My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

Ulrich looked down at the innkeeper's body for a long moment.

The man lay twisted at his feet, his head bent at an angle no living neck could hold. Blood darkened the floorboards beneath him. Beyond the doorway, the others groaned or lay unmoving amid broken furniture, scattered glass, and the fading glow of Airam's runes.

Ulrich stepped back.

The movement nearly cost him his balance.

A wave of weakness rose through him without warning. His vision narrowed. For one instant, the room seemed to tilt beneath his feet, the walls drawing inward through a haze of exhaustion and pain.

Airam was there before he could fall.

She pressed both hands against his back, steadying him.

Ulrich went still.

Then he looked over his shoulder at her.

"We are leaving," he said.

He turned toward the door.

"It is still night," Airam said. "You only rested for an hour."

Ulrich stopped.

His eyes fixed on her coldly.

"You saw what happened because we stayed."

"We can find another inn," Airam replied. "You need rest."

"What were you doing?" Ulrich cut her.

Airam's expression shifted.

He turned fully toward her.

"Were you going to let them take you?" His voice lowered. "Were you going to stand there and surrender yourself to whatever filth they intended to sell you to?"

Airam said nothing.

"Answer me."

The anger in his voice was harsher than the situation called for, but Ulrich did not soften it.

He had seen her holding back.

Airam was not helpless. She possessed more than enough power to kill every man in that room. Yet she had restrained herself. She had allowed them to approach. She had deflected their attacks rather than ending them.

"You were asleep," Airam said at last.

Ulrich fell silent.

"And the inn could have collapsed," she added.

Her eyes narrowed as she returned his stare. "You were beneath it."

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Since when did Airam care about damaged walls?

She was the girl who was supposed to treat destruction like normal things.

No.

This had not been about the inn.

It had been about him.

She had held herself back because he was lying helpless behind her. She had chosen to risk being seized rather than unleash magic near him.

Ulrich had not expected that.

He did not know what to do with it.

Perhaps she had changed after he came for her. Perhaps being dragged back from Valdris's ship, after believing that no one would come, had shifted something inside her.

Or perhaps the two of them had simply seen too much of one another's worst memories to return to the distance they once kept.

"Do not risk your life for me," Ulrich said finally.

Airam's gaze hardened.

"Holding back in that moment was stupidity."

"You could have been buried beneath rubble," she replied.

"I would not die such a miserable death."

He stepped past her.

Airam watched him pull a clean shirt from his space ring. The movement was awkward with only one arm. He managed to drag the garment over his head and shoulder, but he did not bother fastening the buttons. The white fabric fell loose over the bandages wrapped around his chest and the empty left sleeve.

He looked worse now that he was standing.

Not weak in the ordinary sense.

Ulrich did not know how to look weak.

But his skin had the color of candle wax, and every movement of his looked very stiff.

His gaze shifted toward Airam.

She still wore the damp nightgown from the previous night. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, and the cold air creeping through the damaged room had raised gooseflesh along her arms.

Ulrich had no proper clothes for her.

After a moment, he reached into his ring again and drew out a dark coat.

He threw it toward her.

"Wear it."

Airam caught it against her chest.

The coat was far too large. Its sleeves would swallow her hands, and its hem would reach nearly to her calves. Yet it was thick, warm, and dry.

It smelled faintly of Ulrich.

Airam looked down at it for a moment.

Then she pulled it around herself.

She rolled back the sleeves until her hands showed and drew the front closed against her body.

A faint smile curled her lips.

It vanished almost immediately.

But Ulrich saw it.

He stared at her with a strange, unreadable look.

She had been behaving strangely since the ship.

He did not understand it.

Still, he did not dislike it.

It was rare to see her smile at all.

Without another word, they prepared to leave.

Ulrich pulled on his boots. Airam did the same, fastening them quickly despite the oversized coat around her. Ulrich collected a sword from one of the fallen men and handed a knife to Airam, though he doubted she would need either.

They crossed the room toward the entrance.

Airam paused at the threshold.

Her gaze moved over the innkeeper's body.

Then over the men scattered through the corridor.

