Chapter Sixteen The Villainess Gives It Up

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Villainess Gives It Up

Her father was dead, and her stepmother stripping the estate of all the magic that was rightfully hers.

When Lia wept, Rahela smiled. "Sisters should share."

Time of Iron , ANONYMOUS

R ae headed straight for the castle. Since the king must be gone by now, they travelled via the secret passage into the Room of Memory and Bone. The way through was a dark tunnel, so she looped her arm in Key's. He was tense against her side. Rae's own throat was tight. Villains weren't cut out for emotional scenes. Their kind were made for wicked one-liners and evil proclamations.

Emerging from the dark into the ivory room dazzled her eyes with sepulchral snow blindness.

She was still unable to see anything properly when Key asked, "Can I kill someone for you?"

For the price of a dress? Truly success was about opportunity, not talent. Key should've had access to nobles years ago. She needed his skills as a minion right now, but as a palace assassin he could've made bank.

She blinked hard against the light of a spindly bone chandelier. The broken pieces of her vision resolved into his feral, uncertain face. Rae smiled. "You don't have to repay me. All I want is your help. You already promised me that."

"I didn't mean it," Key informed her.

Wow. Treachery was expected in an evil minion, but did it have to be now?

"I know," Rae snapped. "You were going to kill me in the graveyard for the price of my dress."

He fell silent, as if he'd imagined she hadn't worked that out. Betrayal was Rae's constant companion. She could see it coming a mile off.

"You think one day I'll turn to you and say, ‘Are you for real? Can I trust you?' I don't trust anybody. You asked why I won't try to win the king back? When I was… younger, I got sick."

Rae shivered so hard it was a shudder, deathly cold beneath the velvet. She hadn't planned to say this, but sometimes it was a relief when everything was ruined. Now she'd spoken, she might as well spill it all.

"When those guards hurt your hands, you said you were disgusting. I was disgusting, too. I d-didn't even have hair in my nostrils, so my nose wouldn't stop running. I was sure I would die. I pretended to myself I wouldn't, but the truth is, I knew I would. My lover left me. My friends left me. I was told to forgive them. I was blamed more for resenting mistreatment than anybody was blamed for mistreating me."

Which came first, being treated as unworthy or being unworthy? In the end, it didn't matter. If others believed she was evil, or beautiful, or guilty, they made that true.

Rae stared at the queen's stained throne as she confessed, "Even my dad knew I wasn't worth staying for."

Her father was a teacher. Her mother said bitterly those who can't do, teach , but he did enough. He left. Not right away. The year after Rae was diagnosed, when the first round of chemo didn't work. Men were six times more likely to leave their wives when they had cancer, but it wasn't Rae's mother who got sick. It was Rae. It was her fault.

Her mother was never bitter to his face. They needed his help for the bills.

Her father had a baby boy with his new wife now. When there were complications with the birth, he slept on the floor of his young wife's hospital room.

Nobody slept on the floor of Rae's hospital room. Rae tried to remember her father simply as a teacher. Class could end, a teacher could leave, and it wouldn't hurt. She refused to meet the baby. He observed her cruelty said a lot about her character.

Rae confessed, "I know you don't believe I can tell the future, but I can. Octavian is the Emperor. He will be great and terrible. He's the hero, and him treating other women like they don't matter proves Lia's the heroine. She's the fairest, and I'm not really beautiful at all. But when people don't care about you, you have to care about yourself. Ambition is wicked, and I want so much. If I want to live that makes me a monster, if I want a man that makes me the harlot of the tower, if I want a throne that makes me an evil queen. Fine. I'll be a wonderful monster. I trust my own wickedness. I will never believe in someone else again."

"If you want to be queen," Key suggested slowly, "let's kill your sister."

She must be clear, for Key's sake and the sake of the plot, it was vital Key not massacre any protagonists.

"Listen. My pain isn't the fault of any rival. The system lets Octavian use people, so he used me and threw me away. Want to know something? In a different future, you suggest to Octavian that he should heat iron shoes on a fire and watch me dance."

