“What?! Wait…not even His Majesty knows?”
“That’s right.”
“But why hide something so important from him after all this time?”
“The Queen Mother. It was easy for her to destroy me without anybody else knowing. Besides, at the time, I had no title and no power.”
“But it was a false accusation—couldn’t you have pled your case?” I can hear my voice shaking more and more with anger.
“I did have potential allies, yes. But if any of them came to my defense, they would have most certainly been killed.”
“But, Uncle Will…what happened to all the people who supported you back then…?” I ask.
“She raises a fair point,” Gill says. “All the higher-ups in this kingdom today are buffoons.”
“They were banished from Durkis.”
Will’s words freeze us in our tracks.
“Don’t tell me…that bitch did it?” Gill asks what I’m thinking. Surely everyone else on the scene is thinking the same thing.
“Yes.” Will nods. His eye is devoid of sorrow, anger, or any emotion. “All my friends and allies were exiled to Laval.”
Laval… I guess that explains how they grew into such a superpower so quickly. If they were friends and allies of Will’s, they surely rose to power in Laval. Imagine, sending Durkis’s best minds to Laval… Just how stupid was the king’s mother?
“About how many were exiled?” I ask.
“Only a dozen or so, but they were all great minds.”
“So all the great minds were sent away, leaving behind only the talentless king… That explains why Durkis gradually fell into disarray.” Gill’s eyes narrow with anger and hatred as he speaks.
Durkis puts on a pretty face for other nations while, internally, life is getting harder and harder for her people. And as somebody who was born and raised in extreme poverty, Gill has every right to be angry. He has every right to want revenge.
…And I can just imagine Liz, blissfully unaware of these conditions, dismissively saying that revenge is pointless. Saints really are astounding creatures. If it were me, I’d probably hand Gill a nuke.
“Didn’t the king say anything when you suddenly disappeared, Gramps?”
“No, I’m pretty sure Luke is holding a grudge against me.”
“But how can you be sure unless you ask him?” I say.
“When Luke’s mother and I were fighting over my proposal…Luke said something to me. He said, Don’t get cocky; you’re not the king.”
Dang, does this king have a major Oedipus complex or what?
“Aha…” Now I understand. “When you become the head of a kingdom at age seventeen, you’re bound to turn out that way…”
“Huh? Alicia, don’t tell me you’re taking the king’s side?” Gill looks at me with disbelief.
“More to the point, His Majesty might be regretting what he said all those years ago.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“Gill—shut up.” I glare slightly at him. “Uncle Will—when you said your relationship with the king fell apart, I just assumed it was a very serious problem.”
“But it is a very serious problem.”
I ignore Gill’s quip and continue, “Why don’t you meet with him once and have a heart-to-heart?”
Will’s eye opens wide at my suggestion. Gill’s jaw drops as he stares at me.
Did I really say something so radical?
“Remember what you told me once, Uncle Will? That you didn’t want to leave Roana Village? That was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“No, I—”
“Don’t you long to see the world again?” I approach him slowly. It feels like our roles have reversed. “If you really are okay with staying here forever, then why are you trying to start a revolution here? Uncle Will…you’re so regal that I prostrated myself at the sight of you.”
I fasten my gaze on him as I speak. Will stares intently at me for a while as my words hang in the air—then his face crinkles into a smile. My heart leaps at the sight. I don’t care how old he is; he’s still swoon-worthy.
“You’re right… I do want to get out of here,” he says, tousling my hair in a familiar way. “You should go home now. We’ll talk more tomorrow,” he says gently.
I nod obediently in reply. I have so many more questions, but I don’t want to keep retraumatizing Will by asking them. We decide to stop for the day.
Gill and I head for the village wall, and when we get there, he turns to me suddenly as if he remembered something.
“What is it?”
“What do you think happened to the king’s mother?”
“I…am not sure. But then again, we didn’t even know she existed until this morning.”
“True.”
Gill doesn’t say a word after that until we get home. He is deep in thought, with a perplexed expression on his face.
Aaaagh…I just wanna be able to use magic again.
I don’t use magic much in my daily life, but losing it still makes me feel anxious…… And a villainess should never feel anxious. She needs to be extra confident, bold, and proud.
As I commute to school the next day, my mind is swimming with those thoughts.
“Miss Alicia? Um, we…we all love you so much.”
As I am walking toward my class, I suddenly hear a voice directed at me. Ugh…sounds like I’m gonna get caught up in some more pesky drama. Gill seems to share my sentiment. He ignores the voice and stays on course toward the classroom.