The burned one moaned weakly against the wall. Another lay unconscious near the broken chair. The men who had watched her with hunger and amusement only minutes earlier now stared at her with terror, those who remained conscious, at least.

Airam lowered her hand.

Dark red runes spread across the floor.

They crawled over the wood like drops of fresh blood, slipping beneath the dead innkeeper's body, winding through shattered furniture, and climbing the walls in branching lines.

Ulrich noticed.

Even through his exhaustion, he recognized witchcraft.

He said nothing, however.

A moment later, the fire began.

It did not explode but spread.

Small flames appeared beneath the bodies, caught in the broken shelves, and crept along the warped floorboards. They climbed the old curtains and licked at the dry timber in the walls. Smoke began to curl toward the ceiling.

Ulrich looked back.

In truth, he would not have mourned the inn if it burned to its foundations.

He turned away.

Together, they descended the narrow stairs.

The lower floor was empty. The few guests who had been sleeping nearby had either fled through the rear door or locked themselves inside their rooms. Smoke followed Ulrich and Airam down the corridor, carrying the first sharp scent of burning wood.

Outside, the rain had weakened to a cold mist.

The stable stood behind the inn, a low wooden structure half-hidden beyond the muddy yard. Ulrich led Airam through the darkness, keeping one hand near the sword at his side while his eyes searched every shadow.

Inside the stable, several horses shifted nervously in their stalls.

Ulrich inspected them quickly.

Most were poor animals, thin, old, or lame, but one dark bay mare stood taller than the rest. Her coat was clean, her legs strong, and her eyes clear.

He chose her.

"Climb," he told Airam.

Airam looked at the horse.

Then at him.

The mare was tall, and Airam's strength had not yet returned enough for an easy mount. She placed one foot in the stirrup and tried to pull herself up, but the oversized coat tangled around her legs. She slipped back to the ground with a faint scowl.

Before she could try again, Ulrich stepped close and lifted her beneath the waist with his right arm.

Airam stiffened in surprise.

He placed her carefully at the front of the saddle.

Then Ulrich mounted behind her.

The effort made his breath catch a bit.

She looked back over her shoulder, but Ulrich had already reached for the reins. He drew the hood of his cloak over his wet crimson hair and guided the mare from the stable before the fire could spread far enough to draw attention.

Behind them, orange light began to pulse through the inn's upper windows.

Airam sat quietly before him as they rode into the dark road beyond Hiddlestone.

After several minutes, her eyes fell to his right hand around the reins.

The sleeve at his left side hung empty.

"Your arm," she said. "Can it be put back?"

"Perhaps."

His tone was indifferent, but Airam could feel the tension in him.

Ulrich believed it could be reattached. With the right physicians, the right healers, and sufficient mana, there were methods. Yet he did not want to speak about what came after.

A reattached arm would never feel entirely the same.

Not to someone like him.

Ulrich was a perfectionist even when he pretended not to care. He would notice every difference: a delayed response in his fingers, a weakness in the grip, a flaw in the mana pathways. He would hate the possibility that power might not flow through that hand as naturally as it once had.

Still, he had taken care of his crippled core issue when most people would have accepted their weakness as permanent.

He would find an answer for this as well.

Airam looked ahead again.

"You should have killed him," she said.

Ulrich understood immediately whom she meant.

Valdris.

His gaze remained on the road.

"He is more useful alive."

Airam was quiet for a moment.

"If he does not return," Ulrich continued, "and Sedhoran investigates what happened at the harbor, it will create a larger problem. Valdris can bury the truth. He can claim an accident, rogue attackers, a failed operation, whatever lie serves him best."

"And he will remain silent about us."

He didn't answer, but that was the idea.

And Airam understood.

Valdris remained alive because Ulrich needed him alive.

Because one reckless death could bring the Valmorian Emperor's attention down upon Skargardia before Ulrich was ready.

Because the secret of the three sisters' bloodline was not only dangerous; it was a spark waiting near dry powder.

"For us," Airam said.

She leaned back slightly against him as the horse carried them into the night.

Behind them, the inn burned.