Key's arm turned to stone beneath her palm. "I'd heard about you. Lady Rahela, the woman of snow and flame. I believed you had all the power in the world."

Rae shrugged. "In another life, I'm dead. You think I deserved it. We're no different from Octavian, except he's above us, and those above hurt those below. I hurt Emer. You would have hurt me. And the Emperor can hurt anyone. In that future, only Lia did something good. She saved you and Emer at my trial. She doesn't deserve death."

You couldn't make a story omelette without breaking narrative eggs. It was a pity Key wouldn't get rescued by his crush, but Rae had urgently needed to escape execution.

"I don't care if people are good," opined Key. "I only care if they're good to me. I'll kill her if you ask."

This was Rae's punishment for continually thinking, Who cares about saving Lia? while reading the Time of Iron series. Rae barely knew Lia, but she wanted to save her. Not only because she needed Lia for the plot. Lia was almost Rahela's sister.

The words tumbled from Rae's lips. "I need her. Being someone's sister is the one thing I haven't failed at. She was always lovely and easy to hurt. I hurt her sometimes, I resented her sometimes, but I planned to fight her enemies my whole life. When we were young, we told each other stories. When I got sick, I was scared to sleep, in case I never woke up. I could only sleep when I told myself if I died, she'd tell her kids stories about me. I wouldn't be anything but a story then, but that's better than being nothing at all. Nobody lives forever, but a story can. Stories are how I survive. When I'm fighting to live, I think to myself: what a story to tell my sister. I will be her favourite story. I will be the greatest story she ever heard."

Lia was Rae's key to returning to Alice, and Alice was how she'd lived long enough to be in this adventure. Her friends and her father were speeding past, Rae lost in their rear-view mirror. Her mother had worked so fiercely over the last few years they barely knew the new, hardened versions of each other. In her sister's heart, the memory of Rae might be lent beauty. She didn't know how to be beautiful anywhere else.

The name for the Room of Memory and Bone didn't seem funny to her any more. This was the skeleton at the feast, a whole chamber acting as a vast memento mori. Remember that you must die.

The death room in the storybook palace blurred before her eyes. Rae willed herself not to cry. She hated crying in front of other people. If you cried by yourself, you could pretend you hadn't. It wasn't real unless other people knew.

Key tilted her chin up high. "No tears. You're like me, remember? Vipers together. Evil wins at last."

Rae managed a fragile sneer.

Against the bone-white backdrop Key's hair was a stark contrast, giving him a black hole for a halo. "The oath was a joke to me. When my name is in your mouth, I will always answer, and your name will be my call to arms. I will ever be a shield for your back, and the story told between us will be true. How could that be real?"

Rae chewed her lip and stared at ivory flagstones, smooth as grave markers with the names worn away. Oath language was admittedly grandiose and overblown. Maybe they could work out a deal. If Key got a better offer, would he give Rae a chance to top it?

As Rae prepared to negotiate contract language, Key spoke.

His voice sighed soft as night wind. "My lady. I'll mean it now."

Except he'd already confessed to lying once. He could lie again any time.

"Cool," Rae told him. "Thanks."

"I'll keep my word. I'll be yours if you care to keep me."

"It's a bargain." Rae hoped that was enough.

To her infinite dismay, Key knelt on the bone floor, reverently touched the edge of her red velvet cloak, bowed his black head and kissed it. This was the inverted mirror of a scene that might play out between the Last Hope and Lia, the lady and her honourable knight. Rae's lips curled scornfully. The lady of darkness and her dishonourable knight? He would be loyal forever, until he was offered double.

"I'm so happy," Key murmured, "to belong to someone again."

When he tipped his head back, his eyes shone like stars, in a way only the eyes of a character could. No real person's eyes burned with intensity that cut through darkness and distance, with light so terrifyingly bright it would burn long after the star burned out. Rae understood Key was grateful, but this was taking it too far. She was almost tempted to believe in him.

Even a villain must resist temptation occasionally. She didn't even believe in real people.

