The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 518: The True Scale of The Fire

In the midst of the triage, Aldric appeared from the records wing.

It was a testament to the man’s peculiar, bureaucratic soul that he emerged from the rubble still clutching a bundle of singed ledgers.

He was uninjured, his spectacles miraculously intact, possessed of the kind of extraordinary luck that follows those too focused on their work to notice the world ending.

He didn’t waste a second on shock. He immediately began to organize, directing guards to create a perimeter and calling for the healers to establish a central triage point near the north wing’s shadow.

He looked at Soren only once, a brief, weighted glance that acknowledged both the miracle of their survival and the crushing administrative nightmare that was about to descend upon them.

Aldric knew better than anyone that an empire without a palace was merely a collection of people waiting to starve or burn.

A moment later, Ryse emerged from the north tower, followed closely by Mira and Rael.

The boy’s hand was clamped tightly in Mira’s, his small knuckles white. Rael’s eyes were far too large for his face as he took in the skeletal remains of the palace. He didn’t look for the monsters; he looked for the person who had promised him safety.

He found Eris standing in the center of the ruin. His expression was a heartbreaking knot of relief and terror, the face of a child who had seen a goddess bleed and wasn’t sure if she was still his mother.

Eris saw him from across the distance. She became very still, a controlled, icy emotion settling over her features. She didn’t run to him. She couldn’t.

She was covered in gore and soot, her skin webbed with the glowing fractures of a failing seal. She knew that if she moved toward him in this state, she would only terrify him further.

Instead, she gave him a small, solemn nod. I’m here.

Rael nodded back, a tiny, jerky motion of his head. He understood the distance. He understood that the battle was over, but the woman standing there was still vibrating with the resonance of the fire.

The moment the first healers emerged with their kits, Soren’s hand was on Eris’s arm. His touch was firm, guiding her toward a makeshift seat before she could protest.

"I’m fine," Eris said automatically, her voice a raspy reflex.

"You’re not," Soren replied. The flatness of his tone brooked no argument.

"There are people worse off," she deflected, her eyes darting toward the moaning guards being carried past. "The healers should..."

"Konstantin is already being seen to," Soren interrupted, his voice dropping into that low, resonant register that commanded the air.

"Caelen’s shoulder is a flesh wound. You have three cracked ribs, a shoulder wound that won’t stop bleeding, and your seal is fracturing." He paused, his gaze boring into hers with an unyielding intensity. "You will sit down, Eris."

She gave him a look that would have ended a lesser man, a sharp, imperial glare that promised retribution, but Soren wasn’t a lesser man.

He didn’t blink. He waited. Finally, with a sigh of frustrated dignity, Eris sat down on a fallen piece of a Corinthian column. Soren let out a very small exhale of relief, a sound so human it almost felt out of place.

It was then that Ophelia emerged from the palace interior. She had sheltered in the lower vaults, and she appeared now with her composure remarkably intact.

Her eyes, however, carried a complicated weight as she walked directly toward Eris. Soren stepped back slightly, giving them space, though he remained close enough to intervene if the atmosphere soured.

Ophelia stopped a few feet away, her gaze raking over Eris, taking in the blood, the soot, and the faint, golden seepage of the cracks.

"I was worried," Ophelia said. The words were simple and direct. There was no performance in them, no theatrical lilt of the courtier. She meant it.

Eris looked up at her, reading the sincerity with a wary, exhausted curiosity. She had spent years watching Ophelia charm the room, yet here, in the ruins of their world, the woman was maddeningly genuine.

"I know," Eris said, accepting the concern without warmth, but without the usual bite of her cynicism.

Ophelia hesitated, her hands smoothing the front of her gown. "Can I..." She stopped, her voice softening into something almost vulnerable. "May I hug you?"

Eris blinked. The question caught her completely off guard. Her instinct was to say no, to retreat behind the walls of her own isolation, but the sheer lack of manipulation in the request disarmed her. Before she could voice a decline, Ophelia moved in.

She wrapped her arms around Eris, being incredibly careful of her injuries, but she didn’t just hover. She held her.

Eris went rigid for a full second, her muscles locking into a posture of defense. Then, slowly, the tension bled out. She didn’t return the hug, but she allowed it, standing as a still point in the center of Ophelia’s quiet embrace.

After a few seconds, Ophelia stepped back. Her expression was soft, even tender, but as she turned to leave, her tone shifted. It remained gentle, yet it carried a sudden, subterranean weight.

"Take care of yourself," Ophelia said, her eyes flickering just for a moment to the glowing fractures on Eris’s skin. "Properly. While you still can."

Eris became very still. She searched Ophelia’s face for the hidden meaning, for a mistake, but Ophelia was already moving on, turning away to call out to a group of survivors.

She made the transition so smoothly it was as if she had said nothing unusual at all.

What was that, Eris thought, the realization a cold spike in her chest. Perhaps she heard wrong. Ophelia couldn’t have said those words.

She filed the thought away, a sharp piece of glass to be examined later when her ribs didn’t feel like they were made of fire.

Nearby, Aldric approached Soren. He leaned in, his voice low enough to be kept from the ears of the common guards. "Jorel hasn’t returned," he said.

Soren’s jaw tightened. "I know."

Before the trial had even begun, before the first Syvrak had breached the walls, Soren had sent Jorel beyond the central district.

The reports from the provinces had been too thin, the messengers too few. Jorel had been sent to investigate the silence in the outskirts directly. He should have been back but he wasn’t.

Soren looked out at the horizon, where the smoke of the city met the darkening sky.

Either Jorel had found something significant enough to keep him, or something had found him. Given the state of the palace, Soren didn’t like the odds of the former.

The battle for the palace was over, but as the sun began to set over the ruins, the true scale of the fire they had ignited was only just beginning to show its face.