My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

Chapter 142: Ulrich Searching The Assassin

Ulrich left the center of the dance floor as the musicians carried the waltz onward.

The brief disturbance caused by his dance with Airam had not stopped the celebration. It had merely changed the character of it. Conversation had returned in careful layers beneath the music yet glances still followed him across the hall.

He ignored them.

He moved toward the outer edge of the hall, where marble pillars broke the sightlines between the dancers and the servants’ passages beyond. From there, he could observe the flow of attendants entering with trays of wine, musicians’ pages moving near the raised platform, and guards exchanging their positions at the doors. Every path through the hall mattered. A poisoned drink could pass through a servant’s hands. A concealed blade could emerge amid the press of dancers. A spell might require only a clear view of its target and a moment in which every eye was turned elsewhere.

The demon had intended to strike Queen Kaliantha tonight yes.

What he lacked was the method.

He let his gaze pass over the room again, scanning the distance between the royal dais and the nearest doors, noting where the guards stood and which servants had been added to the evening’s duties. Four names on the list had changed shortly before the event. That could have been coincidence. It could have been illness, family business, a noble’s demand, or some other tedious complication within the palace.

Or it could have been the first visible sign of an attack already set in motion.

A burst of laughter rose from the dancers, drawing his attention briefly back toward the three sisters.

Perhaps, in one respect, the evening had not gone entirely badly.

Airam, Hermione, and Esther no longer stood alone near the edge of the hall.

Louise Van Rommels had joined them.

Ulrich watched her for a moment.

The daughter of Marquis Rommels stood beside the sisters with effortless ease, as though speaking with three young witches recently adopted by Count Ulrich Van Rubenhart were the most ordinary thing in the world. Her beautiful gown caught light whenever she moved, and her composed smile never changed as Esther spoke to her with open excitement.

Louise had not hesitated.

That was why so many eyes had turned toward them.

A marquis’s daughter openly associating with the girls mattered. More than that, it gave the sisters a place within the room that the other nobles could not dismiss without also slighting Louise herself. Earlier, Queen Kaliantha had acknowledged them. Now Louise had crossed the hall to speak with them in full view of the court.

The message could not have been clearer.

They were not untouchable curiosities to be avoided at the edges of noble society. They were under Ulrich’s protection, welcomed by the Queen, and treated with courtesy by Louise Van Rommels.

Even the more stubborn guests would have to reconsider how openly they showed their contempt.

The sisters had made that easier for themselves as well.

Esther had endured the cruel attention of the hall and later danced with Ulrich despite her tears. Hermione, for all her embarrassment, had followed after her with more courage than she seemed willing to admit. Airam had done more than simply endure. She had stepped onto the floor beside him and matched movements that would have exposed the weakness of many adults trained for years in formal dance.

No one could accuse the girls of refusing Skargardian customs after that.

No one honest, at least.

Ulrich’s eyes remained on Louise as she listened to Esther, who appeared close to bouncing on the spot. Hermione stood at her other side, smiling with an eagerness she had not displayed often that evening. Louise said something that made Hermione straighten, her earlier discomfort briefly forgotten.

As expected.

Louise had always known how to make people feel acknowledged without seeming to flatter them. She understood when to speak gently, when to offer praise, and when to let another person fill the quiet themselves. Ulrich had never possessed that particular skill, nor had he ever felt much desire to cultivate it.

Louise, on the other hand, had spent her entire life within the current of courtly society and learned how to direct it.

She would not have approached the sisters merely because she had felt like it.

Louise understood the consequences. She knew that some nobles would whisper about her choice after tonight. A few might privately complain to their families, especially those who still viewed witches as little better than dangerous beasts wearing human skin. The reaction would not be as strong as the one Ulrich had faced after formally adopting the girls. Several houses had withdrawn trade from Rubenhart lands after that decision, convinced that even association with witches would stain their names.

Louise would not suffer such losses.

Too many people admired her. Too many families sought favor with House Rommels. Too many young men watched her as though her smallest smile could decide the direction of their lives.

It was difficult to hate Louise openly.

She was too well liked, too well connected, and too close to the image Skargardian nobility wished to maintain of itself: graceful, educated, kind without appearing weak, and composed without seeming distant.

Her father had no shortage of men offering for her hand. Louise had refused or delayed every arrangement placed before her with such a perfect pleading that Marquis Rommels could not force the matter without making himself appear unreasonable.

She wanted Ulrich.

That fact remained inconvenient.

He did not believe she was too good for him. If anything, he considered himself the better match by the standards of rank, capability, and future influence. Yet he was not foolish enough to pretend there were no worthy men in Skargardia besides him. There were competent nobles, honorable soldiers, intelligent heirs, and men with better temperaments than his own.

Louise had simply chosen to look past them.

As though she had felt his attention, she glanced across the hall.

Their eyes met.

Louise gave him the smallest wink before turning back to Esther, whose admiration had become so obvious that even Hermione looked amused by it. Louise lowered herself slightly to speak at Esther’s height, listening with patient interest as the younger girl hurried through whatever thought had seized her.

Hermione smiled beside them, her earlier sulking replaced by an expression of bright curiosity.

Airam did not share it.

She stood with her arms folded, her face cold enough to discourage any stranger from attempting conversation. Her eyes remained fixed somewhere beyond Louise’s shoulder, though Ulrich knew she was aware of every person who looked in their direction.

He had caused that mood.

His words on the dance floor had cut deeper than he intended.

The thought bothered him.

However, he did not have the leisure to concern himself with Airam’s feelings while a threat remained hidden somewhere in the palace. Whatever anger she carried could wait until Kaliantha was safe.

Still, Ulrich allowed himself a small relief.

Louise was with the sisters.

