The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 280: The Return
The knock came hard and urgent, shattering the fragile quiet of Eris’s chambers. She was already awake... had been for hours, watching the darkness thin beyond her windows, her mind churning through possibilities and contingencies like a mill grinding grain.
"Enter."
The guard who stumbled through her door was young, breathing hard, his face pale in the pre-dawn light. "Lady Eris. Commander Ryse sends word... the Ravencrests have fled the palace. They attacked the guards and escaped. They’re... they’re carrying something. Someone."
Mira.
The thought arrived with absolute certainty, cold and sharp as winter ice. Of course it was Mira. Of course they’d panicked. She’d driven Isolde into exactly the kind of desperate, stupid action that ended with people making fatal mistakes.
She just hadn’t expected them to run quite this fast.
"Where is Commander Ryse now?" Her voice came steady despite the way her heart had kicked into a harder rhythm.
"Leading the pursuit, my lady. He took two dozen men and rode east. He said... " The guard swallowed. "He said he’d find them before dawn."
Eris was already moving. She crossed to her wardrobe, pulling out riding leathers with swift, practiced efficiency. Behind her, the guard shifted uncertainly.
"My lady, Commander Ryse gave strict orders that you were to remain... "
"I don’t answer to Commander Ryse." She yanked on her boots, lacing them tight. "Have my horse saddled. Now."
"But... "
"Now!"
The guard fled.
Eris finished dressing in silence, her hands moving on instinct while her mind raced ahead. East. The old trade routes, probably. Abandoned buildings, forgotten corners where illegal transactions happened in shadow. If Isolde was moving Mira, she wasn’t doing it to hide her somewhere safe. She was moving her to get rid of her.
Permanently.
The thought made something hot and vicious coil in Eris’s chest. She reached for her cloak...
"Going somewhere?"
She spun. Soren stood in her doorway, still dressed in his sleeping clothes but somehow managing to look imperious anyway. His his ice-blue eyes tracked her with the kind of focus that missed nothing.
"Get out of my way." She moved toward him, but he didn’t budge.
"I’ve been briefed," he said quietly. "Ryse has it handled."
"Ryse doesn’t... "
"Ryse has twenty men, military training, and a head start. You have rage and guilt." His voice remained calm, infuriatingly calm.
"Which do you think is more useful right now?"
"She’s hurt because of me!" The words burst out before Eris could stop them, raw and jagged. "I put her in danger. I used her as bait without even knowing it, and now they’ve had her for days, and gods only know what they’ve... " Her throat closed. She couldn’t finish.
"Eris... "
"No." She tried to push past him. "I need to... "
His hands caught her shoulders, firm but gentle, pulling her to a stop. Then, before she could protest further, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her against his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
The gesture was so unexpected, so completely at odds with the careful distance he’d been maintaining, that for a moment Eris simply froze.
She wanted to argue. Wanted to shove him aside and run, to do something instead of standing here uselessly while Mira suffered somewhere in the darkness.
"I know you’re terrified," Soren murmured against her hair. His voice was low, meant only for her. "I know you’ve been holding yourself together by sheer will for days. But Ryse has her. He’s bringing her home. And riding out in a panic won’t help anyone."
Eris’s hands had somehow fisted in his shirt. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek, steady and sure, could feel the cool wash of his presence like water over flame.
All the fear she’d been wrestling down, all the guilt and rage and helpless terror... it crashed over her in a wave that left her shaking.
She’d missed this. Gods, she’d missed him. The steadiness of him, the way his touch could quiet the chaos in her mind without demanding anything in return.
"Trust Ryse," Soren continued, his fingers moving through her hair in slow, soothing strokes. "He’s my Commander for a reason. He knows what he’s doing. And he’ll bring Mira back safely."
He pressed his lips to the crown of her head, the gesture achingly tender. "We can wait for them together. At the entrance. You’ll see her the moment they arrive."
The logic penetrated slowly, working its way past panic. Eris drew in a shuddering breath, then another, feeling her racing heart begin to slow. Soren was right. Riding out blindly would accomplish nothing except satisfying her own desperate need to do something.
"Alright," she whispered against his chest. "I’ll wait."
"Good girl."
Eris’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing into a glare that would have made lesser men flee. Soren smiled down at her... that rare, genuine smile that transformed his usually solemn face... and despite everything, despite the fear still gnawing at her insides, she felt something flutter in her stomach.
Damn him.
Before she could form a suitable retort, Soren bent and swept her off her feet in one smooth motion, cradling her against his chest as he turned toward the door.
