The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 482: THE TRIAL OF VETRA HELENA NIVARRE PART 2
The words acted as a key, turning a lock in the deep, dark cellar of Soren’s mind.
Suddenly, the grand Tribunal Hall vanished. In its place was a small, stone room that smelled of damp moss and iron.
A six-year-old Soren, small and fragile, was being gripped by the back of his neck. The water in the basin was a slurry of half-melted slush.
He was shoved down.
The cold was not a temperature; it was a physical assault. It felt like needles of glass being driven into every pore.
He couldn’t breathe. His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen, but there was only the suffocating, freezing dark.
"This teaches control, Soren," Vetra’s voice drifted down through the water, as clear and merciless as the ice itself. "A King must never be at the mercy of his own body’s weakness. Again."
He was pulled up just as his heart began to stutter, his skin a translucent, sickly blue, his small frame racked with tremors so violent they threatened to shake his bones apart. Then, the hand pushed him back under.
In the present, Soren sat on his throne like a statue carved from the very ice he remembered.
His outer shell was flawless, his expression a blank, imperial mask. But internally, his chest felt tight, the phantom weight of Vetra’s hand still pressing against the back of his neck.
His eyes remained fixed on the far wall, but they were vacant, seeing a past that the rest of the room could only imagine through the dry reading of a legal document.
"Furthermore," the Magistrate continued, "the accused utilized psychological torture through prolonged isolation. The use of magical containment cells designed for sensory deprivation. Weeks spent in absolute darkness without human contact."
Another flash. The darkness was not just an absence of light; it was a heavy, living thing that pressed against his eyelids.
He remembered sitting in a void so complete he had begun to lose the sense of where his own body ended and the air began.
Days bled into weeks. He had clawed at the walls until his fingernails were gone, trying to find a seam, a crack, a sign that the world still existed. He had whispered his own name until it lost all meaning, a frantic attempt to keep from sliding into madness.
When the door finally opened, the light was a physical blow to his eyes. Vetra stood there, a silhouette of cold perfection.
"The void is the only true mirror," she had said, stepping over his curled, shivering form. "This masters your mind. Now, stand up. You have a lesson in history."
Soren’s hands clenched the armrests of the throne. His knuckles were white, the skin stretched so thin over the bone it looked ready to tear. Behind the velvet regalia and the golden weight of the crown, his body was a wire tuned to the point of snapping.
"Following these periods of deprivation," the Magistrate’s voice grew even more strained, "the accused practiced forced starvation. The Imperial Heir was deprived of sustenance for days, followed immediately by forced combat against seasoned adult opponents within the palace training rings."
In the memory, Soren was eight, his stomach a hollow pit of gnawing pain. He was dizzy, his vision tunneling as he was thrown into the sand of the arena. A soldier, three times his size and armed with a blunted practice sword, waited for him.
"Survive," Vetra commanded from the observation gallery, her voice echoing in the rafters.
She didn’t offer a weapon. She didn’t offer a strategy. She simply watched as the soldier moved in.
Soren remembered the taste of copper in his mouth as he was struck, the way his knees buckled from sheer exhaustion, and the terrifying, cold realization that his adoptive mother would truly let him die if he didn’t find the strength to kill.
The Magistrate paused, his face turning a shade paler as he turned the page. "The most egregious of these ’training’ methods... the accused is charged with forcing the Emperor into a burning furnace."
The hall gasped, a collective sound of disbelief and horror.
For Soren, the heat was suddenly everywhere. He remembered the roar of the flames, the orange-red glow of the iron grate as Vetra shoved him toward the maw of the fire.
The pain had been instantaneous, a screaming agony as his skin began to blister and peel. The smell of his own burning flesh had filled his nostrils, a scent he would never truly forget.
"The fire will consume you if you do not command it, Soren," she had whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackle of the wood. "Use the ice. Shield yourself, or become ash."
He had huddled in the corner of the furnace, his screams turning into a desperate, instinctive surge of magic. He had willed the cold into existence, a desperate barrier of frost that hissed against the inferno.
For months afterward, he had lived with a paralyzing, secret fear of every candle flame, every hearth fire, until he finally managed to bury it under the layers of ice he now used to rule.
And ironically he had ended up falling in love with the queen of fire herself.
In the present, Soren’s jaw was clamped so tight it ached. His breathing was shallow, a controlled struggle to keep the panic of the memory from breaking through the mask.
Beside him, Eris sat in her own throne, her violet eyes sharp and observant. She didn’t look at the crowd; she looked at Soren.
She saw the minute tremor in his fingers, the way the pulse in his neck was hammering like a trapped bird. She understood the cost of this reading. She knew that every word was a fresh lash on an old scar.
Slowly, with a movement so subtle it was invisible to the gallery, she shifted her hand on the arm of her throne. Her fingers reached out, bridging the small gap between them. Her fingertips touched his hand, a light, grounding pressure. It was a private anchor in the middle of a public storm.
Soren felt the touch. It was a jolt of warmth in a world of ice. He didn’t turn to look at her, but he allowed his hand to relax, just a fraction. He was grateful. He was acknowledged.
"The final charge in this section," the Magistrate whispered, his voice almost failing. "At age nine, the accused forced the Imperial Heir to commit his first murder. A political prisoner was brought before the boy. Under duress and direct command, the child was forced to execute the man with a ceremonial dagger."
The memory was the heaviest of them all. The prisoner was a man named Elian, a former clerk who had done nothing but witness something he shouldn’t have. He was kneeling, bound, his face wet with tears as he pleaded for his life.
Vetra stood behind Soren, her hands on his shoulders. She was a shadow, her breath warm against his ear. "Do it, Soren," she whispered.
The knife was heavy in his small, shaking hands. It felt like it weighed more than the palace itself. "Mercy is a luxury you cannot afford. To rule is to be the dealer of death. If you cannot kill one man, you cannot rule a million."
Soren had closed his eyes, the image of the man’s weeping face burned into his retinas. He had pushed the blade forward.
He remembered the sickening, wet resistance of the flesh, the way the warm blood had sprayed over his hands, staining his white tunic.
He had felt the life leave the man, a shuddering breath that would haunt his dreams for a decade.
In the hall, Soren’s eyes closed for a brief, flickering second. Eris felt the tension return to his hand, and she squeezed his fingers harder, anchoring him to the present, to her, away from the blood-stained tunic of a nine-year-old boy. He opened his eyes, looking at her for a fleeting moment, a silent acknowledgment of her support.
"Eighth Charge," the Magistrate read, his voice gaining strength as he moved away from the childhood trauma.
"The illicit use of blood magic to bind the Emperor. The accused utilized a Heartstone artifact to carve runes into the Emperor’s flesh, creating a permanent link for tracking and physical control. A violation of the Imperial Person and an act of enslavement."
The room erupted. The murmurs turned into an outcry of pure, distilled outrage. This wasn’t just training; this was an assault on the sovereignty of the throne itself.
Soren felt the eyes of the nobles on him, not with reverence, but with pity. He saw the way Duchess Maren looked at him, her eyes soft with sympathy. He hated it. He loathed the way they looked at him as a victim instead of a ruler. The pity felt more invasive than the torture ever had.
He straightened his back, his face returning to its marble stillness, even as Eris’s hand remained firmly locked over his, refusing to let him face the darkness alone.
