The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 269: DISTANCE

ERIS

I came to Soren’s study that evening to discuss the day’s progress, armed with notes about Cassius’s testimony and theories about Vetra’s new strategy.

My steps echoed through empty corridors as I approached his door, and I hated the nervous flutter in my chest, hated that I’d become someone who felt nervous about seeing him.

When had that happened? When had Soren Nivarre stopped being political ally and become... whatever this was?

I knocked. His voice called permission to enter, and I pushed open the door to find him at his desk, surrounded by maps and reports. He looked up as I entered, and something in my chest twisted.

He seemed distant. Distracted. His eyes met mine briefly before sliding away to focus on parchment in front of him, like maintaining eye contact required effort he couldn’t spare.

"Your Majesty." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Come in. I was just reviewing reconstruction timelines."

I sat, spreading my own notes on the desk between us. "Cassius broke. Completely. He’s providing full testimony about Vetra’s network, embezzlement, blackmail, everything."

"Good." Soren’s response was professional, measured. "That should give us leverage with other minor nobles. Once they see someone cooperating without immediate execution, more will follow."

We discussed strategy for several minutes, which nobles to approach next, how to use Cassius’s intelligence, timing for public revelations. All perfectly reasonable conversation between political allies working toward common goal.

But it felt wrong.

My hand moved across the desk, reaching for a document near his. My fingers accidentally brushed his, brief contact, barely a touch.

He didn’t pull away. But he didn’t lean in either, didn’t let the contact linger or turn it into excuse for proximity like he usually would. Just... accepted it neutrally, like touching stranger’s hand in a crowd.

When he smiled, it came out weak. Practiced. The expression he wore for nobles he didn’t particularly like but needed to remain cordial with.

"We should coordinate with Maren tomorrow," he said, already looking back at his papers. "Her intelligence about the hidden vault needs to be verified before we move on it."

"Of course." My voice sounded normal. Steady. Gave away nothing of the hurt blooming sharp and unexpected in my chest.

We finished discussing the day’s progress, made plans for tomorrow’s moves, agreed on strategy for handling Duke Konstantin who was still calculating which side would ultimately benefit him more.

All very professional.

All very distant.

When I stood to leave, Soren rose as well, courtesy dictated it, emperor showing respect to future empress. He walked me to the door, maintained appropriate distance, wished me good rest.

Nothing in his behavior was technically wrong. He’d been polite, attentive to strategy, cooperative in planning.

But he’d been absent in every way that mattered.

I left his study feeling like I’d just conducted business negotiation rather than spending time with the man who’d whispered inappropriate things in my ear that afternoon, who’d made me blush in front of half the reconstruction site, who’d kissed my forehead while I slept and thought I wouldn’t know.

What had changed between afternoon teasing and evening distance?

I didn’t understand. Didn’t know what I’d done wrong or why he’d retreated into formal courtesy when hours ago he’d been deliberately provocative.

The hurt sat heavy in my chest, unwelcome and unwanted. I’d spent two lifetimes learning not to care when people pulled away, Caelen had taught me that lesson thoroughly. But apparently I hadn’t learned well enough, because Soren’s withdrawal hurt in ways I wasn’t prepared to handle.

I walked back toward my temporary chambers, forcing my expression into neutral mask. Couldn’t let anyone see the confusion and pain warring beneath the surface. Couldn’t appear weak when Vetra had spies everywhere looking for vulnerabilities to exploit.

A guard intercepted me in the corridor near my rooms.

"Your Majesty." He bowed quickly. "Update on the search for your maid."

Hope and dread twisted together. "What have you found?"

"We brought several servants in for questioning, anyone who was in the relevant corridors that evening. But no one can provide useful information. Either they saw nothing, or they’re too frightened to speak." His expression was apologetic. "We’ve exhausted leads within the palace walls."

I felt cold settle over me. It’s been over a day or two since Mira vanished, and we were no closer to finding her than when we’d started.

"Extend the search outside the palace," I ordered. "Question merchants, stable hands, anyone who might have seen someone leaving with a prisoner or unconscious person. Check abandoned buildings in the outer city. If she’s not in the palace, someone took her somewhere."

"Yes, Your Majesty." He bowed again and departed.

