"Um, just a quick question. Is the middle of the couch made of hot lava? Because if you two sit any further apart, you’re both going to slide straight onto the floor."

Cherion’s nervous voice cut through the heavy silence of the room, but neither woman so much as blinked. The chaotic garden path was long gone, replaced by the suffocatingly formal walls of Zarius’s private study.

After the midair magic explosion, the group had been promptly marched indoors to prevent a full-blown diplomatic crisis in the garden.

Marielle merely gave a small, irritated twitch of her jaw, her hand resuming its aggressive, rhythmic tapping against her knee. She remained stubbornly pressed against the far-left armrest. At the exact opposite end of the long velvet cushions, Iryna sat with flawless, textbook grace, her spine perfectly straight and a pristine, entirely polite smile plastered on her face as if she were completely innocent of the destruction outside.

On the opposite side of the desk, Zarius and Gillian stood like two impenetrable mountain peaks, framing Cherion, who was practically sinking into the plush leather chair placed right between them.

Cherion was internally spiraling. His mind was frantic, screaming a stream of anxiety. I just wanted everyone to be friends! he thought, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the armrests. Is a little bit of harmony too much to ask for?

He had genuinely envisioned a warm, cooperative relationship between the North and the Solaric Empire. Honestly, having them as allies instead of enemies felt like a very smart long-term investment. The peace lasted exactly until Marielle burst out of the bushes armed and ready for murder, completely ruining everything almost instantly.

"Well," Gillian began, breaking the heavy silence as he crossed his arms, his usual easygoing grin replaced by the deeply fatigued expression of an older brother who had spent a lifetime managing a royal menace. "Since the courtyard has been thoroughly redecorated with smoking craters and shattered ice, would someone care to explain why our peace treaty was nearly dismantled before dinner?"

"She began it," Marielle snapped immediately, her finger jutting across the massive expanse of the couch toward the princess. Her boot slammed flat against the floor, stopping its rhythmic tapping. "I was on my way to find Cherion when violent winds started tearing through the estate like a storm had broken inside the building itself. The whole place started shaking right after that. When I finally burst into the garden, what do I see? A foreign princess standing menacingly over Cherion, who is flat on his back in the dirt, while she stretches her hand out toward him!"

"I was extending my hand to help him up, you incredibly ’smart’ creature," Iryna countered. "Why jump to such a ridiculous, hostile conclusion? I suppose basic courtesy is a completely foreign concept to you."

Marielle’s eyes flashed with a fierce, protective fire as she leveled her gaze at the men. "Try to see it from my perspective! From any point of view, it looked exactly like an assault attempt. It looked like a high-tier spell cast had just knocked a person to the ground, and she was preparing to finish the job. I acted on pure logic to eliminate a hostile threat!"

From the far end of the sofa, Iryna let out a soft, highly offended huff, her perfect royal smile twitching at the corners, though she refused to lose her regal composure. "An assault attempt? How utterly barbaric. If I truly wished to eliminate someone, I assure you there would be no grand display of wind and earth left behind as evidence. It would be entirely seamless."

"Is that a threat?" Marielle hissed, her hand instinctively drifting toward the empty space at her hip where her daggers usually rested.

"It is a statement of fact," Iryna retorted smoothly, tilting her chin up. She turned her eyes toward Gillian, completely dismissing Marielle’s glare. "Brother, I was merely entertaining Cherion. He expressed a delightful curiosity regarding my magic, and I was simply demonstrating a standard elemental display. It is hardly my fault that this lady from the North possesses a temperament as unstable as a volatile mana crystal and completely leaped to uneducated conclusions."

"Marielle," Zarius’s deep, rumbling voice sliced through the bickering like a frozen blade. He stepped forward, his massive shadow completely enveloping the desk as his dark eyes locked onto his sister. "You pulled weapons on an imperial princess. That is an erratic, reckless impulse that could have triggered a diplomatic crisis."

