The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 122: Tasty

Eli inhaled slowly, tasting the cold night—smoke from distant forges, the faint tang of blood from training grounds, the distant howl of a patrol. It was the scent of preparation, of pieces sliding into place. She didn’t close her eyes to rest. There was no rest for her anymore. Not after surviving the Dark Continent. Not after relinquishing flesh for steel. The Empire had found its pulse again, and Eli was its heartbeat.

"Boy!" she called into the corridors beyond. Her voice cut through the stone stillness.

The mage appeared—tall, composed, with eyes like molten gold beneath dark colored hair. He carried a pourer of crimson wine as though it were an extension of his will. The wine spilled over soft ivory glass, the liquid catching the moonlight in gentle arcs.

"Come here," she commanded, and he obeyed, stepping forward so close she could feel the warmth of his confidence—even now, his calm unsettled her.

Eli gripped his neck, her prosthetic hand firm, her fingers tightening with silent menace. "Just you wait.... Atlas," she said, each word laced with cold promise. "I will not sleep. I will not rest. I will show you that denial brings ruin. I will drench your kingdom in blood, and you will kneel."

The mage expression falter. The wine trickled in the glass, quivering like the air before an explosion. "But...but I’m not Atlas...l" he said softly. His voice was unwavering.

Eli let go. She turned to the moon, her cloak swirling. He stood at the border—an unmoving storm. She knew Atlas more intimately than anyone, and she’d seen his power erupt like wildfire against the veil between worlds. ’He is a god in the making.’ That thought both excited and terrified her. He couldn’t live. He must fall. Or she must fall trying.

She closed her eyes, feeling memories surge: Atlas’s first tentative smile when he summoned light; the crackle in the air before his power destroyed an entire hall of mages thinking themselves safe. ’That face, that calm...’Like molten core hiding deep in ice.

"You think you’ve seen what I am capable of...?"

She leaned in closer, her breath ghosting over the mage’s skin as he froze completely, paralyzed not by power—but by her presence.

"Denial," she spat the word, like a poison on her tongue. She had send letters to him, letters to the kingdom of berkimhum. But no answer came."...You think your silence protects you? That walking away is some noble tragedy? No. No, love. That was your first act of war."

Her grip tightened—not enough to kill, but enough to make the mage tremble.

"I will show you what denial brings. I will show you what happens when the empire loves someone it can no longer possess."

The air in the room grew heavy. Thick. Her mana bled from her like steam, warping the candlelight, cracking the glass of a nearby bottle. Her presence was no longer just imperial—it was unhinged.

Her voice dropped to a deadly whisper.

"I am the Empress. And I am the cage you never escaped."

The mage whimpered. She didn’t even hear him.

"I’ll raze the borderlands in your name. I’ll drown the kingdom’s rivers in wine and blood if I have to. I’ll paint the map in ash until your only refuge is me—until the only place left that remembers your name is my bed and my blade."

A pause.

Her pupils dilated, a slow smile unfurling on her lips. "And you’ll crawl back, eventually. They all do. But you? You’ll crawl with your crown in your mouth."

She released the mage then, gently, almost affectionately.

The boy collapsed to his knees, gasping.

But Elizabeth had already turned away.

Her hand still buzzed faintly with heat, the memory of his throat against her palm not leaving.

"...We were meant to burn together, Atlas," she murmured to the glass. "You just haven’t learned to love the fire yet."

.

.

.

At the eastern border, Atlas stood as Viscount Aiden and the noble Daisy. Morning light crept over emerald plains, painting dew on armored boots and weapons slung at ready.

Atlas felt a tremor—not in his body, but deep inside. His borrowed hair stirred, but he stood steady.

’Who the fuck is talking about me....?’

Beside him, Daisy brushed her golden-blonde hair behind one ear, her yellow eyes shimmering with concern.

"Are you okay?" she asked, voice quiet against the soft wind.

He smiled—warm, deliberate. "Don’t worry. It’s fine."

Her eyes widened. She’d known him a handful of days, met him in Isabella’s war council and watched him calm the tense queen with a few well-chosen words. He was always that composed, never a tremor, never a doubt. In the hush of dawn, that reassuring calm warmed her.

She squeezed his arm. ’...But what secrets did he hide?’

His ideas had reshaped half the council’s approach within a week.

No legacy name. No noble bloodline. And yet, when Aiden spoke, his voice cut through the haze of decades-old bureaucracy like a knife through gauze. He rewrote logistical blueprints that had been in place since Isabella’s grandfather reigned. He restructured the city’s outposts with rotating defensive sigils, each one drawn from foreign geometries no one else understood. Even the high mage’s assistant had muttered something about Aiden’s mana diagrams being "unnervingly elegant... dangerously efficient."

