The Villainess Wants To Retire Chapter 22: Ice-blue gem

But slowly, I found my gaze snagging. A child shrieking with joy as she bit into a sticky candied apple, syrup dripping down her wrist. A weaver displaying cloth dyed with crushed flaberries, their hue brighter than blood. Trinkets carved from bone, charms shaped like dragons, crude but oddly charming.

Then a shout:

"Authentic treasures from the Queen’s own collection!"

I froze. A wiry man stood behind a stall stacked with glittering stones, bracelets, rings, half-tarnished, half-polished too hard. His voice carried smooth as oil. "Our queen, horrifying as she is, tires quickly of her baubles. Casts them away like dust! But here, here, you may hold a piece of her splendor for yourselves!"

My hand moved before my mind caught it. I plucked up a small brooch, gold etched with flas. It did resemble sothing I’d owned, once. But the workmanship was laughable. A dupe.

Still, I turned it over between my fingers, listening.

"Rare, isn’t it?" the man crooned. "Fit for a lady of status, yes? Imagine the envy of your neighbors when they see you wearing what once graced Her Majesty herself."

Snorts rose from the small crowd gathered.

"Bah. Lies. The Queen wouldn’t hand out scraps," a woman said sharply. "She’d sooner burn them than let anyone else touch them."

"Burn them, burn us, burn anyone," another spat. "That’s all she knows. Rember the chamberlain she scorched last spring? Just for stamring? Rember the baker’s boy who dropped a tray near her carriage, ashes before he could beg forgiveness."

More voices piled on, eager, ugly.

"I heard she set fire to a whole wing of the servants’ quarters when one of her maids stained a gown."

"No, worse, I heard she burned a man’s eyes out for daring to et hers too long."

Their laughter was sharp as glass.

"May the Flaborn god take her already," an old man muttered. "Let her choke on her own fire. Every day I pray she burns as she’s made others burn."

A hush fell when another hissed, "Careful. Her eyes and ears are everywhere."

The others shifted, glancing over shoulders.

Beside , Caldus’s presence tightened, like a storm held barely at bay. "Majesty..." he murmured, low enough for only .

I smiled faintly beneath my hood, as though it were all a ga. "Relax, Caldus. We’re only browsing."

I set the brooch back on the table, my fingers steady, and walked away before the crowd could look too closely. The voices faded behind , swallowed again by the market’s roar.

Their words clung to longer than I wanted. May the Flaborn god take her already.

She burns everything she touches.

Exaggerations, most of them.

But not all. I’d earned my reputation, my throne demanded it. Orrian’s voice echoed, unbidden, reminding of the art where I was the villain in their story.

A truth that could not be helped. So I straightened my spine beneath the cloak and told myself it was beneath , all of it. The sting, though... it remained like a splinter under my skin, too small to pull out, too irritating to forget.

"My queen." Caldus’s voice cut through my head. He leaned closer, lowering his tone so no passerby could overhear. "There are certain corners of the market I know well. People there... talk. If she’s here, word will surface. I’ll move faster on my own. Unless, " He hesitated, waiting for permission.

"No," I said, smooth as glass. "Go. Just rember where I told the others to regroup."

He bowed his head once, and lted into the current of people, leaving for the first ti alone.

I walked deeper into the market, letting the noise swallow . It was a living thing, lanterns swinging, voices rising, the sll of roasting at, perfu and sweat all tangled. And then I saw her: a girl no older than sixteen, sitting cross-legged at a stall where rough-hewn stones glittered under oil lamps. No custors, no clamor. Just her small voice offering, "Rare gems, rarer than fire, rarer than gold..."

Sothing tugged at . Among the dull grays and muddied reds, one stone glead pale-blue, so piercing it reminded instantly of him, the odd Iceborne emperor. My jaw tightened. The mory of his cold hand on my cheek that morning, his pity, his eyes watching sleep, refused to loosen its grip.

I stalked forward anyway.

The girl lit up when I crouched to examine her tray. "This one’s from the Silverwater caverns! And this one holds the blessing of the river spirits, "

Her excitent stuttered when one of the pins in my hair slipped loose, pale strands spilling free of the hood. I didn’t need a mirror to know what she saw. Snow-white hair. Fla-dragon’s blood.

Her face drained of color. Her lips trembled.

I smiled faintly and raised a finger to my lips to shush her.

She nodded at once, eyes wide, hands clutching her skirt as if I might strike her down where she sat.

I reached for the gem, the one that looked like Soren’s gaze trapped in stone, and set a coin on the cloth. She took it without a word, still trembling. I turned away, admiring it for a mont before tucking the gem into my palm,

and then slamd into a body. Hard, solid, unyielding.

The stone slipped from my grasp, clattering onto the dirt. I bent for it at once, but so did the other. Our hands almost collided over the shard of ice-blue.

I looked up.

The world went still. The night market’s roar receded to nothing.

The man’s presence radiated chill, the cold threading through the heat of the festival air. I didn’t need the gem in his hand to tell .

Soren.

And he looked shaken, sharp blue eyes widening as if he hadn’t quite believed it until now, , here, hood slipping back, fire and ice colliding in the press of a single breath.

For a mont, neither of us moved. His cold breath mingled with the heat bleeding off my cloak, and the press of the market faded to a hush. The ice-blue gem sat in his palm between us, burning like a shard of his world.