I stood alone in the corridor, feeling weight of failure press down. Mira had followed me from Solmire out of loyalty I’d never asked for or deserved. And I couldn’t even protect her from whatever had swallowed her in the night.

I changed direction, heading toward Mira’s designated room in the servants’ wing instead of my own chambers. If there were any clues about what happened, where she might have gone, I needed to find them myself rather than trusting guards who didn’t know what they were looking for.

The servants’ quarters were modest but clean, small rooms with simple furnishings, everything practical rather than decorative. Mira’s door wasn’t locked. Why would it be? Servants didn’t have possessions valuable enough to require security.

I entered and closed the door behind me, observing the space with scrutiny I’d learned commanding a kingdom and destroying enemies.

The room was neat. Almost obsessively so, bed made with military precision, clothes folded and stacked carefully, personal items arranged with obvious care. Nothing out of place except...

Except the wrongness of it. The room was too perfect, like someone had tried to make it look undisturbed but had gotten the details slightly off. The angle of the chair. The way the blanket was folded. Small things most wouldn’t notice, but I’d spent years reading scenes for evidence, for clues about what had really happened versus what someone wanted me to believe happened.

I began searching systematically. Under the mattress, nothing. Behind the small mirror on the wall, nothing. In the trunk at the foot of the bed where Mira kept her few personal belongings, just clothes and basic necessities.

Then I opened the small wooden box on the table beside her bed. The kind used for storing truly personal items, letters, keepsakes, things that mattered.

Inside, wrapped carefully in a small cloth, I found a button.

Small, unremarkable at first glance. But carved into its surface was an insignia I recognized immediately, the Ravencrest family crest. Three ravens in flight over a crescent moon, rendered in detail too fine for a button that should have been simple fastening device.

My fingers closed around it, mind racing through implications.

Isolde Ravencrest. Vetra’s lady-in-waiting. The woman who’d orchestrated fake witnesses, who’d stood behind the Regent Empress during that disastrous council session, who had motive to make problems disappear before they could reach Eris.

Mira must have found this. Must have seen something or heard something that connected Isolde to the demon attack or Vetra’s schemes. And she’d kept the evidence, wrapped it carefully, hidden it away in her private belongings because she didn’t know who to trust in a palace full of Vetra’s spies.

Then Isolde had discovered Mira knew something. And made her disappear.

I closed my fist around the button until the carved edges bit into my palm.

Mira was alive. Had to be alive, because if Isolde just wanted her dead, they would have found a body by now. No, they were keeping her somewhere, either extracting information or ensuring her silence, or both.

I left the room, button burning in my pocket like accusation.

Isolde Ravencrest had just made a fatal mistake.

She’d taken something that belonged to me. And I was going to burn her entire world to retrieve it.

(Meanwhile, in darkness beneath the palace where no one thought to look...)

Mira hung from chains bolted to the ceiling, wrists bloody from struggling against iron that wouldn’t give. Her face was bruised, one eye swollen shut, lip split and still bleeding.

Isolde paced before her, elegant even here, even in this place of torture and suffering. Her brothers flanked her, Daemon his casual cruelty, Kael with his charm turned vicious when no one was watching.

"You must know something you little wench! Tell me about Eris’s weaknesses," Isolde said for the hundredth time, voice sweet as poisoned honey. "What frightens her? What makes her vulnerable? What can we use?"

Mira said nothing. Had said nothing for days despite the pain, despite the fear, despite knowing no one was coming.

"She’s not looking for you," Isolde continued, circling like predator. "Your precious Fire Queen doesn’t even notice you’re gone. Why would she? You’re just a servant. Replaceable. Forgettable."

Lies designed to break spirit, to shatter loyalty, to make Mira believe abandonment so she’d give up resisting.

But Mira knew better. Knew Eris would notice eventually, would search, would care because that was who she’d become, not the tyrant from stories, but something softer underneath all that fire.

"Nothing?" Isolde’s pleasant façade cracked. "Fine. Kael, intensify."

Her brother smiled and picked up tools that gleamed in torchlight, and Mira closed her eyes and thought of fire and queens and loyalty that mattered more than pain.

She’ll come, Mira thought desperately. Lady Eris will come.

She had to believe that.

Because if she didn’t, the darkness would swallow her completely.