Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I’m Stuck as Their Baby! - Chapter 198

Chapter 198: Parental Dread and Precautions
Verania, Queen of the Human Realms and Matriarch of Parental Overreaction, had once been famed for facing down dragon armies and quelling entire provinces with a well-timed eyebrow. Yet, at this moment, she cowered behind a velvet curtain in her own private study, clutching a crystal orb that shimmered with sullen, forbidden magenta.

“She’s late. Again,” Verania hissed, peering out the window as if enemy spies or worse, teenagers in love might be lurking among the hydrangeas. “Sylvithra, I am telling you, something is amiss. Elyzara is up to something.”

Sylvithra, Empress-Consort and veteran of twelve magical coups (eleven successful, one technically a draw), arched a cool, silver eyebrow and adjusted her robes. “Darling, she is always up to something. That is her natural state. You, on the other hand, are beginning to resemble your mother.”

Verania ignored this she was on a quest. “It’s not the usual something. She’s… glowing. And I don’t mean the ‘I-just-vanquished-a-demon’ glow. This is… suspiciously adolescent.”

Sylvithra pursed her lips. “She’s ten, Verania.”

“And old enough for trouble! You saw her at breakfast smiling at nothing, humming like a lovesick wood nymph. I nearly called the court physician.”

Sylvithra smiled behind her teacup. “Perhaps she is merely… content? Peace Week was a success, was it not?”

Verania pressed a hand to her chest. “No child of mine is content. She should be plotting! Or at least reading something with footnotes. And yet I have seen her lingering with that Nightthorn girl.”

“Velka,” Sylvithra supplied, with the air of a woman who had already cross-examined every maid and stablehand in the castle.

“Yes, Velka. She is… sharp. Clever. Entirely too comfortable around Elyzara. And have you noticed? They keep disappearing into the gardens. Alone.”

Sylvithra set her teacup down with a delicate clink. “You are not suggesting ”

“I am!” Verania gasped, scandalized and, if she was honest, a little wounded. “Our daughter is courting disaster! I refuse to allow it. Not yet. Not ever! Not until she is at least fifty, or safely married to the Throne, or ideally both.”

Sylvithra regarded her consort as one might regard a beloved but malfunctioning spellbook. “Verania, what exactly do you intend to do? Assign her a chaperone for every walk? Install magical wards that repel adolescent longing?”

Verania’s eyes lit up. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Sylvithra sighed. “You cannot stop her from growing up. You can, perhaps, delay the inevitable with dignity.”

“Dignity is for those who have already lost,” Verania replied, stalking across the study. “No this requires preemptive action. We must… intervene.”

“And if you drive her away? Or worse—force her to keep secrets?” Sylvithra asked, softly now, her voice as gentle as falling snow. “Is that what you want?”

Verania hesitated, war raging beneath her regal exterior. On one hand, there was the primal, parent-side of her that still saw Elyzara as a pink-cheeked, indignant bundle in the royal nursery—entirely too precious for the world’s nonsense. On the other, there was her duty: to raise a ruler, a sovereign who understood love and risk and heartbreak as keenly as politics and war.

The worst part was, of course, that she recognized herself in her daughter’s stubbornness. She remembered sneaking out with Sylvithra under the moonlight, hearts pounding, plotting forbidden futures. That was before crowns and treaties and the wearying calculus of power.

“Maybe,” Verania said, at last, “I just… She’s our only child. I want her safe. I want her to know her heart, not give it away to the first clever girl who looks at her twice.”

Sylvithra stood and crossed the room, gathering Verania’s hands in hers. “Then tell her that. Not as a queen, but as her mother. And let us not become the villains in her story. Let’s… watch. Listen. Advise. But above all, trust her. Even if it’s terrifying.”

Verania grumbled but relented, allowing herself to be led to the balcony. Together they watched the lamps flicker on in the academy below two watchful sovereigns, two anxious parents, and one terribly curious magical familiar (the cat, which may or may not have been a spy from the Nightthorn family).

After a long silence, Verania muttered, “What if Velka breaks her heart?”

Sylvithra smiled wryly. “Then we shall mend it. And, perhaps, find out if it’s possible to legally exile a ten-year-old vampire.”

They stood side by side, quietly plotting a thousand parental contingencies: enchanted lockets of protection, stealthy shadow servants, a discreet listening spell for emergencies only. And, of course, a back-up plan involving the castle’s moat and a rather peckish kraken.

A gentle knock at the door interrupted their scheming. A maid entered, curtsied, and announced, “A letter for you, Your Majesties. From Lady Velka Nightthorn.”

Verania and Sylvithra exchanged a look a storm and a glacier, meeting in battle.

