The Villainess Wants To Retire

Chapter 565: The Crack

Patterns of frost, intricate and jagged, raced up her neck, appearing for a heartbeat before the fire burned them away. Then, the heat would surge, turning her blood to molten lead, only to be chased back by the creeping, silent ice.Her hands lost their steadiness. Her legs, which had carried her through the courts of two kingdoms and the aftermath of an execution, simply ceased to function.

The others saw it before they understood it. They saw her face change, the light in her eyes flickering like a dying candle. They saw the strange, shimmering patterns of frost on her skin and the sudden, radiating heat that made the air around her shimmer.

Ellyn moved first, dropping his papers in a white cascade. Aldric and Ryse were only a fraction of a second after him, their instincts as protectors overriding their shock.

Eris’s body made the decision her mind could not. The floor didn’t just come up to meet her; it was as if the world tilted on its axis, sliding her toward the stone.

Aldric and Ryse caught her. Their hands were heavy on her shoulders, their faces a blur of terrified concern above her.

Not now, she thought, the words a dying ember in the dark. Not yet. I need to know what happened to him. I need to find the crack.

The cold and the heat surged one last time, a final, violent clash that met in the center of her chest and canceled each other out into a perfect, empty silence.

Then, the world went dark.

When the world came back to life again,

She was not in her chambers. She was not in the flowery realm of Pyronox, nor was she in the silver, echoing void where she had met Orrian.

She was somewhere between. It was a place that lacked the dignity of a location; it was a gray, featureless expanse that felt like the underside of a thought.

She could hear voices. They were muffled, distorted as if she were listening to a conversation through the thickness of a castle wall or from the bottom of a frozen lake.

"What is happening to her?" That was Aldric. The iron was gone from his voice; he sounded like a man who had just seen the sun go out.

"The strain," Aldwin answered. His voice was clearer, carrying the weight of a grim diagnosis. "The pregnancy... her health is deteriorating faster than her body can repair. The magic is eating her. The fire and the ice are at war, and the babies are the only thing keeping her anchored, but it’s also the thing that might break her. She cannot keep up."

I know, Eris thought in the gray silence. I have known for weeks.

Pyronox was absent. The god was silent, as if he, too, was waiting to see if his vessel would survive the night.

Eris floated in the between place, the alternating cycles of heat and cold still washing over her spirit like a fever. She didn’t think about her own safety. She didn’t think about the Council or the Empire. She thought of the man who had vanished into the white light.

Where are you Soren? she whispered into the gray. Where are you?

When she opened her eyes, she found her own ceiling, the intricate, carved rafters of the Imperial bedchamber.

Mira was there immediately, her face etched with the lines of a vigil that had clearly lasted hours, if not days. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her relief so enormous it was almost a physical pressure in the room.

"You’re awake, Your Majesty," Mira whispered, her hand clutching Eris’s with a strength that betrayed her fear.

Aldric stood by the window, his posture so straight it looked painful, his silhouette a dark sentinel against the morning light.

Aldwin was in his chair, the one by the window that had become his over the last few weeks, looking older than Eris had ever seen him. Kristina stood near the door, her usual sharp efficiency replaced by a quiet, watchful stillness.

No one spoke. They waited for her to find herself.

Eris didn’t ask how long she had been asleep. She didn’t ask for water. Before anyone could tell her to rest, she found her voice. It was steadier than her body had any right to produce, a tool of the Empress rather than the woman.

"Bring me the messengers," she said, her eyes fixed on Aldric. "The ones who came from the Northern Reaches. Bring them here. Now."

Aldric opened his mouth to protest, his hand moving as if to gesture toward her pale face.

Eris gave him a single, freezing look. He closed his mouth, bowed his head, and said, "Yes, Your Majesty."

Aldwin sighed, the sound like dry leaves. "Eris, you are pushing yourself past the point of no return. Your body is a house on fire."

"Then let it burn," she snapped, her eyes flashing with a sudden, dangerous heat. "I don’t need a house. I need my husband."

The messengers were brought in, three men who looked like they had been dragged through the bowels of the earth. They stood at the foot of her bed, their eyes downcast, their voices trembling as they recounted the final moment.

"The light, Your Majesty," the youngest one said. "It wasn’t like a spell. It was sudden. Blinding. It came from nowhere and filled the entire square. One moment the Emperor was standing in the mud, and the next... the light was gone, and he was gone with it."

Eris leaned forward, her fingers digging into the silk sheets. "Tell me everything. Every detail. No matter how small."

The messengers hesitated. One of them looked at the others, then back at Eris.

"There was a detail, Sire. Just before the light arrived. The Emperor... he stopped. He looked up at the sky, but he wasn’t looking at the clouds. He asked us if we could hear something."

Eris’s heart skipped a beat. "What did he say?"

"He asked if we heard a sound," the man whispered. "We told him we heard nothing. And then he asked if we could see it. He looked at us like... like a man who already knew the answer was no. He looked so alone, Your Majesty. And then the light took him."

Eris went very still.

It must be it.

The crack. The one Soren had written to Aldwin about. The one she and Ellyn had been hunting for in the margins of ancient texts.

The conclusion landed without ceremony, a cold, heavy weight in her chest.

The crack took him, she thought. Or he went into it. He saw the ending of the world, and he stepped through the door.

The silence after the messengers left was worse than the news itself.

It had been two weeks. Fourteen days. The missing time felt like a canyon between them. She thought of the pregnancy, the three heartbeats inside her, the strain that was literally cracking her soul. She thought of the research, the ice mages, the silent creator, and the fraying edges of their reality.

She had wanted to tell him everything. She had imagined the moment he would walk through those doors, mud-stained and weary, and she would tell him about the child. She would tell him that the world was breaking, but that they would find the pieces together.

He was supposed to come home, she thought again, the exhaustion finally catching up to her.

It was a specific kind of exhaustion, the kind that isn’t just in the muscles or the mind, but in the very marrow of the soul. She felt as though the world, or whoever was writing it, was determined to give her everything she ever wanted just so they could take it away in the same motion.

"Leave me," she said, her voice quiet and hollow.

Mira hesitated. Aldric looked at Aldwin, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

"All of you," Eris repeated. "I need to think."

Aldwin was the last to move. He stood by the bed for a long moment, his eyes searching hers. He knew. He knew what she was carrying, both the child and the secrets. He knew the cost of the fire and the ice. He didn’t say a word; he simply bowed and followed the others out.

The door clicked shut.

Eris was alone in the chamber. She moved her hand to her abdomen, her palm flat against the silk. The cold and the heat were still alternating within her, a slow, rhythmic pulse that felt like a ticking clock.

Where are you Soren? she whispered to the empty room.

The chamber was quiet. Soren’s absence was everywhere, in the arrangement of the chairs, in the scent of the woodsmoke, in the cold space on the other side of the bed.

He was gone. And somewhere, on the other side of a crack she couldn’t see, he was carrying the weight of the world alone.