Malvoria exhaled slowly, already feeling the familiar headache forming the longer she stood in her mother's presence.
She knew.
She knew the mont she walked in and saw that wicked gleam in her mother's eyes that this was going to be a disaster.
And judging by the way Elysia looked ready to bolt, Malvoria had walked in exactly at the wrong mont.
"Don't listen to her," Malvoria said imdiately, her voice gruff as she stepped forward, arms still firmly crossed. "She likes to say weird things."
Her mother sighed dramatically, placing a hand over her chest as if she had been deeply wounded. "Weird things?" she echoed, tilting her head in mock offense. Then, she smirked. "Just like your heart, hmm?"
Malvoria's jaw tightened.
Elysia's face flushed.
Malvoria's stupid traitorous heart slamd against her ribs in an act of pure betrayal.
"Mother."
"Yes, dear?"
Malvoria's fingers twitched. "Do not—"
"Oh, I must," her mother interrupted, her smirk widening as she turned back toward Elysia.
"You see, my daughter here is terrible with emotions. Absolutely atrocious. You'd think she was raised by wolves, but no, she just refuses to acknowledge anything with a beating heart."
Elysia opened her mouth—probably to deny whatever absurd thing she was about to be accused of—but Malvoria's mother was relentless.
"She brooded for a week, you know," she continued, voice humming with amusent. "Locked herself in her office, sulking like a tragic hero in so romance novel."
"I was not sulking."
"You were."
"I had work to do."
"Ah, yes," her mother said, mockingly thoughtful. "And yet, the mont my little spies inford that you'd been holed up without food, sleep, or even the will to terrorize your subordinates properly, I knew exactly what had happened."
Malvoria closed her eyes briefly, inhaling deeply through her nose.
She was not going to kill her mother.
That would be ssy.
And unwise.
...And, more importantly, it wouldn't even work.
Elysia, anwhile, was looking at Malvoria like she was seeing her for the first ti, her violet eyes filled with a mix of disbelief and sothing dangerously close to amusent.
She was enjoying this.
Malvoria glared at her.
Elysia smirked.
Oh, so that's how it was.
"I am not—" Malvoria started, but her mother held up a finger, silencing her instantly.
"Ah, ah, ah," she said, her smirk widening. "Tell , Malvoria, how does it feel?"
Malvoria narrowed her eyes. "How does what feel?"
Her mother's gaze twinkled with mischief. "Falling in love."
Malvoria choked.
Elysia turned red.
And Malvoria's patience snapped like a brittle twig under pressure.
"I—" Malvoria gritted her teeth. "I am not—"
"Oh, darling, please," her mother cut in, shaking her head. "I was there when you first t her. You couldn't stop looking at her. And now? You can't stop chasing her."
Malvoria scowled. "That's because she keeps running off and getting herself kidnapped."
Her mother tapped her chin. "Oh? And yet, even now, she's here, standing in your kingdom, still alive, still herself—and you are the one following her."
Malvoria scowled harder.
Elysia awkwardly shifted, looking between the two of them like she was caught in the middle of sothing she absolutely did not want to be part of.
"Look," Elysia said quickly, raising her hands slightly. "I appreciate whatever... this is, but I think—"
"You think," Malvoria's mother interrupted smoothly, "that my daughter should say what's in her heart for once?"
Elysia's mouth snapped shut.
Malvoria groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Mother, you are unbearable."
"I know," she said, sounding delighted. "It's part of my charm."
Malvoria was going to explode.
She was going to combust right here, in this room, and leave behind nothing but ashen remains of a Demon Queen who had been utterly ruined by her ddling mother and a stubborn, infuriating wife.
Her mother sighed theatrically, finally stepping away from Elysia and clasping her hands together. "Well, I suppose I've caused enough chaos for today."
Malvoria didn't dare to hope.
Her mother took a few steps toward the door, then paused dramatically, glancing over her shoulder.
"For now," she added with a smirk.
Malvoria gritted her teeth.
Her mother grinned wider.
And then, before leaving, she looked between them both, raising an eyebrow as if giving them permission to do sothing incredibly stupid.
"Well, I leave you two now," she said, voice entirely too pleased with herself.
Malvoria stiffened.
Elysia tensed.
"Please talk."
And with that, she was gone.
The silence stretched between them like an invisible force, thick and heavy, pressing down on Malvoria's shoulders with an unbearable weight.
Her mother had left re seconds ago, yet it felt like the echoes of her teasing words still lingered in the air, taunting, mocking, expectant.
Malvoria refused to look at Elysia.
She could feel the other woman's presence beside her, could sense the uncertainty radiating off her in waves, could hear the faint, barely audible shift of her stance—the way she exhaled, the way her fingers twitched slightly, as if she wanted to say sothing but didn't know how.
And Malvoria did not know what to do with that.
Her jaw tightened as she folded her arms across her chest, a useless barrier between her and the ss she had sohow gotten herself into.
This shouldn't be awkward.
She was the Demon Queen.
She had led armies, conquered kingdoms, stood on battlefields littered with the corpses of her enemies and had never once felt this level of discomfort before.
And yet, standing here, in this room, with Elysia at her side and a conversation she absolutely did not want to have looming over her...
She felt trapped.
Malvoria shifted her weight, casting a glance toward the door as if it could magically free her from this suffocating mont.
But she didn't move.
And neither did Elysia.
The silence stretched longer, growing more unbearable with each passing second.
It wasn't like their usual silences—the ones that ca with unspoken challenges, with heated tension, with words unsaid but understood nonetheless.
No, this was sothing else entirely.
It was the kind of silence that demanded to be filled.
The kind of silence that begged for an answer.
The kind that Malvoria did not have the patience to entertain.
She exhaled sharply, deciding then and there that she was not going to do this.
Not today.
Not now.
Not with the way her mother's words were still ringing in her head, making her stomach twist in ways that had nothing to do with battle, with strategy, with anything remotely familiar.
No, this was dangerous.
This was sothing else.
Sothing she refused to na.
And so, with a firm nod to herself, Malvoria straightened, finally breaking the silence.
"I should leave," she muttered, voice gruff, low, as if saying it aloud would solidify it.
She turned slightly, ready to put space between them, to return to the comfort of her duties, to pretend none of this had happened—
—only for sothing warm to wrap around her wrist.
Malvoria froze.
Her breath hitched.
She didn't have to look down to know what it was.
Elysia's hand.
Holding her back.
Not forcefully.
Not demanding.
Just... there.
Malvoria stopped breathing.
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