My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

After Ashara left, Ulrich remained awake.

The room had become quiet again.

Ulrich leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes.

His awareness turned inward.

Toward the Hollow Core.

At first, he found only the familiar presence within his chest: the helix-shaped structure that had replaced the crippled mana core he had been born with. Mana moved through it in slow currents, more stable than it had been before the physicians’ treatment, though his pathways were still strained from the battle.

Then Ulrich frowned.

Something was different.

He focused more closely.

His Hollow Core possessed three completed springs.

Each one twisted around the central helix, drawing in mana, refining it, and feeding it through the channels connected to his body. They allowed him to weave spells with greater speed and force than a normal core could sustain, provided he controlled the power carefully enough.

But at the edge of the third spring, something had begun to form.

A thin new line of mana.

Small and incomplete but imperfect enough to catch his attention.

It curled outward from the third spring like the beginning of another coil.

A fourth spring.

Ulrich’s eyes opened.

For a moment, he simply stared ahead.

Then he exhaled slowly.

The advancement was significant.

A fourth spring would mean faster mana circulation. Greater output. More room to draw upon the Hollow Core’s actual potential without exhausting himself as quickly. It would give him more control over the mana he had been forced to wield in desperate bursts so far.

It was welcome news.

Very welcome.

The Hollow Core had always been powerful.

Too powerful, at times.

Without restraint, its mana could overwhelm the body carrying it. Without proper control, a spell cast with too much force could tear through his pathways, cripple his focus, or leave consequences that could not easily be undone.

Ulrich’s gaze drifted to his left side.

To the place where his arm had been.

He looked at the bandages beneath the loose sleeve.

The Hollow Core had given him strength.

But strength used recklessly always demanded payment.

He had lost his arm fighting to protect witches.

No.

Not really to protect Airam from death.

Airam had been alive.

She had been taken.

Dragged toward the man and the place she feared most. Forced away from Hermione and Esther. Delivered back toward a father whose name alone filled her with hatred and dread.

Ulrich had fought to bring her home.

His father would have despised him for it.

If Eurich had still lived, he would have called it weakness. He would have called it foolishness. He would have insulted Ulrich for risking House Rubenhart, his life, and Skargardia’s fragile peace for three witches.

Eurich’s hatred for witches had been deeper than Ulrich’s had ever been.

But Ulrich was no longer the same person his father had raised.

Silas’s memories had changed him.

Not erased him, nor replaced him but changed him.

He had become something made from both lives: Ulrich’s pain, ambition, caution, and stubbornness mixed with Silas’s knowledge, perspective, and understanding of the story that awaited him.

And somehow, bringing Airam back to her sisters had given him a satisfaction he had not expected.

It was not the satisfaction of winning but something else.

He had seen the way Airam held Esther.

The way Hermione had run toward her.

The way all three sisters had clung to one another as though being together again was enough to make the world bearable.

Ulrich had made that possible.

The thought lingered in his mind.

Then the door creaked open.

Ulrich raised his gaze.

Airam stood in the doorway.

She closed the door behind herself and approached the bed without hesitation.

Ulrich watched her.

He waited for an explanation.

Airam gave none.

Instead, she climbed onto the bed and knelt near his legs, facing him. The coat he had given her earlier still hung around her small frame, its dark sleeves rolled neatly back from her hands.

"What are you doing?" Ulrich asked.

Airam stared at him.

Then she spoke.

"Hermione and Esther want to leave."

Ulrich’s expression changed.

"What?"

"They say they bring you only misfortune," Airam continued. "They think you nearly died because of them. They think things will only become worse if they remain here."

Her dark eyes did not leave his.

"And they think they do not have the right to stay after they insulted you. After they said they hated you."

Ulrich stared at her.

"They want to leave because of that?"

Airam nodded.

Ulrich’s expression became colder.

"Until now, they did not believe my life would be in danger because I sheltered them?" He asked.

There was an edge in his voice.

"Even while hiding that they were Valmorian royalty?"

Airam was silent for a moment.

Then she asked quietly, "If we had told you, would you have thrown us away?"

Ulrich did not answer.

The question reached further back than Airam likely knew.

Two years ago, would he have taken them in if he knew they were the Emperor of Valmoria’s daughters?

Would he have invited an Empire’s attention into House Rubenhart?

Would he have risked Skargardia?

He did not know.

He might have thought longer.

He might have hesitated.

He might have decided that the danger outweighed the benefit.

But that had been two years ago.

The question no longer mattered.

"These are foolish excuses to leave," Ulrich said shortly.

"They are," Airam replied.

Her voice was calm.

But Ulrich could hear what she was not saying.

It was safer at the Estate than anywhere else. Hermione and Esther knew that. They were not leaving because they believed the world outside would be kinder.

They were leaving because guilt had swallowed them.

Because Ulrich’s words had wounded them more deeply than he realized.

Because they cared about him enough that the thought of becoming another burden to him felt unbearable.

"You said you should have killed us," Airam said.

Ulrich furrowed his brows.

"What?"

"When you were recovering," Airam replied. "You were half-conscious. You said it."

Ulrich said nothing.

The memories of that time were blurred by pain and medicine. He remembered pieces: Ashara’s face, old memories, the physicians, a feeling of anger that did not belong entirely to the man he had become.

Perhaps he had said it.

Perhaps some part of him still carried the fear of the future he had seen.

"Perhaps," Ulrich said at last. "But I do not see why that would make them decide to leave."

Airam did not answer.

Clearly, Ulrich did not realize how much he mattered to Hermione and Esther.

He saw their fear.

Their guilt.

Their attachment to one another.

But he had failed to see how much they had come to care for him too.

He was underestimating their care for him.

Airam looked down briefly.

Then she climbed from the bed.

"I will not abandon my sisters," she said in a serious and quiet voice.

"If they leave, I will leave with them."

Ulrich stared at her.

Airam had just returned.

She had been taken from him, nearly dragged back to Valmoria, and brought home at terrible cost. He knew she did not truly want to leave the Estate. Not after the road home. Not after the way she had called it home herself.

So why had she come here?

Why had she told him?

Ulrich might have been slow to understand the feelings of others.

He might have been especially blind when it came to women.

But even he could see the answer.

Airam had not come to announce that she would leave.

No, she had no intention of leaving.

She had come because she wanted him to stop them.

There was only one person whose words might keep Hermione and Esther from walking away after all.