Sylvithra broke the seal and read aloud:

Your Majesties,

I wanted you to know that I respect Elyzara deeply, and would never do anything to hurt her. She is extraordinary, and I am lucky to call her my friend (and if you’ll permit something more). I promise to protect her, support her, and never let her face the world alone.

Sincerely,Velka Nightthorn

The silence stretched. The maid, sensing imminent weather, withdrew at speed.

Verania let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Now she’s polite about it. That’s worse.”

Sylvithra looked thoughtful. “She’s brave. That, at least, I respect.”

Verania frowned, heart torn between outrage, admiration, and the old, familiar ache of a parent realizing their child is no longer a child at all. She read and reread Velka’s letter, each line a pebble dropped into the well of her worry. Respect. Protect. Something more. As if a ten-year-old could promise the world with pen and careful vowels.

“Well,” Verania declared, rising to her full, daunting height, “that settles it. I’m going down there.”

Sylvithra blinked. “Where is ‘there’?”

Verania was already stalking toward the wardrobe, throwing aside cloaks in search of her ceremonial sword. “To the Nightthorn dormitory, to the gardens, to wherever that child thinks she can write me a letter and get away with it. To Velka. This cannot will not stand.”

Sylvithra set the letter down, hands folded with dangerous composure. “Verania, you are not going to storm into the school and threaten Elyzara’s… friend.”

Verania’s jaw worked. “Oh, I most certainly am. Do you know what happens to first loves? They end in disaster and melodrama and, sometimes, regrettable tattoos. I refuse to let Elyzara become a tragic ballad before she’s had her first algebra exam.”

She found the sword, brandished it, and then, with a huff, put it aside for a more practical cloak. “Besides, I’ll be diplomatic. Firm. A royal warning, nothing more.”

“Verania,” Sylvithra said, voice as soft as it was sharp, “sit down.”

It was a command, not a request. Verania hesitated, unused to anyone except, occasionally, her wife—ordering her about. “She’s my daughter.”

“She’s our daughter. And you are not the only one with a say.” Sylvithra crossed to her, gentle hands intercepting Verania’s restless ones. “You can’t control every heart, Verania. You can’t fight love with steel.”

Verania’s face twisted. “I’m not fighting love. I’m fighting recklessness. Elyzara is… She’s not ready.”

Sylvithra’s eyes softened. “She might never be, if you shield her from every risk.”

There was a silence between them, threaded with decades of partnership, victories, mistakes, losses each wordless second more eloquent than any court oration.

“Do you remember,” Sylvithra began, “when your father threatened to banish me if I wrote you another letter?”

Verania’s lips twitched, despite herself. “He was very clear. ‘No daughter of mine will be distracted from her destiny by love notes or poetry, especially from an Imperial usurper’s brat.'”

“And yet,” Sylvithra murmured, “here we are. Queens together. All because you ignored him and I, you.”

“That was different,” Verania insisted, though the conviction in her voice was fading. “We were older. And stubborn. And… I knew my mind.”

“You were seventeen and prone to dramatic gestures. Elyzara is ten and writing in invisible ink on her history essays.” Sylvithra’s smile was rueful. “And yet, the feelings are the same. Isn’t that what terrifies you?”

Verania deflated, cloak drooping. “She’s my little girl. She shouldn’t be falling in love with anyone. Not yet. Not when the world is this dangerous. Not when she’s… mine.”

Sylvithra took her hand. “You cannot lock her heart away in a tower, Verania. All you’ll do is teach her to hide it.”

Verania’s breath shuddered out of her. She looked, for a moment, as tired as any mother who’s ever realized she can’t keep her child from sorrow or joy. “I just want to protect her.”

“I know.” Sylvithra squeezed her hand. “But maybe the bravest thing is letting her try and being there, when she falls. And rises again.”

Verania sank into a chair, burying her face in her hands. “What if she gets hurt? What if Velka is careless or cruel, or the world is?”

Sylvithra knelt beside her, a queen setting aside her crown for the sake of a heart. “Then we mend her. Together. That is our duty and our privilege.”

There was a long, trembling silence. Outside, the world spun on: stars bright above the academy, lamplight painting gold patterns on the floor, a faint sound of laughter drifting through the windows from the gardens below. The sound of children, of future heartbreak and triumph.

Finally, Verania straightened, brushing away a stubborn tear. “No krakens,” she muttered. “Not yet.”

Sylvithra smiled, triumphant and loving. “No krakens. Just… two mothers, waiting, hoping.”

Verania gave a watery laugh. “Fine. We’ll wait. We’ll trust. But if Velka breaks her heart—”

Sylvithra rose, embracing her. ” We will unleash the kraken together.”