The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 190: Gossip

If there was one thing the servants of the Nevareth palace understood better than scrubbing frost-kissed marble, it was the sacred art of gossip. It was their true currency, more valuable than gold and significantly more flammable.

And it began, as all great catastrophes do, in the laundry rooms. Where else could whispers properly fester but among the steam, the soap, and the rhythmic, soul-crushing scrubbing of inexplicable bloodstains from imperial linens?

"Psst." Marta’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial hush as she wrung out a pillowcase with the violence of someone strangling a goose. "Did you hear? About the new one. The... Fire Queen."

Beside her, young Lena glanced toward the doorway with the practiced paranoia of a spy in a den of vipers. Coast was clear. "What about her?" she breathed, leaning in.

Marta leaned closer, her breath fogging in the damp air. "They say she killed her own father. Roasted him like a Sunday goose right in his own chambers." She paused for maximum dramatic effect. "He screamed for hours before the flames finally... poof... finished him."

Lena’s eyes went as round as dinner plates. "Hours?"

"Hours," Marta confirmed, nodding with the solemn gravity of a high priestess announcing the apocalypse. "And the servants who rushed in to help? Ash. Piles of sad, noble ash. Had to be swept up."

This was, of course, what scholars might call absolute horseshit.

But let it be known that horseshit, when properly distributed, makes for spectacular fertilizer. And the garden of palace fear was ripe for planting.

By midday, the story had scampered to the kitchens on eager little legs. By evening, it had sprouted wings and flown to the stables. By the next morning, it had evolved, put on a crown, and convinced half the palace staff that Lady Eris Igniva was a patricidal pyromaniac who snacked on witnesses for dessert.

The embellishments grew with each telling, like a snowball of pure nonsense rolling down a hill of credulity.

She’d laughed while he burned. No,she’d danced, a jig of jubilant immolation. No,she’d sat and watched with a serene smile, casually eating grapes and spitting the seeds into his smoldering remains.

The truth... a messy, brutal act of self-defense after a lifetime of abuse that left her traumatized and shaking... was, frankly, a bit of a downer. Truth didn’t have the same zing. It didn’t pair well with the afternoon tea.

And Lady Isolde Ravencrest, a virtuoso of verbal venom, understood this better than anyone.

She moved through the palace like a ghost with a grudge and a spectacular skincare routine. Never obvious. Never loud. Just... present, materializing at the exact moment to drop a perfectly polished poison pill into the conversational punchbowl.

In the servants’ hall, she paused near a cluster of chambermaids. She didn’t even look at them. Simply admired her own flawless gloves and murmured to the air, "I do hope the west wing staff are managing. The temperature fluctuations must be so difficult." A delicate, perfectly timed pause. "Though I suppose that’s to be expected when... fire magic is involved."

The maids exchanged glances that could have powered a telegraph. Isolde drifted away, leaving the implication hanging in the air like expensive perfume laced with cyanide.

Later, in the Rose Garden, she performed her masterwork. Seated beside Duchess Maren, she sipped tea, smiled, and let the silence do the heavy lifting for a full five minutes.

Then, a casual grenade: "Have you noticed the ice sculptures in the north corridor? Several are cracking. The majordomo is beside himself."

"Oh?" The Duchess’s interest sharpened to a fine point. "When did this start?"

"Isn’t it curious?" Isolde mused, examining her teacup as if it held the secrets of the universe. "Just after Her Majesty arrived." She let the title drip with faux reverence. "I’m sure it’s a coincidence. Fire and ice have always been... complementary elements."

The way she said "complementary" suggested they were more likely to wrestle in a pit than compose a sonnet.

By the time Isolde left, three separate ladies were actively debating if Eris’s mere presence was causing the very foundations of reality to sulk.

This, too, was premium, artisanal horseshit.

The sculptures were cracking because a clumsy apprentice had overcharged the heating runes weeks ago. It was a maintenance issue, not a mystical one.

But Isolde knew a good story could beat a boring fact any day of the week.

On the second day, the universe, ever a willing accomplice to drama, provided a spark. A small kitchen fire. A greasy pan, a distracted cook, a brief flare-up that was doused in minutes. The only casualty was the cook’s dignity.

But by evening, the story had been run through the rumor mill and emerged as a legendary epic.

"Her magic leaked out!" a footman insisted over stew. "She was angry about the thread count of her sheets, probably! The whole kitchen nearly became a funeral pyre!"

"I heard she pointed a finger at the head cook and he spontaneously combusted! Called down fire from the very heavens!"

"My cousin in the west wing says the air there smells of sulfur and regret! Like hell itself, but with worse draughts!"

Eris, who had been in her chambers at the time, blissfully unaware and knee-deep in trade documents, would have been deeply impressed by her newfound ability to hex kitchens via psychic irritation from three floors away.

Isolde, hearing the revised and improved version, smiled into her wine. It was a good vintage. A good day.

By the third day, the palace staff had developed a full-blown survival guide, passed around like sacred texts. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Rule 1: Don’t make eye contact. She steals souls through the pupils. Rule 2: Speak only when spoken to. She finds unsolicited conversation... flammable. Rule 3: If you must enter her chambers, wear iron. Fire magic hates iron.(This was particularly hilarious, as iron had as much effect on fire magic as a strongly worded letter would on a hurricane. But panic breeds peculiar logic.)

The nobles were more subtle, but their subtext had all the subtlety of a war drum.

"Such an... unconventional choice His Majesty has made," one would say, sipping wine.

"Unconventional," another would agree, the word dripping with implications of arson and instability.

Count Lysander, that ambitious snake in human clothing, held court with practiced ease. "I’m not saying she’s dangerous," he’d murmur, swirling brandy as if it were the truth he was muddying. "I’m simply pointing out that fire... spreads. It’s in its nature. A fact, not an accusation."

Later, in private, the gloves came off.

"She’ll burn this empire to a cinder!" "Mark my words,the wedding will be a bloodbath! Literally!" "The Emperor’s lost his mind!Someone needs to tell him!"

But nobody did. Because telling Soren Nivarre he’d made a mistake was a one-way ticket to managing a glacier in the Northern Reaches, where your only companion would be a depressive penguin.

So they whispered. And the whispers grew from a murmur to a roar, a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated hearsay.

---

She heard them, of course.

In an ice palace, sound doesn’t just travel; it gossips, echoing through the halls with a life of its own. Whispers slithered under her door like eager, slimy little serpents, desperate to be heard.

A lesser ruler might have erupted. Might have kicked the door down and unleashed a torrent of royal fury, screaming, "I am a queen, you morons, not a pantomime villain!"

But Eris? Eris was... fascinated.

The speed was impressive. The consistency, masterful. The specific, recurring phrases... unstable. Cannot coexist. Dangerous... this was no accident. This was a symphony of slander, and she knew, with utter certainty, who was waving the conductor’s baton.

She didn’t need to investigate the source. She just appreciated the artistry.