I'm the Villain, But the Heroines Keep Choosing Me-Chapter 167: Anchors Weigh In

Seria was sharpening a sword she’d already sharpened three times when they got back.

Elara was pretending to read.

Neither of them looked up immediately, which meant they’d both been watching the door for the last hour and were now performing elaborate indifference.

Damien knew them too well for it to work.

"We’re back," he said.

"Noticed," Seria said, still studying her blade.

"How was the city?" Elara asked her book.

"Good. We watched bad theater, got recognized, chased each other across rooftops."

Elara’s book lowered slightly. "Rooftops."

"It was her idea."

"It was mutual," Lyristae said from beside him. She’d come in with him which was either brave or ill-advised. Possibly both. "Hello. I know this is probably strange."

Seria finally set down the sword. She looked at Lyristae with an expression that was professionally neutral in the specific way that meant she was doing significant emotional processing underneath.

"Sit down," she said. Not unkind. Just direct.

Lyristae sat. Damien sat beside her. Elara finally abandoned the pretense with the book and folded her legs under her on the chair, looking between them.

"You two seem different," Elara observed.

"Different how?" Damien asked.

"Relaxed. You specifically." She was studying him with that divine perception that always made him feel slightly transparent. "Whatever happened today helped."

"It was a good day."

"Clearly." She looked at Lyristae. "You have roof dust in your hair."

Lyristae reached up immediately, then stopped herself and lowered her hand with visible effort. "Right. I was on a roof. That happens when you’re on roofs."

"It does," Elara agreed. Something in her tone shifted, warmer. "You look different too. Less like a queen."

"Is that bad?"

"No. Actually no." Elara tilted her head. "You look more natural"

Lyristae blinked. "I’ll take that as a compliment."

"It is one."

Seria stood and went to the window, looking out over the darkened city. Her back was to them which usually meant she was saying something she didn’t want her face to betray.

"Okay," she said. "What are we actually talking about here. What changed today."

"Nothing dramatic," Damien started. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"He told me he loves me," Lyristae said simultaneously.

Damien looked at her.

"What?" she said. "You told me honesty was how this works."

"I did say that."

"So I’m being honest."

Seria turned around. Her expression was unreadable in that precise way that indicated it was actually very readable to anyone paying attention. "After one day."

"After one day," Damien confirmed.

"That’s fast even by your standards. Elara took you weeks."

"Elara required more convincing. She was suspicious of my motives."

"I was right to be," Elara said, but without heat. She was very still in the way that meant she was feeling something significant and managing it carefully. "How do you feel about that?" she asked Lyristae. "Him saying it."

"Terrified. Overwhelmed. Happy in a way I don’t entirely know what to do with." Lyristae’s voice was measured but honest. "I’ve been in love with him a long time. Having it returned is... I didn’t plan for it to happen this quickly."

"Join the club," Seria muttered.

"She means that kindly," Elara translated.

"I do," Seria confirmed, surprising everyone including herself by the sound of it. She sat back down, elbows on her knees, studying Lyristae directly. "You understand what you’re walking into. Concretely. Not theoretically."

"You mean the three of you."

"I mean all of it. I mean... the fact that Elara and I have been with him through things that bonded us in ways that are hard to explain to someone joining from the outside."

"I know," Lyristae said. "I’m not asking to replace that."

"I know you’re not. I’m telling you that it can’t be replaced, so don’t try to compete with it. That’s the fastest way to make this terrible for everyone." Seria’s voice wasn’t hostile. It was the voice she used when briefing soldiers on exactly why they would die if they made a specific mistake. Precise concern dressed as bluntness. "What you can do is build something of your own with him. Alongside what we have. Not instead of."

"That’s what I want."

"Good."

Elara was quiet for a moment. Then, in that way she had of saying enormous things in small voices, she said "I’m glad he told you."

Everyone looked at her.

"I’ve been watching him carry the weight of this since Valdara," she continued, hands folded in her lap. "The Second Core, the corruption, the convergence. He needed someone who actually knows what that weight feels like from the inside. Seria and I can support him, but we can’t fully understand the specific darkness he’s carrying." Her eyes moved to Lyristae. "You can."

"I try to."