“We all just hate Liz.”
“She’s so annoying. Thinks she’s all that just because she’s pretty.”
“Who does she think she is? Joining the student council when she’s a peasant.”
“She’s always with the boys of the student council… Do you suppose she’s a slut?”
Sensing something amiss in the way they are speaking, I slowly turn to look at the girls. And eight eyes are staring intensely at me.
“Don’t you agree, Miss Alicia?” an enthusiastic girl with light orange hair pipes up.
Bold of you to assume I’d agree with you… I return their stares with a frown.
“They let her into the student council because she’s intelligent, no?” I retort.
The quartet stare at me in disbelief.
What? Liz and I don’t see eye to eye, and I may not like her, but I recognize her talents. Conversely, without Liz, I wouldn’t stand out even slightly as a villainess. In a way, I need her.
“B-but she used her womanly wiles to earn a seat on the student council!”
“That’s right! And I hate how she’s always so goody-goody. It’s revolting!”
“I can’t accept the idea of a peasant attending this academy.”
“Everybody fawns over her just because she’s kinda pretty—she truly disgusts me.”
One after another, the girls trash-talk Liz. Well…I don’t know if they really mean it or if it’s just an act to trap me, but either way, it’s truly ridiculous. I don’t want to waste another second with these people.
“If you have a complaint, why not say it to her face? Or better still, why not spend your time improving yourselves instead of slandering her? Sure, perhaps she was let into the student council because she’s a rarity, but nobody else has special talents like her, so it’s a waste of time hating her for it.”
I spit out the words like acid. And perhaps intimidated by my death glare, one of the girls breaks out in shivers.
When somebody’s popular, haters always come out of the woodwork. Now, if Liz really did pull some major shenanigans to get where she is, that’d be another matter entirely.
I ignore the group of dazed girls and resume my walk to class. That’s right…there’s one thing I forgot to say.
I slowly turn around and look at the girls. “This boy next to me isn’t of noble blood, either. But he’s smarter than all of you combined. I value a person’s merit, not their pedigree. I much prefer a smart peasant over stupid daughters of the nobility.”
I punctuate my speech with a smirk.
The girls’ faces twist with emotion. They scoot backward, then turn and run. Oh my…I just scored some more Villainess Points. I made them run away just by smiling at them.
“Alicia, your lips are twitching.” Gill sighs tiredly.
I immediately assume a blank expression. That is a flaw of mine, relaxing and letting my true emotions show. I need to be extra vigilant whenever I am at school. There is no telling when somebody’s watching.
“One more thing—I like you, too, Alicia. Not romantically, but…I would gladly sacrifice my life for you.”
He turns a serious gaze on me. My tongue is tied… His surprise profession of love and loyalty has stupefied me.
But I am a villainess. I can’t tell him he should cherish his own life more. It is his life, so I have no right to impose my will on it. A life’s worth varies from person to person. How to use it isn’t up to my discretion.
“Thank you. I shall try to live in a way that will never put me in danger of dying,” I say, gently patting Gill’s head.
“You know, Alicia, the things you say and do really are chivalrous… But if I have to die, I hope I can become as smart as you first.”
“But, Gill…aren’t you already smarter than me?”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Gill chuckles cynically.
But I really do think so… Gill’s broad range of knowledge and his deep insight are undeniably far greater than mine.
“I really do think this is how it should go.”
I rewrite the letters on the blackboard. Since the old library isn’t used much, Gill and I do a lot of our talking in here. That day many years ago when I wrote on the blackboard that Durkis should take Laval under its wing—nobody was there then, either.
“But with our greater numbers, a surprise attack could sack our enemy in one fell swoop,” Gill argues.
“Oh, but it’s much more fun to make them suffer.”
We often play war strategy games together. There aren’t ever any official rules or form to them, but once we get engrossed in a game, we always lose track of time. That’s just how much fun they are.
“I think this is the approach I’d take…”
A large, artistic hand suddenly reaches out, resting its weight lightly on the top of my head. That voice, this hand… It’s Prince Duke. How did he know I was here?
I ignore what Duke is writing on the blackboard, and I glare up at him. “Could you please go away? You’re bothering us.”
“You’re pretty when you’re angry,” Duke says, smirking like a cat.
Yeah…he’s definitely messing with me.
I know this, and yet my heart begins to pound louder. I am starting to hate myself.