"What are you... "
"We’re waiting at the entrance," he said calmly, already walking. "Together. Like I said."
Eris opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. Fine. Let him carry her if it made him feel useful. Her mind was already racing ahead anyway, cataloging what would need to be done... physicians, clean chambers for Mira, guards to ensure no further attempts...
The list was endless. But first, she needed to see with her own eyes that Mira was alive.
The palace entrance was bathed in the pale gold of early morning when Ryse’s forces finally appeared. Eris had been pacing the courtyard for what felt like hours, Soren a quiet presence at her side, when the sound of hoofbeats echoed through the gates.
She moved forward before they’d even fully entered, her eyes scanning the mounted soldiers until she found what she was looking for.
A wagon. Covered. Moving slowly, carefully, as though transporting something infinitely fragile.
Her stomach dropped.
Ryse dismounted first, his face grim as he approached. "My lady. Your Majesty." He bowed briefly. "We have her."
"Let me see her." Eris’s voice came out steadier than she felt.
Ryse gestured to the wagon. Two soldiers were already carefully extracting a blanket-wrapped bundle, and when Eris drew closer, her breath stopped In her throat.
Mira.
But barely recognizable as such. The girl’s face was a canvas of bruises, yellowing and purple and fresh red overlapping in sickening patterns.
Her cheekbones jutted sharp beneath skin stretched paper-thin, and even unconscious, she trembled with a violence that spoke of fever and shock and systematic cruelty.
Mira." Her voice came out hoarse. She reached out carefully, her hand hovering over Mira’s shoulder, afraid to touch, afraid of causing more pain. "Mira, I’m here. You’re safe now."
Mira’s head turned fractionally, her cracked lips moving. The sound that emerged was barely a whisper. "My... lady..."
"Shh. Don’t try to talk." Eris looked up at the soldiers, at Ryse who’d appeared beside them. "What happened? What did they do to her?"
"They were selling her," Ryse said quietly. "To a trafficker. We caught them in the act."
Selling her.
They were going to exchange her for coins.
The courtyard seemed to tilt. Eris heard the words, understood them intellectually, but her mind couldn’t quite process the reality of what they meant. They had taken her bright, loyal, devoted Mira and beaten her and starved her and then tried to sell her like livestock.
Something cold and vast unfolded in Eris’s chest. Not heat... cold. The kind of cold that came before wildfire, the breathless moment before everything exploded.
Her expression smoothed into perfect blankness. When she looked up, her eyes reflected literal flame, Pyronox stirring in recognition of her rage.
"Get her to the physicians," Soren commanded, his voice cutting through the sudden tension. "Now. Spare no expense. I want the best healers in the capital attending her within the hour."
Soldiers moved immediately, bearing Mira toward the palace with careful haste. Eris followed, her steps measured and deliberate, until they reached the healing chambers and the physicians descended like a flock of concerned birds.
Only when she’d watched them begin treatment... cleaning wounds, administering potions for fever and pain, wrapping her in warm blankets... did Eris finally turn away.
She found Soren waiting just outside the door, his expression carefully neutral but his eyes tracking her every movement.
"Where are they holding Isolde?" Her voice was soft. Too soft.
Soren’s jaw tightened. He’d seen this before, or something like it... the moment when Eris of Solmire, the calculating politician, stepped aside and let the Fire Queen rise in her place. It was beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
"The eastern detention cells," he said. "All three Ravencrests, plus the merchant. Under heavy guard."
Eris nodded once, then started walking.
Soren didn’t try to stop her. Instead, after giving quiet orders to the healers to spare nothing in Mira’s care, he followed.
Behind them, Ryse watched them go, then turned back to the healing chamber. Through the doorway, he could see Mira struggling weakly against the physicians’ ministrations, her body fighting even gentle touch like an animal that had forgotten kindness.
The Commander’s expression hardened into something grim and satisfied.
The Ravencrests had no idea what was coming. But Ryse knew. He’d seen Soren’s barely contained rage, the way the Emperor’s ice magic had begun frosting the air around him without conscious thought. He’d seen the blank, terrible calm settle over Lady Eris like armor forged from ancient fury.
Whatever happened in those detention cells, the Ravencrests deserved every moment of it.
Because if there was one thing Emperor Soren excelled at, it was erasing problems so thoroughly that not even memory remained. And paired with the Fire Queen whose flames had once reduced armies to ash?
The heavens themselves would feel this reckoning.
