Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 278. The Best Thing I Ever Made
Rick thought. ’What the hell is this pattern...?’
"I start to see everything as a solving puzzle from now on..."
"Almost every Major Power had something related to someone they’re close with... a partner, husband, and now father." He bit his lip. "This is going to get more complicated than I thought."
"I thought this arc was going to be at least enjoyable for me, but it turns out... it’s somehow worse than fighting the end of the world!"
Rick looked at Zephyra’s profile at the window and didn’t say anything. He knew that there was nothing that could be said in the first few seconds after something like that, and those seconds were important.
Zein Heldrich stood outside with his hand down and his face turned toward the archive wing window. He was patient, as if he knew exactly which window his daughter would come to and how long it would take her to get there.
He didn’t go to the temple or shout. Instead, he waited, which was the most unsettling thing he could have done. A man who waits like that already knows what will happen in the next few minutes.
Rick asked, "How long have you known each other?" in a voice that was low enough that only she could hear.
’WAIT! THAT’S THE MOST STUPID QUESTION EVER!’
’OF COURSE SHE KNEW! THAT WAS HER FATHER!’
Zephyra was quiet for so long that he thought she was thinking about how much to say.
Then she answered. "That he was one of the Shadow Covenant...? Six months."
’O-ohh... that turned out better.’
Rick cleared his throat and then kept his serious look. "Are you saying that he was the one responsible for what happened in Valdris?"
"Since last night, I have been studying the fragment’s architecture, which matches what I have been researching for fifteen years." She didn’t look away from the window. "The theoretical origin is the same."
"I knew the grief architecture was the same, like knowing someone’s handwriting without a signature."
"And what about before last night?"
She was quiet again, but this time the silence was different. It was heavier, like the silence of someone who has been carrying a heavy load for so long that they don’t even notice how much it costs.
"Before last night," she said, "I realized he was the reason I had spent my whole adulthood constructing walls so high that I sometimes forgot what I was keeping out..."
Not jarring. Precise. Each word was chosen with care by someone who doesn’t waste them, making them all the more valuable.
"Rick," Liora said from behind them, still looking at Heinz, "Zein is walking toward the temple."
"He is not in a hurry."
Rick turned his attention back to the window. Zein began to move, strolling across the outer grounds toward the temple entrance with an unhurried demeanor, as if time were on his side.
It wasn’t pride; it was a sense of certainty, and that certainty was even more concerning.
"Zephyra." Rick said, "What EXACTLY does he want?"
Finally, she turned away from the window. Her face had returned to the flat, professional look he was used to seeing from her, but for the first time since he had known her, he could see what the precision was based on.
Not as a guess or a conclusion. He can clearly see it, just like he can see the frame of a building through the walls when the light hits them at the right angle.
"He wants Sophia," she said. "That bastard has always wanted Sophia," she said after a short pause.
"And he knew that if he came here and showed himself to me directly, I would come to him... and he was right, because I am going to."
She walked away from the window and toward the door to the archive room.
"Wait!" Rick said, "You’re not going by yourself."
She stopped and did not turn around.
"I know," she said.
She kept on going.
...
The inner courtyard of the Golden Temple was built around a central space that caught the afternoon light and held it. Pale amber stone on four sides surrounded the space, and the air had the clear quality of a place that had been carefully cared for for a very long time.
Thessara and two senior priestesses were visible at the far end, near the entrance to the main hall. They watched but did not come closer.
The Golden Temple had seen parents and children fight before in its more than 300 years of operation, and they knew that some things were off-limits to them, such as intervening in family disputes or expressing personal opinions about the conflicts they witnessed.
Zein entered through the front door with an air of expectation.
He was in his mid-sixties and had sharp, angular features and dark hair with silver streaks pulled back perfectly. This was the kind of precision that told you something about how he moved through the world.
He wore the same amber robes as the Shadow Covenant operatives in the temple, and he didn’t hide it. He looked at Zephyra first, and his face did the same thing hers did when something was important: nothing changed on the outside, but everything behind the eyes changed.
"Zephyra," he said. Not too hot or too cold, just her name in the voice of someone looking at something they built and checking to see if it is stable.
"Where is Sophia?" It wasn’t a question but a demand, delivered in the same flat, clear tone she always used, devoid of any softness.
"Safe," Zein said. "She was always going to be safe."
"And that... was never the question." He looked at Rick with a longer and more careful look than Thessara had. "The Hero of Mature Hearts."
"You are younger than your bond network said you were."
"Weird." Rick said, "You’ve been watching the bond network for months."
"Longer than months." He focused back on Zephyra, putting Rick aside like someone who was filing away information. "You closed the socket connection faster than I thought you would."
"Because of you," he said, and the tone of his voice was somewhere between approval and pride. "You were always the best thing I ever made."
"What...?" Rick exclaimed, looking both shocked and confused.
The word "made" fell into the courtyard and stayed there.
Zephyra didn’t move. This meant that she already knew he would say it. That meant she had been waiting her whole life to hear him say it in a way that made it impossible to pretend she hadn’t heard it.
"Give me my daughter back this instant," she said.
"Ohh, my sweet Zephyra..." Zein chuckled. "She is not just your daughter; you should probably know that now."
He stopped and looked at her with the focused attention of someone who has been watching from a distance for a very long time and is finally close enough to see clearly. "You’ve known it since last night when the fragment’s architecture matched what you’ve been studying for fifteen years."
"Would you like me to explain everything here, or would you rather I let you tell him what you’ve already figured out?"
Rick’s brain is slowly tearing apart without all the context happening right now. ’W-what the fuck are they talking about...?’
’CAN WE JUST MOVE ON TO THE NEXT ARC?! SHE’S NOT WORTH IT AFTER ALL!’
Zephyra looked at Rick without taking her eyes off her father. "He is going to tell you everything."
"Not because he wants us to understand, but because he needs someone to see how complete the plan was." Her voice was flat, old, and tired, unrelated to the afternoon’s fighting. "He has always needed someone to see how full the plan was."
For a moment, Zein was quiet. Rick saw a small change in his posture, which was hard to see, but he knew that Zephyra had been completely right, and he knew it.
He sat on a courtyard bench, which showed his confidence more than any threat could.
He said, "The Solvane family has been talking to the Heldrich line for three generations."
"It’s a political arrangement that works for two families with complementary institutional access and no natural succession overlap."
"You... you set up your daughter’s wedding," Rick said.
"I set up a political alignment that just happened to include my daughter’s marriage."
"Of course, she was at a legal age of twenty-nine. And she’s no longer called a child." He gazed directly at Rick. "And I also didn’t force Heinz Solvane."
"His family made the offer, and I took it because it fit the framework."
"Does she know why?"
Zein stared at Zephyra. "She knows now."
