The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 465: Unexpected Visitor

ERIS

I arrived at the imperial suite with the weight of Ellyn’s revelations pressing against my ribs. I expected to find the room bathed in the warm glow of the fireplace, with Soren already there, perhaps shedding his heavy formal furs or nursing a goblet of wine.

But as I pushed the heavy oak doors open, I was met only with the rhythmic crackle of a fire tended by servants and an expansive, haunting emptiness. The large, fur-draped bed was untouched. The room felt hollow.

He was busy. I knew it before I even checked the adjoining rooms. With the trial looming and the strange, quiet reports of supply delays trickling in, it was only logical that he was buried under a mountain of parchment in his office.

He was likely working alone, his brow furrowed in that way that made him look far older than his years, chasing the ghost of his mother’s influence through a thousand ledgers.

I moved to the vanity, my fingers trailing over the cool marble. I decided I wouldn’t bother him. The questions about the dragons, the eyes, and that terrifying crack in the heavens Ellyn mentioned could wait until the morning. I began to reach for the pins in my hair, my reflection looking back at me with eyes that seemed far too bright for the dim room.

But the silence of the chambers was too loud. It allowed the memory of the scribe’s voice to echo: A split in reality. A void beyond our realm.

I froze, my hand halfway to my head. The thought of Soren sitting alone in the dark, contemplating the literal end of our world, made the distance between the bedroom and the office feel like a thousand miles.

I couldn’t sleep. Not with the image of those reptilian, ancient eyes burned into my mind, and not with the fear that the sky above us was a shattering mirror.

I turned away from the vanity. My resolve hardened. The pins stayed in. I smoothed the silk of my skirts, my heart beginning a slow, heavy thrum against my chest.

Considerations for his workload were secondary to the sheer, magnetic pull of needing to see him. I needed to touch him and confirm that he was still solid, still real, and not just a fragment of a story being erased by an unseen hand.

Leaving the quiet warmth of the bedroom, I stepped back into the drafty hallway, my shadow stretching long and thin against the stone as I made my way toward the Emperor’s study.

SOREN

The maps spread across my desk were like a sprawling, white-veined monster, its limbs reaching into every corner of my empire.

Aldric and I were buried in a sea of parchment, the flickering lamplight casting deep, restless shadows against the walls of my study.

We were working with a frantic, silent intensity, our breaths the only sound in the room besides the scratch of charcoal on vellum and the rustle of reports.

We had found it... the invisible hand of Vetra, a systematic strangulation of Nevareth’s lifeblood.

Every ledger we opened revealed a new act of sabotage: a "lost" grain shipment here, a "delayed" supply line there.

I was so immersed in the cold logic of her betrayal that I had lost all sense of time. The world outside this room didn’t exist; there was only the pattern, and the desperate need to break it.

A sharp rap at the door cut through the silence. I didn’t even look up. "Later," I muttered, my eyes fixed on a tax shortfall from the Southern Reach.

A second knock followed, louder and more insistent. I ignored it again, my mind racing as I cross-referenced a provincial governor’s appointment with a series of suspicious warehouse fires. I was halfway to a solution when the third knock came, a heavy, demanding thud that echoed off the stone walls.

I finally snapped my head up, my neck cracking from hours of tension. "Aldric, get that," I snapped, my voice raspy. "Tell whoever it is that unless the palace is actively on fire, they are to leave."

Aldric sighed, his usual weary composure intact, and crossed the room. He pulled the heavy oak door open, and for a moment, he simply stood there.

Then, he performed the deepest, most immediate bow I had seen from him in years. "Your Majesty," he said, his voice dropping into a tone of profound respect.

I looked up sharply at the title. I expected a messenger, perhaps Ryse with a security update.

Instead, I saw Eris. She stood in the doorway, her presence a sudden, jarring splash of warmth and color against the cold, ink-stained chaos of my office. My heart did a traitorous leap. I scrambled to my feet, my chair skidding backward and nearly toppling over.

"Eris!" I blurted out, feeling a sudden, ridiculous flush of heat in my face. I walked toward her, my stride clumsy as I navigated the piles of books on the floor. "What are you doing here? Is something wrong? Is it Rael?"

She didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes... those piercing, intelligent amber eyes... were already moving past me, scanning the room.

She took in the complete and utter carnage of my workspace: the maps unfurled upside down, the open tomes on archaic trade laws, the half-empty mugs of cold tea.

She saw the lines of exhaustion on my face and the frantic set of Aldric’s shoulders. She understood the situation instantly. She didn’t need me to tell her it was serious; she could read the crisis in the very air.

"I was wondering," she said, her voice calm and steady, cutting through my internal panic, "exactly when you were planning on coming to bed."

"I... sorry," I said, offering a weak, apologetic gesture toward the desk. "I’ve got a lot of work, Eris. Truly. Something has come up." I tried to make my tone dismissive, a desperate attempt to protect her from the weight of what we’d found. "I’ll be there shortly. Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep."

I was lying, and we both knew it. I fully intended to stay in this room until the sun... wherever it was... rose.