulders were a fraction too high.

"Yes, my lady," she replied. Her voice was tight and carefully controlled. "I understand completely." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

She left quickly. The door clicked shut behind her with a sound that was almost apologetic in its quietness.

Once she was gone, Louisa leaned back in her chair and let out a long, slow breath.

phew

She listened to the silence of the room reassemble itself around her. Somewhere distantly, she heard the faint movement of a guard making his rounds across the courtyard.

Kraven.

She had always known he was dangerous—but not someone she couldn’t manage.

Now, she was no longer certain of that.

***

At the same time, in Kraven’s room, Julian was no longer alone.

Sera had arrived just a few minutes ago, carrying a silver tray that contained a single steaming bowl. The fragrant aroma of herbs and rare flowers filled the room as she entered.

She stopped just inside the doorway and bowed deeply.

"Lord Kraven," she said. "Lady Olivia ordered me to bring this to you."

She straightened and held the tray carefully.

"It is a soup made from moonlit grove flowers. Her ladyship prepared the instructions herself and oversaw the cooking."

Julian’s injuries were roughly forty percent healed after absorbing Olivia’s mana earlier. He had stayed in his room the entire time, properly consolidating the newly gained foreign mana and stabilizing his damaged mana vessels.

He looked at the bowl.

"Moonlit grove flowers" he said in puzzled tone. "What is that."

click

Sera closed the door behind her with a soft click and approached closer to the bed.

"It is a herb from the southern states, my lord," she said, setting the tray on the table beside the bed.

"It has a particular affinity for the mana core. When prepared correctly as a soup it accelerates the natural recovery of damaged meridians and helps stabilize the flow through injured pathways."

Julian looked at the bowl for a moment longer.

The flower was genuinely interesting from a cultivation standpoint. Advanced recovery. Stabilizing mana pathways. Those were things to die for.

His eyes then moved from the bowl to Sera.

The maid still seemed somewhat scared and hesitant after their intense previous session. She was trying hard to maintain her professional composure, but the slight tremble in her hands and the way she avoided looking directly at him betrayed her nervousness.

He found this interesting.

He smiled.

For the past few days, he had mostly ignored her. Now that he was finally giving her his full attention again, she appeared quite unsettled.

"Come closer, Sera," he said. His tone was easy and carried a faint amusement underneath it. "I don’t bite."

Sera flinched.

It was small and she covered it immediately.

She stepped closer to the bed.

"Shall I help you sit up, my lord," she asked.

Her voice was steady but slightly more careful than it had been in their earlier interactions.

She did not have that same confidence now.

Julian observed this without commenting on it.

"Yes," he said.

Sera set the tray down properly on the bedside table and leaned forward, slipping one arm carefully behind his back to help him into a more upright position.

The movement brought her close enough that he could smell the light floral scent she wore.

He settled against the adjusted pillows and looked at the bowl.

"Sit down, Sera," he said.

She looked at him. "My lord?"

"Sit," he said again, gesturing toward the chair beside the bed. "You can feed me the soup from there. Standing over a recovering man with a bowl is undignified for both of us."

A brief hesitation. Then she pulled the chair close and sat.

After about few seconds, she lifted the bowl from the tray and offered the first spoonful.

Julian accepted it.

The soup was good. The flavor was clean and slightly sweet at the front with the earthier herbal quality. He could feel the changes almost immediately. Gentle warmth moved through his meridians and found the damaged sections, soothing it comfortably.

Olivia had chosen well.

He accepted the second spoonful and then looked at Sera while she prepared the third.

"How long have you been a maid?" he asked.

Sera glanced at him. The question was simple but she processed it with the caution of someone who had learned that his simple questions were not always simple.

"Since I was seventeen, my lord," she said. "Eight years."

"And before you came here?"

"I served a noble family in the capital," she said. The answer was the same one she had given him days ago. She was testing whether he remembered.

He remembered everything.

Julian accepted the third spoonful.

The warmth in his meridians was spreading further now. He could feel the recovery rate ticking upward. By morning, combined with mana session from Olivia, he estimated he would be at seventy percent.

As she prepared the fourth spoonful Julian’s eyes moved over her.

Sera was still wearing that same seductive maid uniform she had worn every time she came to his room.

The dark fabric clung tightly to her body. The short skirt had ridden up slightly as she sat, revealing smooth, pale thighs and the lacy tops of her black stockings.

But something was different about how she wore it tonight.

There were no deliberate leans to show off her chest, no teasing smiles and not even slow movements meant to draw his gaze. She was simply sitting in a chair feeding soup to an injured man, and the uniform happened to be what she was wearing.

He found himself genuinely curious.