The silence stretched. Rae didn't know what to say. The memory of the kiss ran through her body, not her mind, in a long shudder. When my name is in your mouth…

He was at her feet, as he had been at the Night Market. She could ask him for anything. Except death had followed temptation at the market, and he was nothing she could keep.

"Rise," she commanded in her villainous purr.

When he did, they made their way to the ladies' tower together. Rae made follow-up requests.

"Just don't kill Lia, and don't suggest me crawling back to Octavian again. I'm only meant to be a small part of the Emperor's history. Like the hilt of his famous sword? The hilt is in the shape of a snake, and he used to say I was its twin: his viper. Maybe he loved me a little. That's enough."

Now she lived inside the story, loving the Emperor was too stressful. Key could be her new favourite. The Villain of the Cauldron was her trusty bodyguard, in the sense Rae trusted him to be evil, mercenary and entertaining. She would improve a corner of the story, just for him. All they had to do was save Lia. And indulge in no more kisses. Key was literally made for Lia, and in any world, Rae wasn't made to be loved. It would only hurt if she got attached.

Usually Key's face was a smile kaleidoscope, different smiles matching different moods. When the smile dropped, darkness followed. "The king had a murderous viper. He should've appreciated his luck."

Rae hummed appreciation. "Right? I have great hair, a great rack and a wealth of dark sarcasm. I'm basically the perfect woman. Any guy would be lucky." She recalled her eternal devotion to Octavian, and added hastily, "It can't be just any guy."

"It has to be an emperor for you?" Key grinned.

Rae grinned back. "That's right. It's gotta be an emperor."

She held up her hand for a high five. Key was getting good at those.

They were on the same team, and he'd helped her gain clarity. Using people, seizing control of a story just to get your own way, was an evil thing to do.

Rae still planned to do it. She was sick of being the one less loved. She would rather be a false prophet. She would rather be a villain.

Lady Lia's chamber was at the top of the tower. The mosaic on her floor showed tall pearly cliffs and a silver sea. It was smaller than Rae's room, with a big window that had no bars because nobody was deranged enough to dream of jumping from that high, and while Rae's curtains were red Lia's were a more literary blue. One day Lia would turn this whole tower into the quarters of a queen. For now, Lia's window was a picture frame of starry skies, her white bed was draped with airy gauze, and a tower bedroom was terribly appropriate for a heroine.

Lia sat at her dressing table, brushing her golden hair. When Rae entered, Lia's eyes widened in the bronze mirror, but her pearl-handled brush didn't falter.

Rae wished to be certain they were alone. "Where's your maid?"

"After my first experience with a maid, would I trust another?"

Right, later Lia told the Emperor she was scared to trust another servant. The Emperor said, "I'll be your maid." Every night he brushed her long locks a hundred times.

Rae hadn't considered before what Lia's refusal to have another maid meant. Lia truly had felt betrayed by Emer.

Whatever, having to brush your own hair wasn't a national emergency. Back to scheming.

"Let's speak as friends," suggested Rae.

Lia's voice was steady. "We're not friends."

"So let's exchange unpleasantries!"

Lia laid down her brush and twisted on her stool. A moonbeam captured her beauty, turning her slim body to a marble statue and her hair pale as a bridal veil. Her blue eyes were sheened with tears.

"What mischief are you plotting?"

Rae climbed on the white gauze bed, getting scarlet-clad vixen all over the sheets. "Glad you asked. This impression of a wounded fawn is cute, but appeals to my conscience won't work. I don't have one. Quit moping, you're ridiculously good-looking, the king is super into you, and I'm not going to cause you any more problems."

"How can I believe that?"

"I'm a cold-hearted monster acting in my own best interests. If I keep cockblocking the king, he'll cut my head off."

"You planned I would be put to death."

Claiming Rae had reformed wasn't working. Rae couldn't accomplish anything unless she explained her past behaviour, and convinced everyone she wouldn't repeat it. That meant she had to examine plausible reasons for Rahela's actions.

It was strange, but thinking about a character's motivations made you like them more. Before she became Rahela, it was easy to dismiss her.

