My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

The ballroom of Skargardian Keep had never been this silent.

Not even during the most solemn ceremonies, not even when a new sovereign had been crowned beneath the old banners of the kingdom, had so many nobles gathered in one room and forgotten how to speak.

The traditional dance continued.

Music flowed from the raised platform in a careful, restrained melody.

Normally, such a dance would have brought whispers.

Courtiers would have leaned close behind jeweled fans. Lords would have made quiet remarks to their wives. Young nobles would have watched the royal family while pretending to pay attention to their partners.

There was none of that now.

The guests stood around the floor without disturbing one another.

They simply watched.

They watched because no one wanted to miss what was happening before their eyes.

Across the wide ballroom, Prince Albert danced with Princess Camellia.

On the other side of the floor, Queen Kaliantha danced with Count Ulrich van Rubenhart.

It was surreal.

The two pairs moved beneath the golden light of the chandeliers, but the distance between them felt far greater than the few paces of marble that separated them. Albert and Camellia had been meant to begin the evening’s central dance with their father. Instead, Albert had stepped into Antonias’s place, his movements careful as he guided his sister through the steps.

Kaliantha, meanwhile, danced with Ulrich.

Hardly anyone present understood the precise relationship between the Queen and the Count.

Ulrich was one of the crown’s most powerful vassals, and Kaliantha was his sovereign. That was the only certainty available to the court. Whatever conversations had passed between them in private, whatever assistance Ulrich had offered from the shadows during the past years, remained unknown to nearly everyone in the ballroom.

To the nobles, the sight before them made little sense.

A Queen did not take the hand of a Count merely because her husband had disgraced himself.

Not a queen like Kaliantha.

She had ruled beside Antonias with a patience that many mistook for softness. She considered every word before speaking it. She weighed the consequences of every decision. Even those who disliked her could not deny that Kaliantha rarely acted without knowing what the court would make of it.

Yet she had chosen Ulrich.

Doubt lingered within every mind in the ballroom, but few people gave it much attention. Their eyes remained fixed on the pair as they crossed the floor.

It was a sight suited to the wall of a great hall.

Kaliantha possessed the delicate beauty of her elven bloodline. Her pale features seemed almost too fine for the light, and her mismatched eyes caught the gold illumination in separate shades of green and blue. Her gown moved around her in soft folds as Ulrich guided her through another turn.

Ulrich stood beside her in crimson formal attire, his height making Kaliantha appear smaller than she was. His features were sharp and composed, his deep red eyes unreadable from across the ballroom. Even Albert, handsome as a prince ought to be, paled beside him.

Antonias could not be compared at all.

The contrast became impossible to ignore whenever Kaliantha and Ulrich came close in the movement of the dance.

They looked perfect together.

That conclusion passed silently through the room, impossible to dismiss once it had formed.

Kaliantha and Ulrich did not appear to notice.

Ulrich’s attention was divided.

He kept his expression composed and his movements precise, yet his eyes did not remain only on Kaliantha. Each time the dance turned him toward the musicians’ platform, his gaze passed over the masked musician still playing among the others. He watched the figure without making his suspicion obvious, then let his attention travel through the crowd, scanning each noble, guard, and servant who stood too close to the floor.

He danced as though he had eyes behind his back.

Kaliantha noticed.

She watched him with a stare as she followed his lead. Her hand remained in his, her other resting where the dance required, but her mismatched eyes did not lose their sharpness.

A minute passed.

Neither of them spoke.

There was no discomfort in the silence. Ulrich’s hand remained steady at her waist. Kaliantha moved with him easily, matching each step, each turn, each change in pace without the hesitation of someone unaccustomed to dancing with him.

At last, Kaliantha spoke.

"I had thought I had learned what kind of man you were, Ulrich Van Rubenhart," she said. "Now I find myself uncertain."

Ulrich glanced down at her.

"How would that be, Your Majesty?"

"Requesting me for a dance." Her eyes did not leave his. "That is the last thing I would have expected from you, Lord Rubenhart."

"Any man would wish to dance with the Queen," Ulrich replied.

"You are not any man," Kaliantha said directly.

"And you are not any queen," Ulrich answered.

Then, after the smallest pause, he added more quietly, "Your Majesty."

Kaliantha’s lips curved.

The smile was slight and brief, gone so quickly that no one beyond Ulrich had the angle to see it. Had the court witnessed even that small change in her expression, the silence around the ballroom might have broken entirely.

