Transmigrated Into a Cannon Fodder Phoenix, Stuck With the Ice Dragon-Chapter 118: Severin Drake

The living room felt frozen solid.

Lucian’s father stood in the center of it like a storm given form, his presence crushing the air out of the space. Rage clung to him so thick it was almost visible, his sharp gaze locked onto Lucian like a blade.

"What did you do?" his father thundered. "Where is she?!"

The word echoed off the walls.

Despite the fury rolling toward him, Lucian did not move. Did not flinch. His voice remained steady as ice when he answered,

"I don’t understand. What are you talking about?"

His father scoffed, taking a step forward. "Don’t insult my intelligence. Where is your mother?! How dare you hide her from me!"

Lucian finally lifted his gaze, his expression unreadable, his voice dangerously calm.

"Wasn’t she already dead to you?" he asked. "So why does it matter now?"

The air seemed to drop several degrees.

His father’s jaw clenched hard enough to grind teeth. "Watch your mouth."

Lucian didn’t move an inch. "No," he replied quietly. "You lost the right to tell me what to say the moment you abandoned her... the moment you left her to those bastard experimenters."

His voice lowered, sharp as ice. "They cut into her like she didn’t matter. The one who treated her pain like curiosity. The one who turned my mother into a project instead of a person."

His father’s eyes darkened.

"And now you stand here asking me where she is?" Lucian snapped, "She’s dead!"

The word landed like a blade. Silence slammed into the room like a collision.

"Enough of this nonsense!" his father barked. "Bring her to me. After all, she is still my wife!"

He marched forward until there was barely an inch of space between them.

Their breaths collided, cold with fury, the air between them brittle with unspoken violence. Even the servants along the walls seemed to shrink beneath the weight of it.

Bare footsteps sounded from the staircase.

Lucian’s father’s attention shifted toward the sound as Seraphina slowly descended the stairs, one hand resting lightly on the railing.

She frowned slightly, rubbing her arms, "Why does it suddenly feel like winter here...? Lucian, are you—"

But her words died in her throat as her eyes landed on Severin Drake, Lucian’s father.

A man stood at the center of the room, tall and severe, his presence alone enough to weigh down the air. His features mirrored Lucian’s in a way that made her heart skip uncomfortably.

Her steps slowed unconsciously. For half a heartbeat, she wondered whether she should bow... or pretend she had forgotten something upstairs and disappear.

Lucian turned at the same moment, his expression shifting the instant he saw her.

"Go upstairs," he started. "I’ll—"

He never finished as a blade of ice sliced through the air toward her, fast and the only thing he could do was shout.

"Seraphina!"

Instinct moved her before thought did.

Heat flared beneath her skin as a thin burst of flame spread across her palm, rising into a wavering shield just as the icicle reached her. The moment it touched the fire, it hissed and melted, dissolving into a spray of harmless frost that vanished before it reached her.

Silence followed.

Then... A low laugh echoed through the room.

Severin straightened slowly, clearly pleased, eyes glinting with something sharp and unreadable.

"Well, well," he said drawlingly. "You improved fast." His gaze swept over her, not threatening now, but keen... measuring. "I’m impressed."

Lucian had already moved in front of her, his body angled protectively, fury written across his face as frost and flame still lingered faintly in the air between them.

"What do you think you’re doing?" he growled.

Severin’s smile only widened. "Testing," he replied lightly. "And she passed."

"She didn’t need your test!" Lucian roared. "Get out!"

Severin tilted his head, unimpressed, a slow smirk tugging at his lips.

"So this is what you’ve become," he drawled. "Protective... Soft..."

He took another step closer, his presence dragging the room’s temperature down with it, "Your weakness... finally makes sense."

Lucian bristled, frost creeping along the floor at his feet.

Severin’s eyes flicked past him, straight to Seraphina.

"So you really did use her to revive your mother." His voice dipped, laced with contempt. "I suspected you’d stoop that low someday... but I never expected it to be for Arienne."

The name left his mouth like a curse.

Lucian moved instantly, placing himself fully in front of Seraphina, his body a shield. "You don’t get to say her name."

A cold chuckle slipped from Severin.

"Oh, but I do. After all, she was my wife long before she was ever your burden." He sneered, eyes burning with old, poisonous resentment. "And now you steal her back from death itself using another woman’s life as fuel?"

Seraphina stepped forward despite Lucian’s instinctive attempt to stop her, "That’s not true."

Both of them turned toward her.

Her voice wasn’t loud but it didn’t need to be. "I wasn’t... used," she said evenly. "I chose to help her."

Severin’s eyes narrowed.

Lucian spun around. "Seraphina—"

She slid one step closer to his side and met Severin’s gaze without flinching, "You think I’m unaware of where I stand? You think I don’t know the risk I take just by existing near him?" She lifted her chin. "I wasn’t dragged into anything. I wasn’t sacrificed. And I wasn’t forced."

A strange flicker passed through Severin’s expression.

Then he laughed again, lower this time.

"Bold words," he said. "For a woman who doesn’t understand how disposable she truly is in our world."

Lucian’s aura flared violently.

"Say one more word about her," he warned, voice laced with ice and fire, "and you will leave this house in pieces."

Severin studied him for a long moment.

Then slowly... He smiled.

"Am I wrong?" he murmured. "You’ve always been like this, Lucian. Drawing women close when they’re useful... and discarding them the moment they stop being convenient."

His eyes slid past Lucian and locked onto Seraphina.

"You did it before," he added lightly. "Why would you be any different now?"

The words hit harder than a blow.

Seraphina’s eyes widened just a fraction as she slowly turned her head toward Lucian.

’Is this what Elyndra meant...? When she said that every woman who gets close to him... never stays.’

The thought crept into her chest like something cold and alive.

And for the first time since she walked into the room, doubt whispered again where trust once stood.