No young nobleman would dare sneer at them while the daughter of Marquis Rommels stood at their side. Ulrich shifted his attention toward the servants’ corridor and watched a wine-bearer disappear behind the nearest pillar.

Poison.

It would have been the simplest method.

A cup of wine altered before it reached the royal dais. A sweet preserved fruit offered between dances. Powder scattered over the rim of a goblet, thin enough to disappear beneath the scent of spiced liquor. In a hall crowded with servants, musicians, guards, and noble guests, poison could move from hand to hand without anyone noticing the moment it changed owners.

Yet Ulrich dismissed it almost as soon as the possibility formed.

Kaliantha carried elven blood.

Her mana was too pure, too close to the old bloodlines from which Skargardia’s royal house had descended. Ordinary poison would not survive long within her body. Her blood would burn through it, purge it, leave the assassin with nothing but a failed attempt and a very short life afterward.

That was not secret knowledge. Every noble house with even a rudimentary education in the royal family knew it. The demons would know it as well.

Zagon certainly would.

Ulrich’s expression hardened as he watched a servant pass beneath the line of pillars, carrying a silver tray crowded with glasses. The man’s pace was calm, his hands clean, his livery properly arranged. There was nothing suspicious about him.

That meant very little.

A demon did not need to be the servant holding the tray. It only needed to ensure that the right person stood where they were supposed to stand at the right time.

If poison was not the weapon, what was?

A curse?

A hidden relic?

A spell cast from somewhere within the crowd?

His gaze moved to Kaliantha.

She remained upon the royal throne at the far end of the hall, receiving the attention of the court with the calm posture expected of a queen. Gold and pale cloth fell around her in soft layers beneath the chandeliers. Two guards stood at the foot of the dais, including Marx Lambert, another pair positioned near the broad steps leading toward the raised platform.

From a distance, she appeared untouchable.

She had guards. She had power. She had royal blood, elven mana, and a kingdom built around her name.

But one hidden weakness was enough.

He could warn her.

The thought returned with irritating persistence.

He would only need to cross the hall and speak quietly enough that the nearby guests could not hear. Kaliantha would understand the danger immediately. She would clear the hall, double the guard, inspect every servant, and order the palace sealed before any demon could slip away.

The attempt would fail.

But the demons would know.

There was no chance that a sudden evacuation, a tightened guard, and a royal investigation would pass without drawing suspicion toward him. If Ulrich moved openly now, the demon would understand that someone had warned Kaliantha in advance and Zagon would suspect him first.

Ulrich’s position among them would collapse.

He had spent too long building that position to discard it in a moment of panic.

With the demons’ trust, he could do more than prevent one attempt. He could learn their names, their routes, their allies within Skargardia, and the larger plan that had brought them into the kingdom. He could cut them apart before they reached the stage where one dead queen became a war.

That was the rational answer.

It was also a dangerous one.

Kaliantha’s life was not a piece to be risked lightly merely because Ulrich wanted to preserve a useful deception. If he miscalculated, no later victory against the demons would restore what had been lost tonight.

His fingers pressed against the folded duty list hidden inside his coat.

The four changed names remained fixed in his mind.

At first, he had considered the obvious possibility: demons disguised as guards. It was sensible. A royal guard could carry a weapon without attracting attention, stand close enough to the throne to strike, and use the confusion after the attack to escape through the palace corridors.

Yet that explanation was too narrow.

The altered assignments could serve another purpose.

Two demons replacing guards would not necessarily need to approach Kaliantha themselves. They could control entrances. Clear a path. Wave the right person through a checkpoint. Ensure that a companion carrying a weapon, relic, or spell component entered the hall without being searched as thoroughly as they should have been.

After speaking with Marx, Ulrich had become increasingly certain of it.

The guards were not the assassin.

They were the door.

The assassin had entered through them.

Which left the guests.

Ulrich’s eyes traveled over the ballroom again.

There were too many people.

Young heirs stood in loose groups near the dance floor, each surrounded by friends, cousins, flatterers, or rivals pretending not to be rivals. Older nobles spoke in hushed voices beside the pillars, their jeweled rings flashing whenever they lifted glasses. Ladies gathered beneath embroidered fans, their expressions courteous while their eyes moved constantly across the room. Foreign envoys stood nearer the walls with their own attendants. Servants crossed between them all, carrying wine, sweets, cloths, and messages.

Any one of them could be a demon.

Any one of them could be the person brought into the palace through the changed guard assignments.

A demon with enough preparation could wear the face of an ordinary guest and remain invisible until the instant it acted.

He could not simply seize everyone who looked suspicious.

Nor could he stare at each guest long enough to uncover what lay beneath their skin.

His thoughts began to crowd each other.

The guards at the dais.

The servants’ passages.

The four changed names.

Zagon.

The guests.

Kaliantha.

A weapon that was not poison.

His attention drifted back to the Queen, and the question he had tried to silence returned with more force than before.

Was preserving his cover truly worth gambling with her life?

The answer should have been simple.

Kaliantha came first.

Yet if he acted too early, if he exposed himself without proof, the demons would scatter. Zagon would vanish. The infiltrators inside the palace would abandon their current identities and disappear into the kingdom. Ulrich might save Kaliantha tonight only to lose every path that could lead him to the wider network.

He wanted both.

Kaliantha alive, and the demons unaware.

But the night was moving forward, the dancers kept turning through the hall, and he still had nothing but suspicion.

Ulrich began to walk again, keeping close to the outer edge of the hall. His gaze moved from face to face without lingering long enough to invite attention.

His head had begun to ache from the strain of forcing order onto a problem with too many missing pieces when a voice reached him from directly ahead.

"Oh. My apologies."

Ulrich stopped.

The speaker had nearly crossed into his path.

When he turned his head, he found Princess Camellia standing only a few steps away, accompanied by two guards.