A Peacock Husband of Five Princesses by day, a Noble Assassin by Night-Chapter 89: A blood relative (1/2)

Kael blinked, caught off guard by Laura’s sudden boldness. His wife was always straightforward, but this was unexpected—even for her.

She straddled him with a determined look, her dark eyes locked onto his. Kael, despite himself, couldn’t help but chuckle at her confidence.

"You do realize we’re guests in someone’s house, right?" he reminded her, resting his hands lightly on her hips. "This is highly inappropriate."

Laura’s expression faltered for a moment before realization dawned on her. She glanced around the dimly lit guest room, then exhaled, reluctantly conceding. "…Right. That would be extremely rude." She said, climbing off of him with a graceful ease. "We’ll do it at the inn tomorrow, then."

Kael sighed. "Or, hear me out—we could wait until we return home?"

Laura immediately shook her head. "No."

He raised an eyebrow. "No?"

"When there’s a problem, the solution cannot be postponed," she declared with the kind of conviction one would expect from a seasoned general. "The more one avoids confronting an issue, the more complicated it becomes. You said you were embarrassed to talk about this, right? Then we deal with it now before it turns into something bigger. You know that it is not big things that bring problems to one’s lives. Well, they do in a way, but they were all solvable things with simpler solutions. However, the little things we ignore in our daily lives will be the ones that become too complicated when they add up and become big to the point that we can’t see out. And when we do, we often make a wrong choice."

Kael stared at her, momentarily speechless. Her logic, while applied to something entirely different from its usual context, was sound.

"You amaze me sometimes," he admitted, watching as she casually settled back beside him.

Laura grinned. "I know."

Kael exhaled, running a hand through his hair. Perhaps it was time to start confronting his own problems instead of avoiding them.

The heavy silence of midnight was broken only by the soft rustling of fabric as Kael donned his assassin attire. The black ensemble clung to him like a second skin, his movements as silent as the shadows he became one with. With practiced ease, he slipped out of the guest room, leaving behind the warm embrace of sleep—and Laura.

This time, he wasn’t sneaking to steal something.

He strode through the dimly lit corridors, his footfalls deliberately audible against the polished wooden floor. This wasn’t a mission of secrecy; it was a message. He was here to demand answers.

Reaching Nadia’s door, he pushed it open without hesitation. The old alchemist lay curled under a thick quilt, her long red hair spilling over the pillow in gentle waves.

Kael didn’t hesitate. In a single swift motion, he pressed the cold edge of his dagger against her throat.

Nadia’s eyes snapped open. And Kael frowned instead.

She didn’t gasp. Didn’t jerk away. Didn’t even tense.

Her eyes, still heavy with sleep, adjusted to the darkness, slowly locking onto his. A stranger might have expected her pulse to race, her breath to quicken, her body to tremble beneath the weight of mortal peril. But none of that happened. Her breathing remained steady, her heartbeat unchanged—unshaken.

She looked completely calm as if she is not afraid of death.

For a moment, the dagger at her throat felt almost useless. She wasn’t fighting, wasn’t resisting, but she also wasn’t breaking.

Finally, after a long silence, Nadia exhaled, her voice barely above a whisper.

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"If you mean to kill me, boy… then do it quickly."

Kael narrowed his eyes. "Boy?"

A thin, humorless smile tugged at her lips. "What else should I call you?" Her voice was calm, too calm for a woman with a blade pressed against her throat. "You think you are the first assassin to hold a knife to me in my sleep?"

Kael didn’t react. He simply pressed the blade a little deeper—not enough to cut, but enough to remind her of its presence. "Except that this assassin knows how to kill you."

Nadia’s expression didn’t change. "You already know that I can’t be killed by this method. You know where my heart was," she said, her voice barely a breath. "Why were you bothering putting a dagger at my throat instead?"

Kael’s lips curled into a smirk. "So you did notice."

Nadia closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. "I wouldn’t, had you positioned exactly in the same location you picked up the chest from… Next time you do something like this, be careful. Not everyone is as apathetic as I am."

A thick silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken truths.

Kael studied her, his mind calculating, observing, assessing. Her fear was there—he could see it—but her body didn’t betray her. That meant one of two things: either she had trained herself to suppress instinctual responses… or something was very, very wrong with her.

His grip on the dagger tightened slightly.

"Tell me," he whispered. "What is your relation to the Moonstone House?"

Nadia barely had a moment to process the question before Kael continued, his tone sharpening like the edge of his blade.

"As you suspect, I saw what’s inside that chest of yours—inside, there was a cloak bearing the old Moonstone crest." His golden eyes glinted in the dim candlelight, predatory and unyielding. "That symbol hasn’t been used for centuries. How it came into your possession? And now, a Moonstone just happens to be living under your roof?" He leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper. "What are the odds?"

Nadia’s lips parted slightly, but no words came. The weight of his accusation pressed down on her like a vice.

Kael smirked coldly at her hesitation. "You know, I expected you to deny it," he murmured. "But that look on your face? That silence?" His grip on the hilt of his dagger tightened. "It’s as good as a confession."

Nadia’s hands clenched the sheets beneath her, but still, her pulse remained eerily steady. After a brief pause, a slow breath escaped Nadia’s lips as she steadied herself. "If you’re here to kill me," she said, her voice barely above a murmur, "then do it. I’m at the end of my life anyway. You won’t get any answers from me."

Kael’s gaze darkened, a slow smirk curling at the edges of his lips. "Since you aren’t afraid of your life, then, there must be someone who you find it precious," he said smoothly, withdrawing the blade just enough to let her speak freely. "I will take your life, Nadia. After that, I will kill the rookie alchemist and the princess." His smirk deepened, his voice turning razor-sharp. "But the entire blame will fall upon that Moonstone."

For the first time, real tension flickered across Nadia’s face. She stiffened, her fingers clenching the blanket on her lap. "You wouldn’t."

Kael’s golden eyes gleamed with something unreadable. "Try me." He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice to a whisper. "You’re well aware of how the world works. If all of you die here and he goes missing along with the treasures, the first suspect won’t be some mysterious assassin." His smirk widened. "People will believe Kael Moonstone killed the Princess and both of you. The Queen won’t side with him because she would be feeling grief at the loss of her daughter."