The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 464: What can hurt a god

ERIS

Ellyn had focused on them, drawing anatomical studies from multiple angles. They weren’t human. The pupils were elongated vertical slits... reptilian, ancient, and utterly divine.

I felt a jolt of recognition so sharp it was physical. I remembered Soren. I remembered the heat of our nights, the way the world always blurred, and the way his eyes sometimes changed in the height of his intensity.

The blue of his irises had overtaken the white, and his pupils... they had narrowed into exactly this shape. The vertical slits of a predator. The eyes of a dragon.

The resemblance was undeniable. I felt a good amount of certainty that convinced me that moment. Soren didn’t just have dragon blood; he was the dragon. Or at least, the vessel for Aenithra in the same way I was the vessel for Pyronox.

"These are extraordinary, Ellyn," I whispered, tracing the lines of the dragon’s eye.

"Oh, thank you, Your Majesty!" He beamed, his nervous energy returning.

"It’s truly an honor to see the empress here in our humble space, especially when the Emperor himself came by a few days ago to check on some books. He was very specific."

I looked up, my pulse quickening. "Really? What kind of books? Dragon lore?"

"No," Ellyn said, shaking his head. "Not about dragons at all. It was quite strange. He was looking for books about... well, the word he used was ’impossible.’"

"Impossible?" I repeated, confused.

"Anomalies in the heavens," Ellyn elaborated, his voice lowering as if sharing a secret.

"Strange things in the atmosphere. Unnatural occurrences that defy the laws of nature. From what I heard him murmuring while he was searching the back archives... he was looking for information about a ’crack’ in the sky. A split in reality. A void beyond our realm."

I went perfectly still. The air in the library suddenly felt frigid.

A crack in the sky. A split in reality.

My mind raced. I knew this world was a construct... a fictional narrative. But for Soren to see a crack... that meant the reality of the story itself was fracturing.

Had he looked up and seen the ’edge’ of his world? Had he seen the ink and the paper beneath the illusion of the sky?

Panic, cold and sharp, flared in my chest. If the world was breaking, where was Orrian? The strange entity who had told me the truth at the beginning of this journey... the Keeper of the Veil. I hadn’t seen him in forever. Not since the early days of my arrival.

Why hasn’t he appeared? I wondered desperately. I needed answers. I needed to know if the ’Writer’ was rewriting certain situations or if the story was simply collapsing under the weight of the deviations I had caused.

"Your Majesty?" Ellyn’s voice was filled with concern. "Are you alright? You’ve gone quite pale."

I forced a breath into my lungs and shook my head, composing my face into a mask of regal calm. "I’m fine, Ellyn. Just a sudden chill. Thank you for showing me all of this. It has been... enlightening."

"If you need anything else," he offered eagerly, "I’d be more than happy to assist!"

I paused, looking at him. He was smart, observant, and clearly disconnected from the political rot of the palace. "I think I might have an assignment for you, Ellyn. A secret one."

His eyes went wide behind his glasses. "A secret assignment? For the Empress?"

"Tell me," I said, leaning in. "In all your research, did you ever find a record of how the dragons were captured? Not just how they disappeared, but how they might be... contained?"

Ellyn looked shocked. "Captured? Your Majesty, that can’t be possible. The scrolls say they were the source of all things. They simply disappeared because of their disappointment in the greed of men. No man could contain a god."

"And yet, men try to contain the sea and the wind," I challenged him. "How can you be so sure they had no weaknesses? No anchor that could be used against them?"

He blinked, stunned by the claim. It was a heresy in his academic world.

"Your assignment, Ellyn, is to find the possible weaknesses of a dragon. Look in the forbidden texts, the medical anomalies, the stories that were dismissed as fables. Find out what can hurt a god."

"I... well... I... I’m not so sure your Majesty, perhaps... "

I smiled at his flustered, red face. He looked so overwhelmed I couldn’t help but reach out and pat his shoulder. "You’re cute, Ellyn. Truly. Don’t work too hard."

"I... uh... yes! Your Majesty! Weaknesses! I shall commence at once!"

I turned to leave, Bjorn trailing behind me, but my mind was a storm of dread.

The crack in reality was the most terrifying thing I’d heard since arriving here. If the sky was splitting, it meant something. Perhaps something bad. It could mean the ’End’ was coming, and I didn’t know if I was the villain of the story or just a character in a Chapter that was about to be torn out.

I walked through the stone corridors, the ancient carvings of the palace suddenly feeling like the walls of a cage. I needed to find Soren. I needed to know what he had seen. But more than anything, I wished for Orrian to appear. I needed the man who knew the truth to tell me that the world wasn’t ending.

....

The artificial rhythm of the Long Dark was a taxing performance, a collective agreement by thousands of souls to pretend that the clock still mattered when the sun had long since abandoned the sky.

Even though the horizon remained a bruised, eternal purple, the palace bells tolled for the designated nighttime.

Torches were dimmed in the secondary corridors, and the bustling energy of the afternoon subsided into a heavy, watchful silence.

It was the time for the evening routine: the final sweep of the guards, the last embers banked in the great hearths, and the expected reunion of the Emperor and Empress in our private chambers.