The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 497: Weakness

The boy bit his lip, his eyes welling with fresh tears, but he gave a small, hesitant nod. "I’ll try."

"Good boy," she whispered, kissing his forehead with a fierce, protective love. "So brave. I’m coming back, Rael. I’m going to find daddy, and we are both coming to get you very soon. Until then, you stay strong. Keep your heart brave." She tapped his chest, right over his heart, her eyes burning with a vow that not even a god could break.

"No!" Rael’s courage broke as Ryse reached for him. "Don’t go, mama! Please! Stay!"

His grip on her neck was like a vise. He began to wail, a sound of pure, heart-wrenching abandonment that made Eris feel as though she were being torn in half. "Don’t want to! Stay here!"

"I have to go, Rael," she said, her own voice cracking despite her resolve. "Just for a little while. I have to help daddy make sure the monsters go away. You’ll be safe with Mira and Ryse in the big tower. It’s a castle inside the castle."

Rael was still shaking his head, his face buried in her shoulder once more. "Don’t want to..."

Eris took a breath, reaching for the only thing that might work, a piece of the mundane world to ground him. "How about we make a promise?" she asked, her voice turning conspiratorial.

Rael sniffled, looking up through his lashes. "What promise?"

"You be brave," Eris said, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "Stay with Mira. And when I come back... we’ll have cake. The chocolate one with the gold shavings that you like. And," she paused for effect, "you can stay up as late as you want. Past bedtime."

Rael considered this, the lure of chocolate and rebellion momentarily outweighing the terror. "Promise?"

Eris extended her pinky finger. "I pinky swear."

Rael linked his small, trembling finger with hers, his grip tight. "Okay."

Eris was about to turn to Ryse to give the final order when the Commander suddenly stiffened. His head snapped toward the end of the long, shadowed corridor that led deeper into the East Wing.

Ryse’s hand was on his sword before the sound even registered to Eris’s ears. With a harsh metallic rasp, his blade was out, the steel gleaming in the dim light.

"Stop there!" Ryse shouted, his voice a booming command that echoed off the stone walls. He stepped in front of Eris and the Prince, his weapon raised in a lethal warning. "Show yourself!"

At the far end of the hall, a figure stood silhouetted against a flickering torch, watching them with a stillness that was not human.

.....

Bianca did not just run; she fled with the jagged, desperate energy of a cornered animal. Every footfall against the damp stone of the East Wing felt like a hammer blow to her own ego.

Her breath came in ragged, burning hitches, fueled more by a toxic slurry of frustration and humiliation than physical exertion. Behind her, somewhere in the labyrinth of the palace, she could still hear the rhythmic clatter of the guards Ophelia had undoubtedly sent to finish the job.

That bitch. That absolute, silver-tongued fucking bitch.

The image of Ophelia’s smile played on a loop behind Bianca’s eyelids, the way the Queen’s fingers had closed around the obsidian hilt, the effortless theft, and the casual, bone-deep mockery in her voice.

It was a betrayal that stung worse than the threat of the gallows. Bianca had walked into that alcove thinking she was the one holding the leash, only to realize she was the dog being led to the slaughter.

She skidded to a halt in a darkened junction, pressing her back against the cold masonry to catch her breath. Her hands were shaking.

She looked down at them, empty and useless without the weapon Vetra had forged. But then, a new thought began to solidify through the haze of her panic.

I don’t need it. She pushed off the wall, her jaw setting into a hard, stubborn line. She didn’t need a cursed dagger to destroy a girl who had stolen everything she ever wanted.

Magic still hummed in Bianca’s veins, and the palace was currently a charnel house of opportunity. If she could just find Vetra, they could finish this. Vetra would understand. Vetra would give her a new purpose.

Resolved, Bianca turned the next corner, her boots silent on the discarded tapestries. She didn’t look. She didn’t scout. She rounded the blind turn with the recklessness of the damned.

And stopped dead.

The scene ahead was a tableau of frozen motion. Twenty feet away, a small group stood clustered near a heavy oak door. There was the Commander, Ryse, his armor battered but his presence unmistakable. Beside him was a maid, her face pale with terror.

But it was the woman in the center who made Bianca’s heart stop, then double its beat in a sudden, murderous rhythm.

The white hair was unmistakable, even in the gloom. The posture, the aura of barely contained power, the face that had haunted Bianca’s every waking moment since the trial began.

Eris Igniva. And she was holding something, no, someone. A child. A small boy with an identical white hair was clinging to her neck like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of her shoulder.

Recognition flashed through Bianca’s mind with the heat of a lightning strike.

Eris’s son. Her weakness.

Ophelia’s words about maternal instinct and vulnerability echoed in her ears. Here was the Great Empress, the dragon-vessel, reduced to a trembling woman protecting a fearful child.

Ryse was the first to react. His instincts were honed by a decade of war, and he didn’t wait for a formal introduction.

His sword left the scabbard with a sharp, metallic ring, the steel catching the flickering torchlight. He stepped forward in a single, fluid motion, placing his massive frame directly between Bianca and the Empress.

"Stop there!" Ryse commanded, his voice a booming crack of authority that left no room for negotiation. He didn’t just point the sword; he leveled it at her heart.