The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 311: Memorial

The sun had long surrendered to the jagged peaks, leaving the sky a bruised purple that deepened into the ink of a northern night. In the Outer District, the air was thick with a silence that felt heavier than the falling snow.

The memorial plaza was a graveyard of light. Hundreds of ice pillars had been raised from the frozen earth, each one etched with the name of a soul lost to the demon breach.

Among them, the name of Duke Cassius glimmered in the magical blue glow, a reminder that death had no respect for rank. No torches flickered; in this hour of mourning, the raw heat of fire was forbidden.

Soren stood at the edge of the dais, his ceremonial furs white as a blizzard. When Eris ascended the steps to join him, his composure, that legendary, imperial frost, fractured. .

The sight of her in the moonlight, her skin pale and her gold eyes reflecting the azure glow of the pillars, sent a surge of heat to his face that no northern wind could cool. He felt his ears burn, a sudden, frantic pulsing in his throat.

They were inches apart, yet the space between them was a minefield of unspoken desires and the crushing weight of duty.

Soren spoke first. His voice was a low, resonant bell that carried across the thousands of bowed heads. He spoke of responsibility, of the failure to protect, and the iron resolve to ensure such blood would never stain the snow again. It was the speech of a ruler who carried his people’s grief as a personal penance.

Then, Eris stepped forward.

The crowd went so still that the sound of falling snowflakes seemed loud. She did not offer a tearful apology. She did not defend the black fire that had incinerated the sky.

She stood with a spine of steel, her voice cutting through the chill with a terrifying dignity. She honored the dead by acknowledging their lives, not her role in their end.

She was not a girl seeking forgiveness; she was a Queen asserting her presence. In that moment, the whispers of "tyrant" didn’t die, but they changed. She looked inevitable. Like the winter itself.

As they descended from the dais, the wall of protocol broke.

Families surged forward. A man with eyes red from weeping clutched a piece of Eris’s mantle, sobbing out a "Thank you" for the woman that had saved his daughter. But behind him, a woman with a face like a hatchet spat at the ground near Eris’s boots.

"You brought this," the woman hissed, her voice trembling with a jagged grief. "The demons followed the smell of your smoke. My son is a pile of ash because you, "

"Enough," Soren’s voice dropped like a guillotine. He stepped in, his massive frame shielding Eris, his hand hovering near the hilt of his blade.

Ryse and the Imperial Guard moved in a silent, armored sweep, creating a circle of steel around the future Empress.

From the edge of the crowd, Caelen watched the scene with a heart that felt like it was being ground between stones.

He saw the hatred in the Nevarians’ eyes and felt a surge of protective instinct, until the hypocrisy of it hit him like a physical blow.

Solmire was no better, he realized with a sickening clarity. He remembered the hushed prayers in the desert temples, the way his own people had begged Pyronox to take the "cursed" Queen away. The North was only echoing the South’s cruelty.

Beside him, Rael clutched a small, wrapped package, the wooden phoenix, his knuckles white with the cold. "Father," the boy whispered, "can I go to her now? She looks so lonely."

"Wait, Rael," Caelen murmured, his eyes fixed on Eris. He saw the way she stood, unblinking, as the guards pushed the grieving mother back. He saw her jaw set in that familiar, lonely mask. He had to reach her.

...

As the evening deepened, the mood of the city was forcibly turned toward celebration. Blue lanterns, thin as dragon wings, were released into the sky, representing the souls of the 224 lost.

Soren and Eris stood on the palace overlook, watching the galaxy of blue lights drift toward the stars. Behind them, the gears of the Empire were turning: security sweeps, secret warrants, the locking away of evidence against the Ravencrests.

But Soren wasn’t thinking of politics. He was staring at the profile of the woman beside him. The weight of his gaze was so heavy that Eris finally turned, her brow arched.

"Is there something on my face, Your Majesty? Or have you forgotten how to blink?"

Soren’s face instantly flooded with a deep, betraying crimson. He looked away, his pulse racing.

He was the Ice Emperor, a man who had faced gods and demons, yet here he was, suffering from literal withdrawals because he hadn’t been able to invade her personal space in hours.

He wanted to pull her into the shadows, to bury his face in the curve of her neck and breathe in the scent of cedar and spice that haunted his dreams. He wanted to devour her, to claim every inch of the heat she tried so hard to hide.

But the worry in his chest was louder than his hunger.

"Eris," he started, his voice uncharacteristically small. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. "Are you... are you still sure? About tomorrow? About the wedding?"

The question caught Eris off-guard. She shifted, her silks hissing. "What do you mean by that?"

"I was just curious," Soren muttered, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm on the stone railing. "After everything that has happened... I wondered if you were starting to regret saying ’yes’ to me. If you feel... trapped."

Silence fell between them, thick and suffocating. Soren’s heart hammered against his ribs. Say something, he pleaded internally. He didn’t want to lose her to resentment.

"Is this your way of telling me you’re no longer interested in our partnership?" Eris asked, her voice dangerously low.

Soren’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. "No! That’s not, Eris, I only meant, "

"Because if it is," she cut him off, her gold eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp anger, "you should have said so before I stood on a frozen slab for three hours. Every choice I have made, Your Majesty, I have made with a perfectly sane mind. Do not talk to me as if I am a child who doesn’t understand the weight of her own decisions."

"Eris, listen, "

"I have heard enough," she snapped, her cloak snapping as she turned away. She left him standing there, the blue lanterns reflecting in his stunned eyes, realizing he had just burned the very bridge he was trying to reinforce.

Caelen, watching from the shadows of the colonnade, saw the fracture. He saw Eris storm toward the inner palace and knew this was his final chance.

As Eris reached the heavy doors of the Blue Wing, escorted by Ryse, Caelen stepped out from behind a pillar.

"Eris. Stop. Please."

She halted, her breath hitching. She refused to look at Rael, who was huddled against Caelen’s side.

The sight of the boy’s trembling lips and wide eyes sent a jagged ache through her chest that she couldn’t suppress. She looked at Caelen instead, her expression a blank sheet of ice.

"The hour is late, Caelen," she said, her voice a razor. "I have a wedding to attend in the morning. What could possibly be so urgent?"

She saw Rael flinch, pressing his face into his father’s cloak at the sharp sound of her voice. The rejection in that small movement was a physical blow.

Caelen looked down at his son, his hand smoothing the boy’s hair in a soothing rhythm before he looked back at Eris. His expression wasn’t angry; it was devastated.

"He thinks you hate him, Eris," Caelen said quietly.

The world seemed to stop spinning. The wind died. The hum of the palace faded into a dull roar in Eris’s ears.

"What?" she whispered, her heart stopping dead in her chest.