Chapter Three A Flower for the Villainess #2
What else had she expected? Villains didn’t get the last-minute save.
She restrained a bitter smile. “Half the Flower won’t do me much good. You’d better eat the rest. No offence, but you’re as pale as a ghost.”
The twins, one shimmering with magic and the other bloodstained in pink, both looked abashed.
“You’re very gracious, Lady Rahela.”
“Known for it.” Rae flopped into an armchair piled high with mending, noticing the maid wince as she did so. “Let’s move on. I understand what it means to love a sister.”
The twins hesitated, then nodded warily. Rahela Domitia and Lia Felice, the wicked stepsister and the perfect heroine competing for the king’s heart, hadn’t been famous for their sisterly affection. Rahela had framed Lia for various crimes. When Rae took over, she’d changed some things.
She cared about Lia, but Lia wasn’t who Rae had meant.
“How is Lady Lia?” Horatia asked tentatively. “Did you reach her in time to save her from the king’s wrath?”
When Horatia last saw Rae, Rae shoved the Flower at her on her way to rescue Lia from the king rising as Emperor.
“Right, you’re not caught up. So, the king is dead.”
“That does tend to happen when you shove people off battlements into the abyss, my dear,” murmured Hortensia.
It was her twin’s turn to give her a scandalized look. “Surely we all expected the king to rise as the Emperor, as in the prophecy?”
Hortensia tapped a glowing finger against her lips. “You know I’ve always been the practical one. I’m not terribly convinced by all that superstitious flimflam.” She stopped mid-tap, staring at her own silvered digit. “Well, I’m re-evaluating some of my previous ideas.”
“So,” said Rae. “I may have slightly misinterpreted the text— I mean, the prophecy! Actually my former guard rose as the Emperor instead.”
Everyone took a moment to absorb this information. Not as long as Rae had expected, honestly. Perhaps by the fifth marvel of the night, even wonders become routine.
“Your guard?” asked Horatia. “The gorgeous one?”
“My dear!” Hortensia shrilled a warning at this impropriety, which was strange coming from a figure bathed in eldritch light.
“The gorgeous one the king had killed, while I looked on without lifting a finger,” Rae confirmed. “Yeah.”
“Mercy, a highly awkward social occasion.” On her twin’s look, Hortensia added, “As well as a moment of deep religious significance, my dear, I’m aware!”
Their older brother Fabianus referred to his sisters fondly as “the Horrors”.
Rae had always imagined the Horrors as united in all things.
It turned out Hortensia disdained superstition but embraced propriety, while Horatia could fight battles and defend towers, but believed in prophecy and noticed guards were handsome.
The fact Hortensia was now magically silver-plated also helped Rae tell them apart.
“I have more news that will shock you!” Rae tried to phrase this in a way that wouldn’t scandalize the ladies. “It seems that, as a guard, the Emperor, um, may have conceived an admiration for me.”
There was a long silence after this bombshell. Rae was outraged to note all three women in the Nemeth chambers were giving her a funny look.
“Oh, how shocking. Yes, I am very shocked,” declared Hortensia at last.
“I thought you were a famous seductress who could read the hearts of men?” Horatia muttered.
“We’re all stunned.” Aileen the maid avoided Rae’s gaze. “There was certainly never any below-stairs gossip about you two.”
At Aileen’s caustic tone, Rae missed Emer. She wondered if maids received training in brutal sarcasm.
“Is the Emperor very angry about you getting him killed?” asked Horatia. “Is he going to chop your head off?”
“We are now betrothed,” said Rae.
Horatia blinked. “That’s better than getting your head chopped off, my dear.”
Dawn poured red through the window, even the first light tinged with blood. It was a new day. Rae had not escaped this world.
“Have you not read your history books?” Hortensia asked her younger twin. “Rulers constantly chop their wives’ heads off as a convenient way to end the marriage. Men have married women to punish them before now.”
The twins didn’t know what Key was capable of, but they knew how their world worked. Even an ordinary man had the power of life and death over a woman. The Once and Forever Emperor, the Lost and Found Prince, Commander of the Living and the Dead, was no ordinary man.
He was vengeful, and she had given him ample reason to take revenge.
He wanted power, and she – like an idiot – had seized power over him.
Rae hadn’t even been sure that claiming the power of the oath of blood and gold would work, but it seemed worth a try.
She couldn’t let someone be killed in front of her – that poor boy, a guard just as Key had been.
She had taken the risk, believing she could escape.
Around Rae’s neck, as heavy as an anchor, hung the glistening black and red magnificence that was the Abandon All Hope Diamond. Key’s bridal gift to her. The huge gem, known as the God’s Eye, lay as heavy as a tombstone over her heart.
“Did you at least get Lady Lia away?” whispered Hortensia.
Rae touched the legendary jewel with a fingertip, and nodded. “She and Emer went through a secret passage leading to the Cauldron.”
“The thieves’ den?” asked Horatia. “Let us hope they will not be robbed and ravished by the criminals of our city! Or the ice raiders. Or eaten by ghouls.”
“Has being a noble in the palace saved anyone from the ghouls?” Rae snapped. “The living dead were targeting aristocrats, didn’t you notice?”
When Rae said “eat the rich”, she’d meant no single group of people should gatekeep the majority of the world’s wealth. She hadn’t realized Key would take her literally!
By the twins’ expressions, they hadn’t realized. Now that they had, they no longer cared about Rae’s problems.
“How fares Father and our brothers?” Hortensia demanded.
“I saw Commander General Nemeth in the throne room.”
The soul of tact, Rae refrained from mentioning their father had been holding the king’s decapitated head at the time.
She hoped the twins’ brothers were alive.
Lord Fabianus Nemeth was a sweet fop engaged to an ally of hers.
Fabianus and Vasilisa, princess of the ice raiders, must have travelled over the sea and out of reach by now.
And Tycho Nemeth was just a little kid. Surely Key wouldn’t hurt a child.
The twin countenances, silver-bathed and blood-flecked, resolved into masks of identical ladylike stone.
Rae was reminded these weren’t her vipers, the collection of villains Rae had gathered around herself when she entered the book world.
Wicked schemer Rae, the notorious playboy the Golden Cobra, Emer the maid with her sharp tongue and sharper axe, and Rae’s guard Key, irreverent, murderous and loyal until death. Her team.
Look how that had turned out. Better to be lonely.
It hurt, every time, to be shut out. But Rae was used to it. She’d had friends in her old world once. Then she got sick.
“Congratulations on your engagement!” said Hortensia.
Horatia nodded vigorously. “I wish you much joy in your married life.”
Her life, which should be lived in another world. Her life, which would be cut short when the Emperor took his revenge.
Aileen strode forward to escort Rae out.
Rae waved her off. “I can take a hint, ladies.”
When Rae was at the door, Horatia’s voice called her back. “I will remember I owe you a debt, Rahela.”
Rae sighed. “Oh, do I have your word? And what’s a word worth?”
She let the door swing closed behind her and walked up the tower steps alone. Not a single soul in any world could be trusted.
She was trapped.