The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 313: "The Weight of What Was and What Will Be"

Caelen followed them in a silence so profound it felt like a mourning rite.

He walked five paces behind, his eyes fixed on the rhythmic sway of Eris’s cloak. In her arms, Rael looked smaller than he had only moments ago, his head tucked into the crook of her neck, his small fingers tangled in the white-gold silk of her hair. It was a tableau of a life Caelen had once dismissed as impossible... the mother, the son, and the shared blood that bound them.

His heart, usually a steady drum of duty and Southern resolve, felt dangerously full. Seeing Eris fight back tears as she caressed the boy’s cheek... watching that legendary, terrifying Fire Queen crumble under the weight of a child’s touch... undid him. It was a treasure he had held in his hands for years, only to treat it like dross. He had been a man standing in a rain of gold, complaining that he was gettingg wet.

The guilt did not just sting; it strangled. It sat in his throat like a handful of dry ash.

He remembered the day he had first seen her. He remembered the way the sunlight had caught the edges of her hair, making her look less like a princess and more like a captured star.

He had fallen in love then, quickly and violently, though he had spent a decade convincing himself it was a tragedy he had to endure.

He had chosen to fight his feelings because it was easier to hate a tyrant than to admit he loved a woman who was breaking under the weight of her own crown.

He had forgotten that under the fire and the fury was a girl who had only ever looked at him with a desperate, starving hope. And he had been cruel to her. He had met her flame with frost long before she ever set foot in Nevareth.

What have I done? The realization settled into his veins like ice water. He had taken her son from her. He had branded her a monster. And now he was surprised to find his own hands covered in blood.

Still, a treacherous, desperate hope flickered in his chest. Perhaps, for Rael’s sake, she would look at him again. Perhaps the story wasn’t over. Perhaps she would choose him, even now, when the world was turning white.

As the thought formed, the air around him shifted.

The temperature didn’t just drop; it sharpened. Caelen felt the weight of a gaze... heavy, predatory, and colder than the mountain peaks... shrouding them all. He didn’t turn to look at the shadows of the high windows or the darkened alcoves of the corridor. He didn’t have to. He knew who was watching.

Soren.

The Emperor was there, a ghost in his own palace, watching the woman he claimed as his bride walk with the family she had left behind. Caelen could feel the danger radiating from that hidden vantage point, an unreadable, lethal intensity that promised no mercy for those who tried to reclaim what the frost had already taken.

The Eastern Garden was a masterpiece of glass and silver filigree.

When Eris pushed open the heavy doors, the world turned into a shimmering, crystalline wonderland. The paths were paved with crushed diamond-dust that glittered with a cold, blue fire under the moon. Trees, their bark silvered by magic, had been trained into elegant arches that wept frozen vines.

And then there were the roses.

They were beautiful, breathtakingly so, but they were utterly unlike the warm, fragrant roses of Solmire. They were flowers that could not be held without burning, flowers that would never wither because they had never truly lived.

Eris led them to a bench carved from a single block of sapphire-tinted stone. Rael perched between them, his presence a living seal on the gap that separated his parents.

But the boy was five, and the garden was full of magic. Within minutes, the glowing frost-flies... small, winged lights that hummed like distant bells... drew his attention. He scrambled off the bench, his laughter puffing out in white clouds as he began to chase the lights through the arches.

Caelen and Eris were left alone. The silence returned, heavy and brittle.

"After you left," Caelen broke the quiet, his voice sounding hollow against the glass trees, "Rael wouldn’t stop asking after you. He’d wait by the balcony in the evenings, watching the horizon for a spark of fire."

Eris didn’t look at him. Her gaze was fixed on her son’s retreating form. "Who knew Rael still considered me his mother. I assumed you would have replaced the memory with something more... palatable by now."

The guilt doubled, a physical weight in Caelen’s chest. "Don’t say that. Rael has always been fond of you. He was just... he was always shy. You were always so intense, Eris. He didn’t know how to reach you."

"Is that so?" Eris turned her head then, her expression a mask of frozen indifference.

Caelen fell silent, the sharp edge of her tone cutting through his resolve. He watched the way her eyes... the gold dulled to the color of old coins in the moonlight... refused to soften.

"The cold expression you wear doesn’t help," he added, his voice carefully neutral.

"My expression is necessary," Eris replied, her voice dropping to a jagged whisper, "when your very existence is despised by almost everyone around you. When every breath you take is counted as a sin by the people you were meant to rule."

She paused, her lips curling into a ghost of a smile that held no warmth. "Though you wouldn’t know about that, would you, Caelen? You were the hero. You were the one they cheered for while they prayed for my end."

He knew she was calling him out. He knew she was reminding him that he had stood by and watched the world burn her, and he had done nothing but complain about the smoke.

"How are you?" he asked, shifting the conversation, his voice thick with a sudden, aching need to know if there was anything left of the girl he had loved.

"I’m fine."

"Eris... "

"I’m fine, Caelen. I’m sure you didn’t ask for privacy just to inquire about my health. You have a kingdom to run and a pregnant wife waiting for you. Why are we here?"

The heartbreak was a dull, rhythmic thud in his veins. She wouldn’t look at him. Her voice was colder than the Nevarethian wind, stripped of the desperation that used to haunt her. He found himself missing the version of her that would call his name with a shattering need... the woman who would look at him even as he drove a sword through her heart and silently thank him for the attention.

Now, he was nothing. A shadow in a garden of ice.

Caelen sighed, throwing his head back to look at the vast, indifferent sky. He felt the words crowding his throat, frantic and useless.

I miss you. I miss the way you used to smell of jasmine and defiance. I miss the way your eyes would light up when I walked into a room, even when I was coming to scold you. I regret every word I didn’t say. I regret the way I left you in that corridor for Ophelia. I want you back. I want to rip this moment apart and start at the beginning.

He wanted to say It all. He wanted the words to move her, to melt the frost she had built around herself. But his tongue felt like lead, and his chest felt heavier still. He knew that even if he spoke, it wouldn’t change the fact that she was wearing a Northern crown. It wouldn’t change the fact that Soren was watching from the dark.

He remained silent. The words stayed buried under the ash of his pride.

Nearby, Rael caught a frost-fly in his cupped hands, his face illuminated by a soft, blue glow. He looked like a miracle. And Caelen realized, with a final, crushing certainty, that this was all he had left of her.

The garden glittered, beautiful and dead, and the King of Solmire sat in the cold, realized he was finally, truly alone.