"I was panicking," Rae explained. "All my plotting and putting out, then you show up at court and Octavian falls in love at first sight! My man's eye started to wander, and he's the most powerful man in the world. I couldn't slap him or call him a cheating dirtbag. I blamed you because I couldn't blame him."

"I have no interest in the king," Lia murmured to her hairbrush.

Right. She was too pure. That was why they all loved her.

Rae would've thought a girl liking you back was good news, but that wasn't how stories worked. Not being interested was irresistible.

"It's chill. I've accepted my fate. In fact, I've accepted everyone's fate! You two will get married. So it's better for moi if you and I get along."

"I wouldn't even dream of marrying the king," said Lia humbly, then with a rush of righteous indignation, "And you and I will never be on good terms! It wasn't only jealousy over the king. When we were children you and your mother fell upon my possessions like vultures. Now it suits your purposes for us to be friends. Why should I?"

Over Lia's shoulder, Rae saw her own eyes reflected: dark, gleaming and ultimately untrustworthy. Nobody would pick her. Unless…

She aimed a finger gun at Lia. "What if I gave you a reason?"

Rae had walked into this room with nothing. Now she had Lia's attention.

"People descend like starving vultures when they don't know if they'll get another chance to grab anything. What we did wasn't personal."

"They were my family's treasures. What you did was personal to me."

Tears brimmed in Lia's eyes again. Could she do this on command?

"Now we both have a chance at the good life. You marry the king. As the queen's stepsister, I sit on silken couches, eat bonbons, and have my pick of lords because I'm – pay attention, this bit is important – invited to the good parties."

"Ah," murmured Lia. "You're scheming to go to the ball."

Rae grinned. "You're not just a pretty face. You are new to court. People are cunning here. You got framed for murder last week."

Lia's angelic patience lost its wings. " By you !"

Rae batted the accusation aside like a fly. "Stop living in the past. I can help you. The problem is, you can't trust me. Because I'm evil!"

A curiously helpless look descended on Lia's face.

Encouraged, Rae said: "I want you to believe in me. So I have to make a real sacrifice."

She crossed the silver expanse of mosaics until she reached where Lia sat. She saw her villainous descent in the mirror, red skirt sweeping the floor, hands behind her back.

Rae knelt beside Lia's seat, and showed Lia what she was hiding.

"You said you had no choice but to be helpless. It sounded like you didn't want to be helpless any more. I'm not offering an apology. I'm not offering to give back all your treasures. I am offering to share."

Rae was in the moonbeam spotlight with Lia now. Moonlight struck on steel, gleaming with enchanted red fire.

A magic gauntlet.

Only one.

Traditionally, you came to the heroine's tower offering rescue. Rae thought Lia might want the power to rescue herself.

"You tried to fire a bow and arrow with your left hand. So you can use the left gauntlet better than me. I can use the right gauntlet better than you. It's not as good as having the whole set, but if we're fighting together, it could be even better."

Lia's fingers hovered over the silvery gauntlet. Her gaze rested on Rae, like a child scared if she wanted something too much the big kids would play keep-away with it overhead.

In the book, the gauntlets were lost with Rahela's body, thrown down into the dread ravine. Lia never had any power except what her admirers gave her. Rae would hate that.

When Lia's face twisted out of beauty into reality Rae was shocked. Lia looked sick with fear in a way Rae was familiar with. She looked afraid to hope. Rae understood. Hope was next door to despair.

She laid the gauntlet down gently in Lia's white-gauze lap. Lia's hands curved protectively over enchanted silver and steel.

She whispered, "I could take it, and do nothing for you."

Rae winked. "Bad girls love to gamble. Do we have a deal?"

"…I need to think about it," said Lady Lia, with her most demure smile.

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Lia placed the magic weapon in the drawer, and locked it up tight away from Rae. You frame somebody one time !

The heroine of the story picked up her pearl-handled brush and resumed brushing her golden hair, the picture of innocence.

"You waited long enough to show me kindness. It's your turn. Wait a few days, Rahela. Until the morning of the ball. Find out what I decide."