The Villainess Wants To Retire Chapter 175: Contract

I drew in a breath, let it out slowly, and forced myself to speak before I lost the courage.

"This is beautiful," I said quietly, still watching the stream rather than looking at him. "Thank you for showing ."

"You’re welco."

His voice was warm, pleased, utterly unaware of what was coming.

I steeled myself.

"But I think we need to discuss sothing," I continued, keeping my tone carefully neutral, practical, the voice I’d used in council etings when delivering difficult decisions. "Sothing we should have addressed more thoroughly before now."

I felt him shift slightly beside , his attention focusing with that sa intensity he brought to everything he cared about.

"We have a contract," I said, still not looking at him, still watching light play across water as though it were the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen. "An arrangent. I ca to Nevareth to help you remove Vetra’s influence, to assist in securing your authority as Emperor without her shadow hanging over everything you do."

A pause. Brief but weighted.

"That’s what this is," I pressed on, forcing the words out despite how wrong they felt in my mouth. "A political alliance. A strategic partnership. Nothing more."

The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have.

"You shouldn’t feel the need to spend ti with beyond what’s necessary for appearances," I continued, my voice taking on that brisk, businesslike quality I’d perfected over years of governance. "You don’t need to bring to places like this, or carry through the palace, or—" I gestured vaguely, encompassing everything that had happened since we left the feast, "—any of it. We maintain the fiction publicly, but privately, there’s no requirent for... attachnt."

Still he said nothing, and his silence made my chest tighten with sothing I refused to na.

"And," I pushed forward, needing to finish this before I lost my nerve entirely, "I want to reiterate what I said before in the cave. If you find another woman you prefer, soone you actually want rather than soone you chose for strategic reasons, I’ll step aside. Gracefully. Quietly. You just need to give advance notice so I can make appropriate arrangents. That’s all."

I was trying so hard to sound practical, reasonable, like this was simply a matter of clarifying terms in a business agreent.

But underneath that careful control, vulnerability bled through in the spaces between words, in the way my voice went slightly softer on certain phrases, in how I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him while saying any of this.

Because if I looked at him, I might see sothing that would make take it all back.

Soren remained perfectly still beside . His silence stretched on long enough that discomfort began crawling up my spine, making my shoulders tense, my breathing shallow.

"Are you listening?" I asked finally, unable to bear it anymore.

Nothing.

"Soren?"

His head was hung low, tilted forward so I couldn’t see his face, his pale hair falling forward to obscure his expression. His hands rested loosely on his knees, but I could see tension in the line of his shoulders, in the way his fingers had curled slightly against the fabric of his trousers.

And then he laughed.

Not the warm, genuine laughter I’d grown accustod to. Not the amused chuckle that usually accompanied his teasing.

This was bitter. Sharp. The sound of sothing cracking under pressure.

"Do you really hate that much Your Majesty?" he asked, his voice pitched low, still not looking up. "Is this what you think?"

I blinked, thrown by the question. "What?"

"Do you want to see die?" He lifted his head slightly, just enough that I caught a glimpse of his profile in the glowing light. "Do you want to watch suffer? Is that why you keep doing this?"

"I don’t understand—"

"Would it be easier for you," he continued, his tone taking on an edge I’d never heard before, sharp enough to draw blood, "if I just disappeared after Vetra’s gone? Pretended we never t? Would that make all of this more convenient for you?"

I opened my mouth to respond, to explain that wasn’t what I ant at all, but before I could form words, he raised his head fully.

And I forgot how to breathe.

His eyes were glowing.

Not figuratively. Not the taphorical description poets used when they wanted to sound romantic. His eyes were glowing with ice magic responding to emotion, that pale blue brightening until it looked like winter lightning had been trapped behind his irises.

His expression held no trace of his usual playfulness, none of the warm amusent or gentle teasing I’d co to expect. This was sothing else entirely. Sothing darker. Heavier.

Dangerous.

When he spoke, his voice had lost every ounce of its characteristic lightness, becoming instead sothing that made my skin prickle with awareness and the faint edge of fear.

"I brought you here because I thought you’d like it," he said quietly, each word falling into the space between us with terrible precision. "I wanted to give you sothing beautiful after an evening of ugliness. I wanted to show you sothing that mattered to . I never thought it would turn into... This."

The anger in his voice was controlled, banked like embers under ash, but I could feel its heat despite the ice magic radiating from him.

"I just thought it was a good ti to discuss it!" I said, imdiately defensive, my own voice rising slightly. "We never actually talked about the specifics since that night I agreed to co here. I was simply trying to clarify—"

"I know," he cut off, his tone still carrying that dangerous calm.

A pause. Heavy. Charged.

"But—" He stopped, didn’t finish the thought, leaving it hanging incomplete between us.

Then, even more quietly, more coldly: "Fine. I’ve heard you."

His eyes, still glowing with that unnatural light, fixed on with an intensity that made want to either run or fight, though I couldn’t decide which impulse was stronger.

"If I find a woman to my liking," he said, and his voice had dropped several degrees colder, becoming sothing that felt like ice water poured directly down my spine, "I won’t hesitate to tell you. I’ll kick you off the throne. Replace you with soone who actually wants to be there. Since that’s apparently what you want."