"And you," Gillian chimed in, turning a stern, unyielding gaze toward his sister at her corner of the couch. "You have a chronic, habit of showing off your magic to impress people, Iryna. You are a guest in the Duke’s private residence within the capital, yet you felt the need to stomp your heel and disrupt the foundations of his garden. You both behaved like unruly children."

Under the crushing, dual weight of their brothers’ authority, the room temporarily fell quiet. Marielle aggressively crossed her arms and looked anywhere with a frustrated click of her tongue, while a faint, defensive flush crept up Iryna’s neck as she stiffened her posture even further, utterly refusing to look at Gillian.

Seeing the atmosphere turning increasingly bitter, Cherion couldn’t take it anymore. He shot up from his seat, his hands waving frantically in the air as he inserted himself directly into the crossfire.

"Wait, wait! Please, everyone, just stop being so harsh to each other!" Cherion pleaded, his voice laced with pure panic as he looked between the two intimidating men and the two furious women sitting a mile apart.

He turned directly to the sisters, his eyes wide and practically begging. "Look, it’s all just a huge, ridiculous chain of misunderstandings! Marielle, I promise you, Princess Iryna wasn’t trying to attack me at all. I genuinely lost my balance because the ground shook a little! I tripped over my own boots! She was actually reaching down to help me up!"

He then whipped around to face Iryna, offering an anxious, placating smile. "And Your Highness, please don’t be too offended by Marielle! She didn’t know we were just messing around. She only reacted like that because she’s ridiculously protective, and honestly, from a distance, the whole scene did look a little insane! You’re both amazing, powerful women, and honestly, we should be building a warm relationship here! We’re all friends, right? We’re supposed to be allies! Let’s not let a little garden tumble ruin everything!"

Zarius and Gillian exchanged a long, silent look over Cherion’s frantic head. Both men let out a synchronized, heavy sigh of profound sibling exhaustion, recognizing that despite the chaos, the disaster was indeed born from a ridiculous misunderstanding.

"Lord Cherion is correct," Gillian spoke up as he smoothed the front of his coat and stepped closer to the desk. He turned to Zarius with a quiet, steady look. "The fault lies in a severe lack of communication on both sides. Duke, on behalf of the Solaric Empire and my sister’s standard dramatic flair, I offer my formal apologies for the disturbance caused to your residence."

Zarius nodded his head rigidly, his posture relaxing by a fraction of an inch. "And I accept. Likewise, Prince Gillian, I apologize for my sister’s immediate resort to physical violence without properly assessing the situation first. The security of our guests is paramount, and this should not have occurred."

With the formal diplomatic apologies exchanged between both sides, the two brothers turned their attention back down to the far ends of the couch.

"Now," Zarius commanded. "Apologize to one another."

"Both of you," Gillian added, his arms crossing over his chest as he glared down at Iryna. "And make it sincere."

A heavy silence descended as Marielle and Iryna fiercely stared at the desk, neither wanting to be the first to break or move an inch closer. But under the unyielding, suffocating pressure of their older brothers’ gazes, they finally cracked.

Marielle rolled her shoulders, her daggers having already been confiscated, and muttered aggressively toward the opposite side of the room, "I apologize for drawing my blades against an imperial guest without verifying the context of the situation."

"And," Iryna began, her voice dripping with a rigid, high-and-mighty formality as she tilted her chin away from Marielle’s end of the sofa, "I extend my apologies for utilizing my elemental attributes in a manner that caused unnecessary alarm and structural damage to the Duke’s private garden."

Cherion let out a massive, breathless sigh of relief, slumping back into his leather chair as if a literal physical weight had been lifted off his chest. Thank god, he thought, wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead. The treaty survives another day.

However, the moment Marielle and Iryna looked at each other again across the absurdly large gap of couch cushions between them, the tension immediately came roaring back.

Sure, they apologized. Emotionally? Completely unresolved.

Seriously, if they start again, I’m just locking them in a bedroom and letting them sort it out there.