The Villainess Wants To Retire

Chapter 583: The Emperor’s shock

Aldwin let out a quiet, genuine laugh."What?" Soren asked, frowning.

"I am not certain it qualifies as a secret anymore," Aldwin said. "Given that your wife figured it out considerably before you ever considered telling her."

Soren blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Your wife," Aldwin said simply, "believes you are a dragon. Or at least, something that wears the skin of a man while carrying the fire of the ancient ones."

Soren processed this. He felt a strange combination of being entirely unsurprised and yet deeply shocked, the specific feeling of knowing a woman is perceptive and still being caught off guard by the sheer depth of her sight.

"Of course she does," Soren muttered, rubbing his face.

"And I believe she is correct," Aldwin added.

There was a long pause as the admission settled between them.

"Yes," Soren finally exhaled. "Although I am still not entirely certain of the mechanics of it myself. But yes. I am. I feel the pull of the ley lines. I feel the fire in a way no human mage should."

Aldwin looked at him with the hunger of a scholar who had just been handed the missing piece of a thousand-year-old puzzle. "Well then. We have an advantage. One dragon might be able to accomplish what an army of mages could only dream of. The question now is not whether it is possible. The question is how."

"And that’s why we have no time to waste," Soren said, his voice rising with an eager, impatient edge. The fear of time running out was a physical pressure in his chest. "We should begin the research tonight. Now. If I can use my own essence to, "

Aldwin sighed dramatically, a sound that cut through Soren’s frantic energy. He looked at the younger man, at the dimness in his eyes from exhaustion, at the way his skin looked sallow under the torchlight.

Soren was vibrating with a tension that was unsustainable. He was carrying the weight of the entire realm on his shoulders and refused to set it down for even a second.

"Soren," Aldwin said, his voice firm. "Before we embark on this vigorous journey of undoing a god’s cage, you are going to go rest."

Soren looked at him in genuine surprise. "Rest? I just told you every second we waste—"

"Is a second you spend being a less effective weapon," Aldwin interrupted. "You have been traveling for a month without sleep. You have faced a void and a tribunal. You look as if you are made of glass that is about to shatter. You are not invincible, no matter what scales you think you have."

"I am fine," Soren stubbornly insisted, though his hand drifted toward the desk to steady himself.

"You look like a corpse that has been told to keep walking," Aldwin countered. "I will handle the initial mapping of the scrolls myself. I do not need you hovering over my shoulder with eyes that can barely focus." He paused, his expression softening. "And besides, we have one more thing to consider. Eris’s current condition."

Soren froze. His heart dropped into his stomach. "What condition? She fainted, you said she was under strain—"

"It is not my place to tell you," Aldwin said, already turning toward the door.

"Aldwin! Everyone in this palace seems to know something about my wife that I don’t!" Soren’s voice was sharp with irritation and a burgeoning, nameless panic.

"Then perhaps," Aldwin said, walking away down the corridor, "you should go find out what it is from the source."

"Fine!"

Soren returned to the imperial chamber feeling confused, irritated, and more than a little played. He pushed open the heavy doors, expecting to find Eris asleep or perhaps staring out the window in a fit of melancholy.

Instead, he found her sitting in the small velvet armchair by the hearth, doing something so completely unusual that he actually stopped in the doorway to stare.

She was sewing.

Eris, the woman who had once told him that needles were only useful for poison, was carefully pulling a thread through a piece of soft, pale fabric.

"Are you okay?" Soren asked, his voice hesitant.

Eris didn’t look up, but a small, sarcastic smile touched her lips. "I haven’t stabbed myself yet, if that’s what you’re asking."

"You’re supposed to be in bed," Soren said, walking toward her. "Resting."

"I’m not sleepy yet," she replied, her eyes focused on her work.

Soren let out a long, dramatic sigh. He reached her side and, without asking, slumped down onto the rug at her feet, leaning his back against her chair and resting his head on her lap. The contact was an instant relief, a grounding wire for his frayed nerves.

Eris set aside the sewing, a small, shapeless piece of linen, and ran her cool fingers through his hair. "You need more rest than I do, Soren. You’re vibrating."

"Aldwin said the same," Soren confessed, his voice muffled against her skirts. He closed his eyes, soaking in her scent. "And he said you had something to say to me."

Eris’s hand stilled for a heartbeat. Her heart fluttered against her ribs, a frantic little bird. This was it. The silence of the room was heavy, the fire crackling softly in the grate. It was the perfect time.

Soren waited, his breathing slowing. But as he lay there, his magical senses began to drift. He felt the ice magic he had sensed before, the strange, humming presence within her that didn’t belong to him, yet felt so familiar. It wasn’t just one pulse. It was multiple.

Soren shifted, turning his head to press a soft kiss against her stomach, right over the center.

Eris gasped slightly, her face blooming into a deep, vivid blush. "Do you... do you sense them already?" she whispered.

Soren pulled back, looking up at her with furrowed brows. "Them?"

Eris lowered her head, her hair falling like a curtain around them as she leaned down to kiss his forehead. "Yes," she whispered against his skin, her voice trembling with a mixture of terror and wonder. "The triplets, Soren."

Soren’s eyes widened. He went perfectly still, his heart seemingly stopping in his chest. "What?"

"Three," she breathed, a tear finally escaping and landing on his cheek. "There are three of them."

The Emperor of Nevareth, the man who had faced a god in the void and returned, simply stared at his wife in a state of absolute, shattering shock.