He had come from nowhere, and now the whole of Emrald moved differently.

Faster.

Sharper.

Colder.

Isabella had watched silently as her court leaned in when he opened his mouth. She noticed how generals with twice his years fell quiet during his assessments. How even her private advisor—a man who once dismissed entire councils with a single sneer—had taken notes during Aiden’s last presentation.

And then, without flourish or announcement, he received the invitation.

An iron ring sealed with her sigil. No words. Just a summons.

Only the most trusted, the most capable, were invited to the "Iron Parlour." That vaulted war-room was more sacred than any temple. A chamber where even generals feared to speak. A place where destinies—houses, marriages, wars—were decided by those the queen personally anointed.

Daisy, by contrast, sat stiffly on the marble bench to the side of the table, her hands folded too neatly in her lap.

She tried to keep her focus, but it was hard not to notice him.

Aiden, standing across the room, head slightly bowed as he traced a sigil in the air with two fingers, consulting Isabella’s map. His gestures were efficient, clean, precise—no wasted energy. The yellow in his eyes shimmered faintly gold in the candlelight, and his blond hair fell over one brow in a way that seemed almost deliberate, almost cruel.

He was handsome in that dangerous, unreadable way. Daisy caught herself thinking it again.

She blinked.

And yet, his appeal wasn’t in how he looked—but how he moved. How he never second-guessed a thought. How he never seemed to need reassurance. He simply existed with the confidence of a man who belonged here, even if no one remembered inviting him.

Her cheeks warmed involuntarily.

He looked up.

Their eyes met.

And then, of course—Isabella’s shadow fell across her shoulder.

The queen placed a gloved hand there, light as silk but heavy as steel. "Daisy," she said, her voice a velvet dagger, "I invited you to plan and locate the traps left behind by the high mage."

A pause. Then a whisper—lower, colder.

"Not to sit here blushing like a tavern girl."

Daisy’s breath caught. She looked down immediately, hands knotting in her lap. The burn in her cheeks wasn’t warmth anymore. It was humiliation. Her queen’s voice was soft—but it cleaved through her like a blade.

"Y-yes, Your Highness," she said.

The shame stuck in her throat like thorns.

Isabella moved on without looking back, her attention turning toward the one she had truly come to assess.

"Aiden," she said, her tone shifting subtly—sharper, but not scolding. Calculating. "I trust you will handle the mapping of the mana lanes. And oversee the mechanical imports. I want the project ready before the solstice begins. That leaves us less than ten days."

He bowed, effortlessly composed. "Consider it done, Your Majesty."

No hesitation. No uncertainty.

Daisy didn’t know what hurt more—the quiet pride she’d just lost or how natural it sounded coming from his mouth.

And Aiden?

He remained quiet, unshaken, unaware—or pretending to be. His role was now set. After days of careful maneuvering, he’d positioned himself as irreplaceable. And now, he would meet the final player in this game: the mad mage himself. With his own hands, he’d deliver the critical components Isabella had commissioned. No more intermediaries. No more watchers. Just him and the target.

It was the moment he’d been working toward from the beginning.

Isabella paused at the head of the table, eyes flicking toward Daisy again.

The girl was watching him.

Still.

Isabella said nothing aloud. She didn’t have to.

Her fingers drifted over the roster laid before her. She found Daisy’s name—carved in careful ink, circled as a possible candidate for future leadership.

She drew a line through it with red ink. Clean. Final.

Her lips curled into something too subtle to be called a smile. She gestured to one of the guards at the door. A single nod.

The man returned it. He knew what to do.

Daisy would not leave tonight with the same rank she came in with.

And if her feelings interfered again—she would not leave at all.

Isabella turned to the rest of the room, her voice echoing across the marble like ice breaking. freewebnøvel_com

"Enough delays. We convene at midnight. All field officers must submit their patrol patterns and counterspell placements by then. Failure will be considered treason."

Her words sent a chill through the chamber.

Aiden inclined his head once more, then turned to leave. His cloak barely made a sound as it brushed the floor, disappearing into the shadowed corridor beyond.

Daisy didn’t look up this time.

But she heard Isabella’s voice, laced with something cold and curious.

Aiden... you passed all the tests. You are capable. Let’s see how capable you truly are...

And then came the softest sound.

The quietest, most chilling sound of all.

A lick of her lips.

As if tasting anticipation. As if tasting blood.

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