The Villainess Wants To Retire

Chapter 595: Hourglass

The afternoon light leaned against the frost-laced windows of the outer chamber, pale and noncommittal.

It was the kind of light that illuminated the dust motes in the air but offered no heat to the stones beneath, a thin wash of winter sun that seemed to be retreating even as it arrived.

Inside, the world was reduced to the rhythmic, tiny sound of a needle piercing fabric.

Eris sat in the high-backed chair by the window, her silhouette framed by the stark white of the landscape outside. She was sewing.

On the table beside her, and spilling into her lap, were the beginnings of three small things.

They were made of the softest linen she could source from the capital, fabrics of winter white and pale, shimmering gold.

She was working on the patterns at the edges, her fingers moving with a slow, deliberate cadence. It was the kind of work that demanded a long time, and today, she did not mind the hours.

Her hands, usually so quick to find a weapon or a quill for an imperial decree, moved with a strange, careful reverence.

The needle pulled the silk thread through the linen, over and over, anchoring the gold into the white.

Her face was a mask of stillness. It was the specific, haunting quiet of a woman who had spent years hiding her thoughts in the hollows of her own heart.

She looked peaceful, but it was a peace built on the edge of a precipice. Below her dress, the roundness of her stomach was visible now, even when she was seated.

Three lives were pressing gently against the fabric, a constant, physical reminder of the stakes that were currently riding north on horseback.

She tried not to think about the distance. She tried not to think about the fog at the border or the mechanical grinding Soren had described. She thought about them anyway.

The silence of the chamber was broken by the voice of the guard outside the heavy oak door. "My Lady," he said, his voice muffled. "The Mage Aldwin requests an audience."

Eris didn’t look up from her work. "Send him in."

The door groaned open, admitting the old mage. Aldwin entered the room with the weary grace of a man who had seen too many centuries.

He paused in the afternoon light, his keen eyes immediately finding the fabric in Eris’s hands—the small, careful shapes taking form beneath her needle.

"You have made considerable progress," he said, his voice genuinely warm.

Eris offered a small smile. It was real, but it didn’t reach the amber depths of her eyes. "I made Rael a bracelet once," she said, looking down at the white linen. "I wanted to try something different for the three of them. Something... softer."

Aldwin hesitated. He was a man of logic and ancient patterns, but the sight of the Empress of Nevareth, the woman who had once been a feared fire-witch of Solmire, sewing tiny dresses by a frozen window stirred something in him he preferred to keep buried.

"They will like it very much," he said finally. freewebnøvel.com

"I hope they do," Eris whispered.

The hope in her voice was present, but it was fragile, underscored by a quiet, vibrating sorrow. Aldwin settled into the chair across from her, his joints creaking in the cold.

"How are you?" he asked. It wasn’t the formal inquiry of a courtier. It was the question of an old man asking a daughter. "How are you holding up, Eris?"

"Fine," she said immediately. "The hunger is still... significant." She let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "But no sickness. No extreme symptoms. Nothing beyond what I would expect from three."

Aldwin nodded slowly. "It has been nearly a week since they departed hasn’t it?"

The needle paused in mid-air. Only for a heartbeat. Then it continued its rhythmic dance. "Yes. I have been hoping that he does not encounter difficulties out there. The reports from the border have been... unsettling."

"He is the Emperor," Aldwin said, the gentle certainty of a man who had watched Soren grow from a brooding youth into a legend. "Once he is determined, there is very little in this world or the next that can stop him. He will be fine, Eris."

Eris looked at the fabric in her lap, her thumb tracing the gold embroidery. She said nothing.

Her silence was a scream... she knew Soren would be fine. She knew he would survive the monsters and the cold. That was not what she was afraid of.

Aldwin shifted in his seat, the movement of a man preparing to return to his books. "I came only to check on you. If I did not, he would likely sense the negligence from wherever he is and find a way to hold me responsible upon his return."

Eris let out a small sound, a ghost of a laugh. "Thank you for coming, Aldwin. Genuinely."

The mage stood, smoothing his robes. He was halfway to the door when her voice stopped him.

"Aldwin."

It was even. Careful. It was the voice of a woman who had been holding a heavy weight for several days and had finally decided that the floor was a better place for it. Aldwin stopped and turned back.

"Soren told me that the purpose of the expedition was to find answers about the void," she said, setting the sewing down in her lap. The needle remained gripped between her fingers like a tiny silver bone. "He told me it was about the all the questions without answers. And I believed him. For about a day."

Her eyes found Aldwin’s. They were sharp, unblinking, and entirely too perceptive.

"I know how he looks at me," she said quietly. "I know the difference between Soren looking at me with love, and Soren looking at me like he is counting something. Like he is calculating how much time there is left in the hourglass."

The room went perfectly still. The only sound was the crackle of a dying log in the grate.

"Is there something I should know?" she asked. It wasn’t a demand. It was the question of a woman who already knew the answer and simply needed to hear it spoken into the air so it would stop haunting the shadows of the room.

Aldwin looked at her. "I am not certain what it is you are asking," he said carefully.

"I think you are."

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating. Aldwin turned fully back toward her. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

He read her face the way he read his most ancient scrolls... thoroughly, looking for the hidden meanings in the margins.

He saw a woman who wasn’t afraid of a hard truth, but was being slowly eaten alive by the "not knowing."

He exhaled a long, weary breath. "You should focus on resting, Eris. On the children. On keeping yourself well. That is what matters now."

"Aldwin." She said his name with a specific cadence, a plea that she was too proud to put into words. Please.

Aldwin stood silent for a long moment. He had kept many secrets over many years, but he knew that sometimes, holding a secret was like holding a live coal... it eventually burned through the hand that tried to hide it.

"You are right," he said slowly. "The expedition is because of you. Soren is trying to find a way to safely release what is sealed inside you. So that you can live."

Eris didn’t move. She didn’t gasp. She stayed perfectly still, the white fabric of the half-finished dresses resting on her knees.

The first thing that moved through her was relief. It was the specific, cold relief of a suspicion confirmed. The phantom weight of her own doubt finally had a name. The "not knowing" was over.

But then, something else followed. It was a sadness so quiet it was almost indistinguishable from acceptance.

I knew, she thought. I knew the moment he kissed me goodbye. I knew it was for me. He would travel to the edge of the world and beyond it for me. He would fight the gods themselves just so I could see another spring.

This knowledge didn’t comfort her. It should have, but instead, it felt like a slow-acting poison. It broke something small and vital in the center of her chest.

"Thank you," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "For telling me."

Aldwin looked at her, and he saw that the relief had already vanished, replaced by a hollow, haunting gaze. "Eris—"

But she was already nodding, a small, tight movement that signaled the end of the conversation. "I think I would like to take a walk," she said.

Aldwin hesitated, then bowed his head. "Of course."

He left the room, the door closing with a soft, final thud.

Eris moved through the palace corridors with a slow, wandering pace. She wasn’t going anywhere; she was simply moving because the stillness of her room had become too loud, vibrating with the truth Aldwin had just handed her.

The palace of Nevareth was a masterpiece of ice and stone, its walls shimmering with a cold blue light, its ceilings carved with the history of a people who had survived the end of the world. Eris looked at it all, and yet she saw nothing.