The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 492: Convergence

The Syvrak responded with a chorus of offended, sibilant rage. "Arrogant," the Eldest spat. "Like your passenger."

One of the younger hunters, a thirty-foot shadow with talons like scythes, could not contain its bloodlust. It lunged. It crossed the distance in a blur of motion, its jaws unhinging to reveal rows of serrated teeth aimed directly at Eris’s throat.

It never reached her.

Soren intercepted the beast mid-leap. He moved with a speed that was almost supernatural, a blade of pure, compressed ice forming in his hand even as he lunged.

The strike was a masterpiece of lethal geometry. The ice-blade sheared through the Syvrak’s neck as if it were parchment.

The head separated from the body, and the momentum of the beast sent its twitching halves crashing past Eris to slam into the ruins of the tribunal bench.

The creature died before it hit the floor.

The attention of the pack shifted instantly. The threat assessment had changed. They saw their kin slaughtered, and the focus moved from the "vessel" to the Emperor.

"You..." The hissing grew louder, focused and hostile. "The one who bears the mark of Aneithra."

Vetra slithered back through the breach in the wall, her six black eyes taking in the dead Syvrak and the defiant stance of her son.

A guttural, ancient sound erupted from her throat—the Syvrak tongue, a language of grinding stones.

"Mine," she hissed, her voice commanding and cold. "He is mine."

She was speaking to the pack as an equal, as kin. She had been accepted into their hierarchy. "Soren is my target," she declared, her long, serpentine neck arching.

"You may have the vessel. You may have the dragon. But the Emperor... he is mine alone."

The pack understood. They shifted, dividing their prey. Vetra advanced on Soren, her frost-fire building in her throat, while the others began to circle Eris.

Soren was occupied. He wanted to reach Eris, to pull her into the center of his defense, but Vetra demanded every ounce of his focus.

She was the architect of his ruin, and she would not allow him a moment’s respite. Konstantin and Maren were already engaged with two other hunters, the hall becoming a chaotic battleground of steel and sorcery.

Caelen grabbed Eris’s arm, his grip firm. "Wait! Eris, it’s too dangerous. You can’t go alone!"

"I have to!" she shouted, trying to wrench her arm free.

"I’ll go," Caelen argued, his voice tight with a logic he hated. "I’ll find Rael. You stay here. They want you, Eris! If you leave, the whole pack follows you right to him! You’ll be leading them to his door!"

It was a valid, crushing point. If she ran, she was a beacon. She was the lighthouse drawing the storm to the very person she wanted to save. Eris looked at Caelen, then at Soren, who was currently dodging a strike from Vetra that shattered the throne itself.

She looked at the pack. They were waiting.

"No," Eris said, her eyes flashing with a sudden, strategic clarity. "You stay here, Caelen. Help Soren. He can’t fight her and the pack at once. He needs you."

"Eris—"

"I’ll find Rael," she said, her voice dropping into a register of absolute maternal authority. "I’ll protect him. I’m the only one who can."

She didn’t wait for his objection. She used a burst of heat to startle Caelen’s grip, and then she was gone.

Eris ran.

She dove through the debris of the east portal, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against the humming seal in her chest.

Behind her, she heard the sounds of the hall being systematically dismantled, the roar of Soren’s ice, the hiss of Vetra’s breath, and the screams of the dying.

She didn’t look back.

***

The agreed-upon meeting point was a place the sun had forgotten long before the Empire of Nevareth was a glimmer in the first Emperor’s eye.

It was a secluded corridor in the sub-levels of the palace, where the air tasted of damp salt and the stone walls were slick with the weeping moisture of the earth.

Bianca arrived first, her boots pacing a frantic, uneven rhythm against the floor. She was a creature of nervous energy, her fingers twitching at the hem of her cloak, her eyes darting toward every shadow that flickered in the torchlight.

The sounds reached her even here. Through feet of solid masonry, she could hear the muffled, subterranean rumbling of the palace foundations groaning.

There were crashes, distant, thunderous impacts, followed by the thin, melodic shrieking of people who had realized too late that their world was ending.

Bianca’s confusion gnawed at her. Vetra had mentioned "something" would happen.

She had promised a turning of the tide, a moment of distraction that would allow Bianca her vengeance. But this? This felt like the sky was falling.

What is happening up there? Bianca wondered, her breath hitching. Vetra, what have you unleashed?

She was still staring at the ceiling when Ophelia appeared. She didn’t walk so much as emerge, stepping out of the shadows with a composure that was chilling.

While the rest of the palace was likely a sea of blood and fire, Ophelia looked as though she were merely heading to a particularly dull garden party. Her silk skirts were immaculate; her hair was a perfect, ginger crown.

"What’s happening?" Ophelia asked. Her voice was calm, though she gestured toward the echoing screams with a flick of her wrist.

She was demanding answers, her gaze fixed on Bianca with an intensity that brooked no deception.

Bianca swallowed hard, trying to regain her footing. "What we planned," she replied, her voice regaining some of its smug edge.

"What Vetra promised. The distraction has begun."

Ophelia tilted her head, clearly unsatisfied by the vagueness, but she didn’t press. There was no time for an interrogation when the very stones were vibrating.

"Come with me," she commanded. It wasn’t an invitation. She turned and began to walk deeper into the corridor, her direction purposeful.

Bianca hurried to catch up. "Where are we going? The exit is back that way."