Frustrations of a Self-Proclaimed Villain Lord

Chapter 83: The Grand Duke Uses a Poison (1)

The west guest suite had been designed for visiting royalty. This was unfortunate. Not because the room was inadequate, on the contrary, it was one of the best in the estate, the bed large enough to accommodate a family of particularly dramatic nobles, old Sonomian ward stones set into the walls, the windows overlooking an inner courtyard where the trees had been cultivated to block sightlines from the street.

The problem was that I’d never intended to actually use it for royalty. I’d assumed the room would remain an expensive reminder that House Konstantin possessed enough dignity to prepare for guests we hoped would never visit.

Yet there the Crown Prince lay. Pale. Sweating. Breathing too shallowly. The dark mark beneath his sternum had stopped spreading when he entered the estate, but it hadn’t faded, black veins still curling across his skin, looking less like an illness and more like something trying to write itself through him.

The physician had removed Adrien’s outer shirt and pressed cool cloths against his forehead. The knight stood near the door, his jaw clenched tight enough that I could almost hear his teeth protesting.

The Empress sat beside the bed, still in her bloodstained robe, and my mother stood at the far side of the room with her arms folded, not sitting. My father hadn’t yet returned from the western routes, but a message had arrived earlier confirming that the convoy carrying Mil and the two rescued children had left the Capital safely. No pursuit. No bells. No strange voices.

Good. At least one part of the day had followed instructions.

William stood near the entrance, ensuring no one entered without permission. Bernard remained in the study with the records, the chapel maps, and a growing list of everyone connected to Saint Orison’s.

Abi had taken position beside the bed, staring at the black mark with an expression I didn’t like. Too little amusement in it.

"What?" I asked.

He looked at me. "The contamination is trying to settle."

"Where?"

"Into the prince."

"That was obvious."

"No. It’s not trying to kill him anymore."

The room went quiet. The physician looked up, and the Empress’s fingers tightened around Adrien’s hand.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

Abi’s gaze stayed on the mark. "It means it wants him alive." The words sat heavily in the room, not because they were hard to understand, but because everyone understood them too well. The first hymn had kept the Crown Prince alive. The second had reached for him again, not to kill him, not immediately. It wanted him to become something useful. A vessel or a door. Maybe an answer.

I hated every version of that idea.

"Can we remove it?" the physician asked.

Abi looked at me, and I knew exactly what he was waiting for. The vial in my ring. Vita’s Tears, the poison I’d purchased with anima crystals because I wanted to ruin the future of the empire in a manner both dramatic and satisfying. A fine plan. An excellent plan. A plan that had somehow turned into me standing beside that future while he lay unconscious in my guest room.

The universe had an irritating sense of humor.

I removed the ring, the hidden compartment opening at the press of my thumb, and the small vial slid into my palm. It looked harmless, a thin glass container filled with pale liquid that glimmered softly whenever the light caught it. The Tears of Life. A substance said to force vitality into a body until the body could no longer contain it. A poison, or so I’d assumed.

The Empress looked at it. "What is that?"

"Vita’s Tears."

The physician’s eyes widened. "You have Vita’s Tears?"

"I purchased it."

"With what?"

"That isn’t relevant."

"It’s a relic grade substance," he said. "It isn’t used for ordinary treatment."

"I’m aware."

The Empress stared at the vial. "Will it save him?"

I looked at the Crown Prince, then at the dark mark, then at the black lines stopped at the boundaries of my house. "I don’t know," I said. Not a pleasant answer. But an honest one. "I bought it as poison. For a healthy body, it overfeeds the life force. It becomes too much for the vessel to bear."

The Empress’s face went very still. The knight looked at me. "So you intended to poison His Highness?"

"Yes."

He blinked, the physician blinked, and the Empress didn’t. She only looked down at her unconscious son and said, "At least you’re honest."

"I try to be when it’s funny."

"This isn’t funny," Abi said.

"I know."

The Crown Prince shifted, his breathing turning rough, the black mark pulsing. The physician reached for him. "His Highness?"

Adrien’s eyes opened, unfocused at first, then found the vial in my hand. He looked at it silently for a moment, his lips dry, his voice weak. "Is that poison?"

The room went still. I looked at him. "It depends on your condition."

His mouth twitched faintly. Even half conscious and dying, he still had enough presence of mind to look offended. "And my condition?"

I held his gaze. "Outer contamination. An incomplete tether from your seventh year rite. Your body has been fighting it for years, but it’s been losing."

The physician stared at me. The Empress closed her eyes. Adrien’s breathing hitched.

"This will help your body win," I said.

The words left my mouth before I could think too carefully about them. That was inconvenient. Then the black mark flared, and Adrien cried out, his body arching against the bed. The physician swore and reached for him, the knight moved forward, and the Empress’s hand closed around her son’s wrist.

I stepped closer. The vial had already been uncapped. I don’t remember deciding to do that. One moment it had been sealed in my hand, the next the pale liquid was exposed to the air, shining like moonlight against the glass.

Adrien’s eyes found mine. He looked frightened, not like a Crown Prince, not like the future emperor of a powerful nation, but like a young man who’d been sick so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to be safe inside his own body. The black veins spread higher, toward his throat.

My body moved. Not my plans, not my careful villain lord logic, which had been weighing risk and political consequence and possible traps and the deeply offensive fact that I might accidentally save another person. My treacherous body, my hand was already moving before I decided to let it.

I caught Adrien’s jaw as he gasped. The vial tilted. Vita’s Tears touched his lips.

The effect was immediate. The pale liquid didn’t simply enter his mouth, it seemed to dissolve, light spreading beneath his skin, not blinding, not theatrical, a soft silver gold glow moving from his throat to his chest, following the path of the black veins. The dark mark beneath his sternum pulsed violently, as though something inside him had suddenly realized it was no longer welcome.

Adrien screamed. The Empress went white. The knight reached for his sword, and my mother caught his wrist before he could draw it.

"Do not," she said, her voice quiet. He froze.

Abi had both hands raised now, violet power gathering above the bed, not striking the black mark but enclosing the room around it. The curtains lifted without wind. The ward stones hummed faintly in the walls.

The black veins began to pull inward, not vanishing, recoiling, like roots being torn from dry soil. The physician stumbled back when a dark substance rose from the Crown Prince’s chest, too thick to be blood, too black, moving in thin twisting strands that reached for the floor, the walls, the window, any place that might let them escape.

Abi’s violet barrier caught them. The strands struck the light and writhed, and the sound they made wasn’t a scream. It was a hundred voices trying to speak at once, a child crying, a woman praying, a man begging someone not to close a door.

The room shook. The Empress covered her mouth while the knight went pale.