But Kaliantha’s smile disappeared before it had fully formed.

Her gaze returned to its earlier sternness.

"I have known you since you were a child," she said. "First, at your father’s side. Then as Count." She followed him through a turn, her skirts sweeping across the marble. "But in the past two years, I have learned more of you than I expected to learn."

Ulrich did not interrupt.

"And what I have learned," Kaliantha continued, "has made me wary of your true intentions, Count Rubenhart."

Ulrich could not deny it.

For two years, he had acted in ways that did not fit the man Kaliantha had known before. He had protected her interests without publicly claiming credit. He had intervened when threats reached too near the crown, moved information into the right hands, and kept a watch over dangers she had not always seen.

Each action had helped her.

Each action had also made him more suspicious.

Ulrich had never been known for generosity. He did not offer aid without reason, and he did not risk himself for causes that held no value to him. Kaliantha had every reason to question why he had begun moving in the shadows around her court.

Perhaps that was why she had accepted his hand.

Not to humiliate Antonias.

Not only for anger, nor for revenge.

She had accepted the dance because she meant to understand Ulrich.

Behind her ethereal beauty and gentle manner stood a queen far more calculating than most people realized. She did not allow mysteries to remain untouched when they concerned the stability of her family, her children, or her throne.

Ulrich found that quality more admirable than he should have.

"Your Majesty has every right to be wary of me," he said.

His hand guided her through the next movement, turning her so that her back briefly faced the watching court before bringing her toward him again.

"But have faith in my loyalty to you."

Kaliantha observed Ulrich’s expression for longer than courtesy required.

She searched his face for the smallest sign of deception yet she found nothing she could name as false. His face remained still, his red eyes attentive whenever they returned to her, and his voice had carried no forced softness when he spoke of loyalty.

He appeared sincere.

That did not mean he was.

"Loyalty. Trust." Kaliantha followed his lead through another languid turn. "They have become commodities of inestimable value in our world."

"They are, where treachery is common," Ulrich replied. "That is why one should seize them when they are within reach."

Kaliantha’s eyes remained on him.

"My loyalty belongs to Skargardia," she said. "Where does yours lie, Count Rubenhart?"

The question was simple enough to pass as part of their conversation.

It was not.

Ulrich understood at once what she had caught.

He had not said that his loyalty belonged to Skargardia. He had said it belonged to her.

The distinction was too precise to escape Kaliantha.

If he were entirely truthful, Ulrich did not care for Skargardia in the way she did. His concern began with Rubenhart territory, with the people and land under his protection. Yet Skargardia’s stability was tied to the safety of his domain. If the kingdom weakened, its rot would eventually reach his borders. He had little choice but to care about the realm’s condition, even if it was not the devotion Kaliantha expected from a nobleman.

"I believe in Your Majesty," Ulrich said at last.

He did not answer her question.

Kaliantha’s stare hardened.

She had noticed the evasion.

Her gaze searched his eyes again, but Ulrich’s attention had already moved elsewhere. It passed over the gathered nobles, the guards along the walls, and finally toward the musicians’ platform. The masked musician remained among them, playing as though nothing had changed.

Ulrich had asked Kaliantha to dance.

Yet he seemed more occupied with the room than with her.

The realization did not sit well with her.

"Count Rubenhart."

"Your Majesty."

This time, Ulrich looked down at her immediately.

"From this moment forth, should your gaze wander from mine even once more, I shall bring this dance to an end," she said.

Ulrich fell silent.

He had not meant to insult her. His attention had wandered because he was watching for danger, because the masked musician had not left his thoughts for a single moment. But from Kaliantha’s perspective, he had invited her to the floor only to disregard her there.

She did not know what he was trying to prevent.

She only knew that he was treating their dance as an opportunity to watch everyone except her.

Ulrich had no wish to anger her further.

Nor did he wish for her to stop the dance before he understood whether the masked musician posed a threat.

He inclined his head.

"My apologies."

"Apologies, when bereft of proper grounds or clarity, does little to sway me," Kaliantha said, her tone frosty.

Before Ulrich could respond, she pulled on their joined hands.

The motion caught him by surprise only briefly. His hold at her waist firmed at once to keep her balanced as she changed the rhythm of the dance, raising its pace with a sudden, decisive step.

Ulrich followed her.