My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

The royal coming-of-age celebration for Camellia van Skargardia had reached its highest point.

Yet Camellia was no longer the center of it.

The attention that should have belonged to the princess had been stolen entirely by her mother and Count Ulrich van Rubenhart.

No one looked away from them.

Prince Albert and Princess Camellia had tried to continue dancing beside the Queen and Count. They had followed the changes in rhythm as best they could, adjusting their steps each time the music rose beneath Ulrich and Kaliantha’s feet. Once. Then again.

But the pace had climbed beyond them.

Albert was a capable dancer, and Camellia had been trained since childhood in every formal dance expected of a Skargardian princess. Still, neither of them could match what unfolded beside them. When Ulrich changed the measure once more, faster than the last, Albert and Camellia reached the same decision without needing to speak.

They withdrew.

They both moved from the center of the floor. They had no desire to embarrass themselves by attempting a pace neither of them could sustain. More than that, both were too stunned by the sight before them to continue pretending their own dance mattered.

They left the floor to Ulrich and Kaliantha.

The moment the space opened around them, the Queen and Count seemed to take possession of it without conscious thought.

There was nothing left to restrain them.

Ulrich guided Kaliantha across the marble in a swift, unbroken sequence of turns. She followed every movement before his lead was fully completed, as though her body understood what he intended before he put it into motion. When he shifted his weight, she matched it. When he drew her forward, she came without hesitation. When he turned her beneath his arm, her skirts swept in a pale circle around them before she returned exactly where he needed her to be.

They moved with speed.

With grace.

With such perfect accord that the spectators began to forget to breathe.

Their shoes barely seemed to touch the floor. The marble reflected the bright movement of Kaliantha’s gown and the dark sweep of Ulrich’s formal coat as they crossed the ballroom. Every turn sharpened the image they made together: the Queen’s pale, elven beauty and the Count towering beside her, composed enough to make the speed of their dance appear effortless.

The nobles watched with open mouths.

This was no longer simply a traditional court dance.

It had become something no one present would ever forget.

"I never expected you to be this skilled, Count Rubenhart," Kaliantha said.

Her voice remained calm despite the pace, though her eyes stayed fixed upon Ulrich’s face.

"Neither did I," Ulrich replied quietly.

It was true.

He had danced before in this life. But the last time he had moved with this much speed, this much focus, had been in his past life.

With Faith.

That dance had carried a different kind of thrill. It belonged to another world, another life, and another version of himself. The Skargardian waltz was not the same dance, nor was Kaliantha the same person.

Nothing about this moment was the same.

And still, Ulrich felt that strange awareness returning.

Kaliantha was different from Faith in every possible way.

She did not laugh when the rhythm rose. She did not let instinct carry her thoughtlessly through the steps. Her intelligence remained present in every motion. She watched him, assessed him, and responded to each change he made.

Yet she trusted him enough to follow.

That was what made the dance work.

For better or worse, the increased speed gave Ulrich more control over the ballroom.

The faster he moved, the wider his awareness became.

Each turn altered his view of the hall. One moment he saw the clustered nobles, their faces pale beneath the chandelier light. The next, he saw the guards stationed near the pillars and doors. Then the musicians came into view again.

The masked musician had stopped playing.

The figure had stepped away from the rest of the quartet and gone down on one knee beside a black box resting near the edge of the platform.

To anyone else, it might have looked harmless.

A musician checking an instrument case. A performer searching for a broken string or adjusting something damaged in the hurried change of rhythm.

But Ulrich knew.

His eyes narrowed for only an instant.

He had perhaps a minute.

No more.

His heart struck hard against his chest.

Ulrich was rarely nervous. But this moment demanded more than strength. The timing had to be exact. He needed to keep Kaliantha safe, identify the threat, control the crowd, and avoid exposing his knowledge before he understood how many people were involved.

One mistake could turn the ballroom into panic.

One mistake could place Kaliantha directly in danger.

The pressure inside him showed in the smallest change to his grip.

His fingers tightened around Kaliantha’s hand, interlaced stronger with hers. His other hand pressed at her waist and brought her an inch closer as he guided her through the next sweeping movement.

Kaliantha felt it.

Her eyes narrowed at that.

She had noticed every shift in him since the dance began. She noticed the slight pressure of his hand. She noticed the way his attention had become heavier, the tension he tried to conceal behind his composure.

Her green and blue eyes searched his face.

"What is it?" She began to ask.

Ulrich did not give her time to finish.

He released the hand at her waist.

Kaliantha followed the motion automatically as he sent her outward into a rapid turn. Her gown flared around her. The jewels in her hair flashed beneath the light as she spun once, then twice, the movement swift enough to draw startled breaths from the guests gathered around the floor.

Ulrich stepped backward to meet her return.

His hand came back to her waist at the exact instant her momentum carried her toward him. He caught the movement cleanly and redirected her into the next step without allowing so much as a tremor to disturb the dance.

It had all happened in the span of a second.

The ballroom gasped.

To the court, it was another impossible display of control between the Queen and Count.

But the sudden turn had disturbed something at Kaliantha’s throat.

A necklace slipped free from beneath the folds of Kaliantha’s gown.

The chain caught against the light as it lifted with the motion. For a brief instant, the pendant swung between them before settling once more against the upper curve of her chest as Ulrich guided her into another step.

Ulrich saw it.

His attention locked onto the pendant immediately.

It was beautiful.

An amber gemstone rested at its center, clear enough to hold the warm gold of the ballroom lamps inside it. Two delicate golden wings curved from either side of the stone, shaped with such fine detail that each feather seemed individually worked by the hands of a master artisan.

It did not look like ordinary jewelry.

The craftsmanship alone would have made it valuable. But something about it carried a weight beyond its beauty. The amber was too clear. The gold wings were too precise. And the sight of it dragged a memory from the depths of Ulrich’s mind before he could stop it.

He knew that necklace.

He had read about it.

Not here.

Not in this world.

In the novel.

A peculiar description surfaced within his thoughts, one he had barely considered important when he first encountered it. A necklace that Camellia would always wear around her neck. An artifact hidden in plain sight, its purpose unknown until much later.

But the necklace now rested against Kaliantha’s chest.

Not Camellia’s.

Ulrich’s eyes widened.

The amber gemstone flashed again as Kaliantha moved through the next turn.

There was no doubt.

The Phoenix Heart.