"You do more than try. I’ve watched you with him this past week. You don’t look at him the way most people look at someone carrying dark corruption." Elara paused. "You look at him the way you look at something you recognize."

"Because I do recognize it."

"I know." Elara smiled, and it was genuine. Small but real. "That’s why I’m glad."

Something in the room shifted. Not dramatically. Just the subtle recalibration of how four people were sitting relative to each other.

Seria uncrossed her arms.

Lyristae’s shoulders came down from around her ears.

"So," Seria said, and now the careful neutrality had an undertone of something dryer and more comfortable. "Rooftops."

"She started it," Damien said.

"Because he challenged me," Lyristae countered.

"You initiated the transit."

"You absolutely suggested the challenge first."

Seria looked at Elara. "They’re going to be insufferable together."

"Completely insufferable," Elara agreed. "We’ll get nothing done."

"I’m very productive actually," Lyristae objected. "I run an entire kingdom."

"You spent the afternoon buying copper jewelry and watching terrible theater."

"That was leisure. Leisure is important for cognitive function." She paused. "I read that somewhere."

"Did you read it or did Damien just tell you that to justify skipping strategy meetings?"

"Damien, did you say that?"

"Absolutely not," he said, while Seria and Elara exchanged the look of people who had heard him say exactly that on multiple occasions.

Lyristae narrowed her eyes at him. He maintained his expression.

"I don’t believe you," she said.

"That’s fair."

Elara laughed. It came out surprised, like she hadn’t expected to. The sound made Seria smile despite herself, that reluctant corner-of-the-mouth thing she did when she didn’t want to admit something was funny.

Lyristae looked between them, something careful shifting in her expression. "Can I ask you both something directly."

"Go ahead," Seria said.

"Are you actually okay with this. Not just accepting it because you feel you have to. Actually okay."

The room held for a beat.

Seria answered first. "I’m not thrilled about the timeline. I think you two moved at a speed that bypassed several conversations that should have happened. But." She tilted her head slightly. "He’s been different since you got back. The good kind of different. Less like someone managing a war and more like a person who had a decent day." She held Lyristae’s gaze. "I care about that more than the timeline."

Elara took slightly longer. "I was jealous," she said simply. "Earlier, before the battle. Not of the relationship specifically but of how easily you understand parts of him that I can’t reach. I didn’t like that feeling."

"Elara—" Damien started.

"Let me finish." She wasn’t upset, just honest. "I was jealous and then I prayed about it, which sounds ridiculous, and I realized the jealousy was selfish in the specific way where you’re prioritizing your own comfort over someone else’s wellbeing." She looked at Lyristae. "You give him something I genuinely can’t. So yes. I’m actually okay. It took me until about this afternoon to get there but I’m there."

Lyristae was quiet for a moment. "Thank you for saying that. Both of you."

"Don’t make it weird," Seria said, but there was no edge to it.

"Too late, it’s slightly weird. I’m emotionally overwhelmed and I have roof dust in my hair."

"You really should sort that out," Elara said.

"I know, I just keep forgetting because everything keeps being emotionally significant."

"That’s the general atmosphere around Damien," Seria confirmed. "You get used to it. Everything is either a life-threatening crisis or emotionally significant. There’s very little middle ground."

A servant knocked at the outer door. Dinner, apparently, which Damien had completely lost track of. The afternoon had evaporated somewhere between the market and the gardens.

"Stay," Elara said to Lyristae. It wasn’t a loaded invitation, just practical warmth. "We ordered enough."

Lyristae hesitated for exactly one second. "Alright."

They ate in the sitting room rather than the formal dining hall, which meant plates on knees and elbows on tables and conversations that wandered without agenda.

Seria got into a detailed disagreement with Lyristae about siege defense methodology that somehow became genuinely engaging rather than territorial.

Elara asked Lyristae questions about Valdara’s church structure that turned into a forty-minute discussion about theological policy that Damien mostly listened to while eating.

It wasn’t seamless. There were moments of careful navigation, small pauses where someone chose their words slightly too precisely. The shape of four people figuring out how to be in the same room with all the attendant history and complication.

But it worked.

Imperfectly and genuinely, the way things work when people are actually trying.